TEIN Japan Factory Tour with DSPORT Magazine

Never before has a consumer stepped foot into the TEIN factory, ever!

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As you can imagine, TEIN (as with many other manufacturers) has some proprietary methods for manufacturing shock absorbers, with several processes pioneered in-house. In fact, there are some machines developed specifically by TEIN engineers solely for our own use. So, to show that to the public may be detrimental to us since we do not want such information to be released to the public. This is information that can reach another suspension manufacturer!!!

However, there is a benefit to showing consumers what TEIN does and what we’re capable of. For one, it’s a sign that TEIN is confident in our technology. Second, consumers are just as interested in seeing how their products are made. So why not show them?!

Well, that’s exactly what we did! We worked with DSPORT magazine to arrange a tour of our facility during their Tokyo Auto Salon guest tour for this year.

Every year, DSPORT Magazine arranges a tour package for interested people. For about $3,500/person, guests get to take a trip to Japan and visit Tokyo Auto Salon and several Japanese performance parts manufacturers’ facilities. So it sounded like a prime opportunity to have TEIN show the public our factory.

We felt bad for our guests, though. The day before was to be a trip to Fuji Speedway. But, due to bad weather the event was canceled. We were hoping our tour would make up for that missed event!

We had just over 40 guests for our tour on January 19th.

Prior to the tour, we gave our visitors a general overview of our property, including our offices, R&D facilities, Quality Assurance facility, and manufacturing.

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Just a brief overview of TEIN’s facility prior to showing our guests our facility.

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Since it was a fairly large group for us, we had split up the group among 8 tour guides.

Below are a few pics of the factory’s facilities and processes. Again, we have to limit what we can show the public. Sorry:

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Our Materials Yard, where we keep inventory of parts to prepare for manufacturing our suspension.

ALUMINUM BILLET GRADES

Other than steel components, we also use aluminum alloys. We stock three grades of aluminum billets, each one to be used depending on the application and use. For aluminum damper shell cases, we use an A 7050 grade extruded tube, however.

BAND SAW FOR BILLET

Aluminum billets are cut into smaller billet blanks using either our band saw or circular saw.

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A series of some of our many lathes used to machine many types of our suspension components.

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A sampling of some of the suspension components our lathes can process, from prototype to finished product.

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Some of our components are machined from billet blanks, which we cut from larger bar stock, using various grades of steel and aluminum depending on the product requirements. These steel pucks will end up becoming our pillowball cases for strut type upper mounts.

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We use tubing of various sizes to make damper shell cases to lower brackets for full-length adjustable dampers.

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Lower brackets, after any necessary welding, go through shot blasting prior to any surface coatings.

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Semi finished piston rods that have just been gun drilled (for damping adjustable suspension applications). Still a few more steps to being completed sub assemblies.

NC LATHE

We have many lathes to handle different processes, such as piston rod machining. Here, threads being cut for piston valve assembly.

PISTON ROD INSPECTION

Vital for our piston shafts is our high-resolution inspection machine. It is capable of detecting even the slightest flaw on the piston shaft surface. Each and every piston shaft is inspected. If defects are found, we must discard the shaft.

Our Swiss Precision Lathes help create small damper components like our ADJ Needles. Such small parts require great detail, which this machine can do consistently. It also runs nearly non-stop!!!

NEEDLE STOPPER

A finished batch of our ADJ Needle Stoppers out from the Swiss Precision Lathes.

LASER CUTTING

A recent addition to our factory is this Laser Cutting Machine, capable of cutting steel up to 16mm thick using a carbon dioxide laser beam. Quite a fast and efficient process!

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Here’s the Laser Cutter in action, cutting our camber plates for strut type pillowball upper mounts.

SHOT BLASTING

The second floor of our factory handles our surface coating stages. First, we shot blast our steel components. This allows our powdercoatings to adhere better to the steel bodies.

POWDER PAINTING

After shot blasting, some shell cases go through our patented 2-Layer/1-Bake powder coating process, where zinc powder is first applied, followed by our trademark green powder paint, then cured.

