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View Full Version : (EX?) Garrett Employee Sounds Off About Recent Changes



JacobS
02-25-2010, 03:28 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by mbtech
I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.

Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca.) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you’re building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell’s golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again....the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc..) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru’s. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing..etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us.....no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.

We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us.... ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good.....they just want more. Please don’t spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it’s costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won’t dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.

Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don’t care about grammar I’m concerned about you people not supporting a **** company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don’t forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away

(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)

DustinsDuster
02-25-2010, 04:40 AM
pretty fucked up right there- but it seems its become the american way; ship it somewhere else to be built to save every penny possible...

Domestic Disturbance
02-25-2010, 05:08 AM
Fuckin Mexicali. I remember Rockwell Collins opened a plant there and we were doing all we could to stay ahead of them as far as production numbers. Their quality was always complete shit though. The fact that they could make the high product numbers they did though put many non union plants (most in iowa) in danger of layoffs in plants that were equal in cost but much lower production (lower prod. numbers, higher employee costs, always higher quality). Shitty.

The fact is many american companies that are known for being high quality and made in america are moving out. Even Snap-on has some plants in Asia. The quality and the fact they are made in the USA are the 2 main buying points and reasons I'm willing to pay so much.

Good read and info though, thank you.

JacobS
02-25-2010, 05:37 AM
The quality and the fact they are made in the USA are the 2 main buying points and reasons I'm willing to pay so much.

i 100% agree with this statement.

TbTalon94
02-25-2010, 07:43 AM
Where did you get this information?

I see it as 2 things. Someone cleverly promoting other turbo manufacturers or a dis-gruntle employee.

OR what he speaks is the truth and Garret is in for a downfall.

SLVR7
02-25-2010, 07:46 AM
Two guys on the rx-7 forum work for Garrett, and claim this is false info.

69gt4speed
02-25-2010, 09:27 AM
Well though I don't have the scoop or truth, the ford sho is using honeywell turbos. When I originally heard that I thought honeywell? They were big into process control one time.

Jappbox
02-25-2010, 05:11 PM
I buy PTE and keep it in the USA. LOL

Clinical
02-25-2010, 05:23 PM
Oh well, I was planning on looking into Holset whenever I decide to upgrade anyway :P

JacobS
02-25-2010, 07:43 PM
Where did you get this information?

I see it as 2 things. Someone cleverly promoting other turbo manufacturers or a dis-gruntle employee.

OR what he speaks is the truth and Garret is in for a downfall.

i found it on honda-tech. with the amount of companies doing this exact same thing, i wouldnt hesitate to say its true...

Jappbox
02-25-2010, 08:52 PM
turbonetics is the way to go!!! LMAO

SaNdMaNsSi
02-26-2010, 03:19 PM
Pretty easy to find out....Wait and see if that plant in CA closes...if it does, it's probably the truth...

AutoMods
02-26-2010, 10:32 PM
turbonetics is the way to go!!! LMAO

Starting last year PTE is using Turbonetics turbine wheels, not sure about compressor wheels or chra's though.

Some of the newly designed f1 Turbonetics turbine wheels as of 1.5 years ago are the f1 57(stage 3), f1 62(stage 5), f1 65 (replaced p trim) , f1 68 (replaced s trim). Those numbers are the mm diameters of the wheels.

Now look at some the new PTE turbo model numbers as of last year (first double digit number is the compressor wheel and the 2nd double digit number is the turbine wheel)
5557
5857
5862
6057
6062
6262
6765
6768
etc, etc

Notice the turbines match the turbonetics diameters. I've verified in person they are the same wheels although I'm not sure if that is suppose to be a secret or not.

Anyway my point is I think Turbonetics has some things going for them lately. The stuff I've sold in the last 2.5 years with them has been realiable.

AutoMods
02-26-2010, 10:41 PM
As far as Garrett, I wouldn't let one disgruntled employee discourage me. I will buy and sell them until I personally see a problem with them failing or not performing.

Ricky
03-02-2010, 03:08 PM
UP DATE:

2/28/10

Oh my.... I just looked at this post after I made it....SPREADING LIKE WILD FIRE! I am not a troll, and I had no Idea this was going to go ape ****. It seems like my grammar is more of a topic then my message. I am not going to try and prove to anyone where I work because I know where I work, On Lomita blvd in Torrance. Those who got the message I am glad. To the owner of the truck with failing turbos, the company is very well aware of our failure. When we have a turbo fail under warranty it is put back in the box at the dealer and shipped to our building. Where we have a technician who tests to see if the turbo was an actual failure or if it was misdiagnosed. When it was determined a failure it is recorded and we try to figure out why. Well the entire building is now full of boxed defective turbos. In a matter of 2 years we filled the building. These are only gt37-gt45
Size turbos. I don’t know where the rest of them go.

In our engine testing cells, all we are doing right now is "Warranty Testing" which is figuring our why our turbos our failing and coming up with a fix. Unfortunately when they try to fix it they are in a RUSH. And trying to do so as cost effectively as possible. So these fixes are just band aids. And these fixes would not have to be made if they did not rush in the first place or try to save costs. I understand outsourcing is not entirely bad nor is it the reason our company is producing poor quality. The reason is the massive cost reduction. If your boss is rushing you. Is clearly trying to make a low cost product....are you going to put your heart and soul into the product? If he is concerned about numbers and metrics do you care about quality control? You can attack what I say. You can dissect it. You can point out my typos. But I swear to you everything I have said is true.

I should be laid off in the next 5 months. When I am I may say more depending how badly they treat us. But let me tell you Garrett Turbos was not known for shaft play in 1994. But today we are having lots of recalls. You can’t deny 200,000 boxes of turbos on recall. Almost all of our VNT have "Sticking" problems. All I can say is if you have a Duramax or a Ford scorpion god be with you. And ford has not even released the scorpion and we already are having huge problems. Also if anyone knows law...and I am breaking any please message me. I would rather delete my post then go to court; it seems the people who have had problems are speaking. I think I will put this on the front page so people don’t have to sort through the pages.

I am just trying to inform people of what is. I can reference everything I say but I dont want to drag anyone else I work with into it.

I can reference everything I say but I don’t want to drag anyone else I work with into it. Those who say the company was bought over ten years ago why is it going bad now...we have been building other labs in other countries this entire time and trying to get shangai up to speed. Now they believe the other labs can handle the workload they are fazing us out. In June engines are shut down. It has been decided that out engine testing will be in Detroit. We will contract that out to a third party but our gas stands and endurance cells along with burst cell will be in Mexicali. That is also where the majority of the production is that we see in North America. And the lab in shanghai has engines, and gas stands. Now everything is complete time to shut down the main engineering lab. If you doubt me I can understand because there are lots of talkers on the internet its hard to weed out, thats your choice Im just here to try.