Aftermarket Window Cranks

It finally happened. My driver`s side window crank broke. Well, the arm didn`t break, the knob on the end did.

A moment of silence, please.

::a moment::

Ok, so now I get to decide what kind of cranks to replace them with! I could scrounge up another original one. That wouldn`t be so bad, they lasted 30 years! But if they have already reached the end of their lives, I may only get 30 days.

There are a few eBay sellers with cool looking aftermarket ones. These looked really cool and unique, so I ordered them. $17.50 total shipped for the pair.

Look cool? I thought so! They even have a big VW logo!

But getting them home and looking at them closely revealed some serious quality issues.

• Soft Plastic: The black plastic on the arm is *really* soft. It`s held by just one small tab into a poorly cut out hole in the metal arm. Pushing the tab out from the back (to access the screw hole) deformed the tab. I have doubts about how long that tab will hold.


• Poor Casting: As mentioned above, the rectangular hole for the plastic tab is poorly cut. It looks like my 4 year old drilled it out with a cheap drill.


• Crappy Knob: the knob is actually 3 pieces of plastic. The bottom where the steel pin goes through the arm end, the vertical side, and the top. They`re all made of thin plastic that is already cracking in places.

As you can see, the quality is just poor all around. But the damn things LOOK so NICE!

Sigh.

Though I know I`ll have to replace them soon, they really do look good on the bus.

Maybe I`ll just have to tell my passengers, "Take it easy on that window crank!"