If you are considering buying stuff for your 4Runner on Alibaba be aware of the texts and emails you will receive after you release your information.

I have received no fewer than 10 texts, probably closer to 15, with attachments that God only knows what would do if someone were to click on them. They came in through Whats App and Messenger.

You said "crap" and "Alibaba" in the same sentence.


Well done, sums it up very well.

Agreed. Don’t support the proliferation of Chinese crap.

I'd rather stick my unit in a bee's nest than buy something off Alibaba.

If you scream “Alibaba” three times real fast into your phone, the messages will stop.

I occasionally visit Alibaba just to see how far out of whack my US suppliers are.

When Im done researching crap there I feel like I need to take a shower so I dont get a rash or an eye infection or some other medical issue.

Yeah you might be onto something! The cheap Chinese crap on Alibaba is considerably inferior to the cheap Chinese crap off Amazon.

Unless it’s Wal Mart then it’s Murica’nese. We can pretend it’s made here.

I have only used it once but had good success, ended up buying Vision X light cannon clones for <$40 a light all in which is 1/4 of what Vision X charges and I am sure its where MRT got the lights originally. I bought them from MRT originally as clones of vision X and needed a replacement as I may have bumped something with one and could not find MRT still selling them, or in business for that matter which may not be a bad things as the customer service at the time was worse than Gobi.

It was a hassle compared to a "click and buy" off amazon with some negotiation on qualities/cost/shipping fees - a 4wk lead time and as mentioned other vendors contacting you for similar items (although it was always through e-mail not whats ap/text for me) BUT for what I needed it was perfect.

They certainly seem set up as a a wholesale type place with qualities needed although the way around this is having the order done as a "sample" but I image that only works once or twice with any given vendor before they catch on/say no.

Lately its been Chinese ho’s sending stuff. I need to take my contact info off the site.

I guess there is some good coming out of this in that I send a screen shot of the Chinese ho’s texts/pics to a Chinese friend of mine. He needs a Hoochie Mama anyhow.

I’m here for the Ho’s….

I buy a lot of industrial components on Alibaba. Only issue I've ever had was some stepper motors that were miscolored on the wiring. Took me a lot of diagnostics to figure it out. Killer was that not only were they not correctly colored to the wiring schematics, they were also not consistent among the set. Stepper motors are dead simple to wire once you figure out what the problem is. But it was a big PITA to diagnose what was going on.

For stuff like linear motion equipment, small batch electronic components and PCBs, and the like - it's my go-to marketplace. There's often no where else you can even get some of those things. I've never had a product show up that wasn't as described by the seller other than the set of steppers.

About half the "overland" stuff you see is available on Alibaba - including things like almost every overland trailer that's marked up 4-5 times the price you can buy directly from the mfg in China. And you can spec it out exactly how you want it. My wife didn't like the Black series trailers or I'd have ordered one directly from the same factory that builds them. Difference is that it's $15k to the port in Cali instead of $50-60k at a local dealer.