How to distinguish between genuine part and counterfeit?

Each driver, who appreciates his car very much, will try to install the best parts from among available in the market therein. Certainly, the best choice would be original parts, which guarantee the utmost quality, full compliance with car nodes, and long period of service.

What is the difference between original parts and others?

Original parts have been manufactured by the companies, which are recognised as the best in their field, and are particularly selected by car manufacturer himself, in strict compliance with all technical documents and requirements regarding construction of parts and materials used therein. The quality of these products has been guaranteed by car manufacturer, and, as approval thereof, his logo has been drawn on such parts. Similar processes of production and quality control are quite expensive, therefore, price of genuine parts is significantly higher than of other offers in the market.

Universal methods of determination of counterfeit

High price and demand for genuine parts have always been immense temptation for people aiming for easy profit. It is quite natural that companies specialising in counterfeiting of genuine parts, do not comply, or only partly comply with technical standards concerning materials being used and technical parameters of their products, therefore, counterfeits not only have short period of service, but may also endanger car nodes, where they have been installed into. Thus, the task of each driver is to learn to distinguish between counterfeit and genuine spare part.

There are no unified rules of labelling and processing in the world, therefore, goods produced by each car manufacturer have their own peculiarities and criteria of distinction. One may find more detailed information for each particular car brand on the Internet, on different web pages and forums dedicated to this topic. However, it is possible to single out three main criteria, which are more or less universal for all cases:

1. Price of parts. As it was previously noted, use of qualitative raw materials, correct manufacturing technologies, and certification and control over quality of products – those are expensive processes, which determine high price of the part. No manufacturer of products of this level, or wholesale companies or retail shops will sell qualitative parts for the price, which is lower than the product cost, thus suffering damages, therefore, each offer to purchase such parts for significantly lower price (irrespective of explanations by the seller regarding this point) must cause suspicions.
2. Appearance of the part. Qualitative production shall not admit any inaccuracy in the process of manufacturing of goods. Due to this reason, any surface defects, traces of adhesive substances, imprecisely cut edges and other faults obviously show that the product is counterfeit. Moreover, genuine part has always been labelled with qualitatively made and clearly seen logo, and number of the part. However, the part number must always comply with number thereof indicated on the packing.
3. Packing of the part. Use of qualitative packing of the part is quite expensive, therefore, manufacturers of counterfeits try to save money on packing as well.

• First, parts must be wrapped in firm’s packing. Use of non-original or untypical packing, explaining that large quantity of parts were placed in original packing, and the seller has just prepacked them in single units, must cause reasoned suspicions.
• Second, it might be worth to assess quality of print – it must be qualitative, very clear, excluding any doubling and unclear borders.
• Third, the packing must include all necessary information on the manufacturer and products: complete product code, name and quantity of parts in packing, manufacturing place, manufacturer’s logo. Labels must always be stuck on precisely and exactly, texts printed thereon must not fade, when rubbing with hand, all fonts must be of size, normal for reading. You must also look attentively to the manufacturer’s logo and data thereof, i.e., whether it looks correctly, or has been out-of-date, or if any letters have been written in unusual way, or whether particular typographic symbols have not been replaced with similar ones, to mislead the buyer.
• Fourth, some car manufacturers wrap each genuine part additionally into plastic bag with company’s emblems or titles, which is doubtful, if the product is counterfeit.

Attention!
Forwarding of the product you’ve bought by mail shall be an exception from this rule. Contrary to delivery in cargo truck, delivery by mail demands so that packing would bear high loads and would qualitatively protect the product being dispatched. If the seller evaluates durability of original packing and concludes that it will not be able to protect the spare part (thin cardboard boxes, polyethylene, mechanical damages of original packings, when delivering to stock, etc.), the original packing will be certainly placed into transportation packing, or replaced with standard mail packing. Otherwise, there is a high level of risk that car part you’ve ordered and paid for will be delivered with damages.

If you prefer saving money, we recommend you to pay your attention to aftermarket parts, which sometimes are of the same quality, as genuine parts, but they cost much less.