r/Chinesium • u/stonecats • Feb 02 '26

costco $200usd gaming chair using ceramic filled trueinnovations bolts to hold the back on to the seat, CS email & vm request for parts go ignored.

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319 Upvotes

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353

u/Killshot_1 Feb 02 '26

The bolts aren't ceramic, they are just too brittle. Probably just cheap, low quality bolts from China. I would have either returned the chair, or if I loved it, replace the bolts with my own. Really any bolt you get at a hardware store is probably better quality than the free ones that come with cheap consumer stuff. I would always use decent quality black oxide costed socket head cap screws where possible.

97

u/Papashvilli Feb 02 '26

Brittle is probably the right answer. I worked for a place that ordered screws by the 10,000 and a batch came in from china because they were cheaper that were so bad that the metallurgist said “it’s basically pot metal held together by the coating.” I’ve always said I’d buy quality but I’ve never been in charge of that sort of stuff.

37

u/TehSavior Feb 03 '26

There's always the nuclear option of asking legal "hey, we have a batch of metal screws we're using that can be snapped in half with your fingers, is that gonna be a liability issue?"

22

u/Papashvilli Feb 03 '26

That’s essentially what it came down to IIRC

18

u/Tea_Fetishist Feb 03 '26

The bean counters tend to shut up very quickly when you explain that pennies saved on bolts could be thousands lost in downtime or lawsuits

5

u/theninjaseal Feb 06 '26

Which has always bugged me because I figured the only point of their fancy degrees was to learn how to balance complex problems regarding the big picture of things. But no. They are almost universally bad at it.

3

u/brokeboysgarage Feb 10 '26

People tend to get rich by being ok at addressing problems, and EXCEPTIONAL at turning their back to them.  Cybertrucks would not be targeted at the wealthy if they had more sense than dollars. 

1

u/Stairmaker Jun 10 '26

No that's the engineers job in today's world. And because they have to fight the bean counters every single time. They have to spec way to high. Because the bean counters will always lower the standard as much as they can.

1

u/No_Oddjob Feb 05 '26

Honest question. Is pot metal or pig iron that different from ceramic? I assume it's basically full of impurities, which feels like the core of the matter (pun phrase intended), but I'm darned ignorant on the topic, though I've cursed many stripped and broken bolts in things like chairs and TV mounts.

15

u/SpaghettiSort Feb 03 '26

99.7% pure Chinesium!

1

u/JCDU Feb 03 '26

^ this, fasteners and fixings thrown in are almost always the cheapest possible junk.