George,

I agree that I would not touch 40 year old rubber even if it had been stored on a nice dry shelf for all those years. Heck, most of my cells regenerate and I'm falling apart after just 50 years.

But that raises the question of which replacement to choose. Using motor mounts as an example because it was a recent topic, almost all the inexpensive motor mounts are manufactured in the Far East. It seems to me it is just as easy to manufacture something right as it is to make it wrong. But everything I have seen coming out of the Far East is absolute junk. Metal, plastic, rubber, you name it; it is built to self-destruct in short order.

Just today I was looking at the less than three year old tires on my wife's car. Made in Indonesia. Just beneath the information in raised small print along the bead there is an entire web of cracks generating. Very tiny now but the tires will definitely need to be replaced by fall even though there is still a ton of tread left. My truck has four year old Kelly Springfield tires made in Texas. They have no checking or cracking. The difference? It has to be the amount of carbon and silicon and whatever else goes into the tire receipe along with the rubber; rubber is rubber whether it is made into a tire in Indonesia or Texas.

So, which manufacturer do you trust to make a motor mount that will last more than a month? It seems that Meyle may be the only maker of motor mounts that does not get them from one village in China that everyone else is using. I don't know where the plant is located but they seem to be using a good receipe. (I think they probably manufacture in a Baltic country but that is pure speculation.)

--
Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- (I've taken to using Mr. because my name tends to mislead folks on the WWW. I am a 52 year old fat man