The Classic Machinery Network

Komatsu is changing the labelling of its spare parts in order to combat an increase in counterfeit parts coming from countries like China.

It said the counterfeit parts are of inferior quality and lead to premature wear and tear and result in higher repair costs.

To differentiate its genuine parts, Komatsu is adding silver ribbon hologram labels to all its parts and packages. When the hologram (pictured) is viewed through a special filter, a set of Komatsu logos appear which seem to move in different directions as the filter slide over the label.

The text "Genuine Parts" becomes visible in both dark and bright colourful letters, blinking on and off at various viewing angles. Tilting the label left to right causes small bright and colourful images of an excavator, a dozer and a dump truck to appear.

http://www.contractjournal.com/Articles ... iters.html

Aha this is what happens when you charge extortionate prices for spare parts, you create two problems;
Firstly it increases theft of the machines because they become worth a lot of money in spare parts (happens a lot with Jap motorcycles).
Secondly it actually becomes worth making counterfeit or pattern parts.
Sorry but you'll find no sympathy from me for Komatsu they deserve all they get and the same applies to any company who are too greedy with spare parts prices which is most of em.
Ahem off me soap box now

Jeremy

Jeremy for President!
I totally agree. The competition shows that prices can be fairly decent and I have no mercy for those that still are too greedy.

Here in australia i have found komatsu quite reasonable with there parts prices. and no narsty suprizes with freight costs .Does not matter if it comes off their shelf or any where in australia or japan the price is the same. All parts any where in australia are there next day ,good service ian.

IANOZ wrote:Here in australia i have found komatsu quite reasonable with there parts prices. and no narsty suprizes with freight costs .Does not matter if it comes off their shelf or any where in australia or japan the price is the same. All parts any where in australia are there next day ,good service ian.

Hi Ian,
ur lucky as ive waited 6 weeks for track shoes from local komatsu dealer and just because i rang them 3 hrs before they closed for the two week july holidays id have been waiting another two,seems nobody thought of lifting the phone to ring to say that they had arrived[last day before holidays and they probably though well if hes waited 6 weeks another 2 will do no harm]
Needless to say no more parts from here and then about a year later this new guy pulls into the site i was working on and tries to sell me parts as apparently they had lost alot of old customers .well im sure u can guess the rest

MATE it could be worse, you could live in australia and own a JCB 8080 excavator like me. Service is a long forgotten word with just about all these companys these days and it an expensive and heart breaking time when you get to pick the wrong one. SO far i have waited two weeks to finally get told the computer is buggered ,waited two weeks for the new one to arrive,now to be told its still another week away?? or is it two or what was it you wanted again??? BUT i have had one komatsu stuff up, Ordered part but it was the start of japans national week long holiday .THEN someone sent it to darwin by mistake ,days later it was still some where between darwin and here but it got here in the end . Have had secondhand hitachi parts sent three times before we finally got them ,just dissappeared noone knows where. When you find someone good stick with them . ian.

I have only ever bought 'Cat' stuff from Finnings or Levertons.I do buy spurious parts from parts dealers aswell but I only buy genuine Cat parts from Finnings.Many years ago I caught a cold buy buying 'Genuine Cat' parts from Merrimans.They were in Cat boxes but I could tell they were fake.They were so bad infact that I sent most of the stuff back to them.It was cab interior parts for a vandalised hi drive cab.I shudder to think what would happen if I had bought 'genuine Cat' parts for an engine or tranny! .If you buy your parts from the registered dealer i.e Finning,Maraubini etc,I don't think you can go wrong.

nicky lamb wrote:I have only ever bought 'Cat' stuff from Finnings or Levertons.I do buy spurious parts from parts dealers aswell but I only buy genuine Cat parts from Finnings.Many years ago I caught a cold buy buying 'Genuine Cat' parts from Merrimans.They were in Cat boxes but I could tell they were fake.They were so bad infact that I sent most of the stuff back to them.It was cab interior parts for a vandalised hi drive cab.I shudder to think what would happen if I had bought 'genuine Cat' parts for an engine or tranny! .If you buy your parts from the registered dealer i.e Finning,Maraubini etc,I don't think you can go wrong.

Nicky there is nothing usually wrong with genuine spare parts with the exception of their prices.
To give an example of what I mean okay so this ain't a digger or a bulldozer bear in mind that production machines are a different ball game.
Back around 1993 the starter motor on my Kawasaki Z1100R motorcycle went up in a puff of smoke, bear in mind that what you are talking about is essentially a small electric motor thats about half the size of a car starter motor.
You would therefore think that it would cost less or the same?? er I don't think so, my then girlfriend owned a mini metro (no laughing please) I had replaced the starter on that a recon for £25 or even a £5 from a breakers yard, yer not bad.
So thought I would phone the Kawasaki centre so they could insult my intelligence which they promptly did by quoting me £267.10 + VAT for a starter motor.
After I'd stopped laughing at the guy on the other end of the phone I guess he'd got the messege that I would not be purchasing a genuine Kawasaki spare part
I had the old starter rewound and fully re-conned at a local company it cost me £20 and it worked better than when it was new
I can also plainly recall what a rip off the Seddon Atkinson spare parts were when I worked on the trucks, whilst I agree that you can get sub-standard parts you can also get good pattern parts if you are careful and good second hand ones too in some circumstances. High parts prices also mean that repairing broken or worn parts can be viable whether in business or just keepin yer motor on the road.

Jeremy

I do buy spares from other places than the dealer but these are non Cat.For example IPA,Clevite and Federal Mogal.I think Komatsu's problem was other manufactures 'copying' their products but labeling them as 'Genuine Komatsu'.If you only buy your 'Genuine Komatsu' parts from the Komatsu dealer you won't get fakes.
How's your job situ by the way?I hope it's picking up

Yes Nicky I do agree that if you are prepared to pay the price for genuine parts you should get genuine parts and not cheap copies but as stated earlier in this post if the parts prices were reasonable to start with then it would not pay people to make fake copies of the genuine article.
No luck yet for me on the jobs front oh well all I can do is continue my efforts but its hard out there at the min.

Jeremy