PACKAGING

After final assembly, kits are packaged up and shipped out!

 

While a couple groups went out for the factory tour, we also set up a test drive so visitors can try our new FLEX A dampers and EDFC ACTIVE PRO on a Toyota Vellfire.

The tour went faster than expected, and considering the factory was in full swing when we had it, it was difficult to hang around the machinery for very long with TEIN staff trying to navigate around us.. We even had to speed through some demonstrations by factory staff. Fortunately we were able to showcase a lot of our machinery and even some prototypes.

Afterwards, we took our guests out for a sushi lunch.

Overall, it looked to be a fun experience for our guests. I got to speak with several of them and they were all impressed with our manufacturing. So many people wanted to purchase TEIN suspension kits right away!!! Lol. I felt bad that we couldn’t arrange any suspension purchases while we were there, but I’ll be taking care of them on their return to the U.S.!

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Thanks to DSPORT and all of our guest for joining us in our Factory Tour!!!

 

We hope to continue doing tours for guests each year. So, if you plan on making your way to Tokyo Auto Salon, take a little extra time from your trip to stop by TEIN!!!……

……..Like our friends at Evasive Motorsports!

evasive at TJP

Thanks for stopping by, guys!!!!

 

Tokyo Auto Salon 2016

We sent a couple of TEIN USA staff to Japan to attend the Tokyo Auto Salon car show at Makuhari Messe, as well as to assist and represent the North American market.

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The TEIN group has been active in Tokyo Auto Salon for many years now. Each and every year is a perfect time to showcase our latest technologies and product releases directly to the consumer.

Unlike shows like the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Tokyo Auto Salon allows consumers (potential customers) to see what’s new, and to also speak directly with the manufacturer. That’s great since there’s not really any salesperson trying to breathe down their necks and push products on them. The customer has the freedom to choose WHAT THEY LIKE!

The turnout was good- just over 144,000 visitors during the 3-day event. We had a total of just 14,000 visitors to the TEIN booth alone. So for sure we kept very busy. I personally felt bad since my Japanese speaking skills are next to nil. However, I met several Westerners, and even some TEIN USA dealers! That was nice! Better than standing quiet the whole weekend, hahaha!!!

On top of our displays, we had goods for sale, a “Garapon” raffle, and a real-life Dampachi and Dampatty that visitors could take photos with!

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Speaking of our “Garapon” raffle, we had a few big winners:

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This visitor got the grand prize- a damping adjustable TEIN suspension of his choice + an EDFC ACTIVE PRO setup!

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This was our second big winner. He wins a TEIN suspension kit of his choice!

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This winner gets a free set of TEIN lowering springs!

Other prizes ranged from TEIN original goods and stickers, to calendars and posters. So there was something for everyone that played!

As for new products, TEIN Japan brought out the upcoming STREET SPORTS line of premium shock absorbers. A perfect match for our S.TECH and HIGH TECH line of lowering springs, or as a great upgrade replacement of your stock shock absorbers.

Also showcased was our line of 4X4 Dampers. We have a total of four offerings- Sports, Gravel, Premium, and Rally. To date, TEIN Japan has already launched the Premium line, with applications for the Mercedes G63 AMG and Nissan Patrol (these are for the Middle East market consumers). 4X4 Rally dampers are a made-to-order application, which we’ve catered to competitors in rally raids and such. I’m personally interested in the Sports line, and I think that would be a great offering for the North American market!

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Our EDFC ACTIVE PRO display also got a lot of visitors. It’s a unique offering in aftermarket suspension. There’s no other unit out there that gives you the option of having dynamic suspension tuning on the fly like our ACTIVE PRO controller!

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Our Hydraulic Bump Stop (H.B.S.) display intrigued a few visitors, as they weren’t sure what it was or how it worked. We had a tester for them to try out, as well as some clear models for them to see the inner workings of our H.B.S. system!

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While we were there, we had a chance to walk around and see what else is new among other manufacturers. We even visited our friends at Defi! Here’s their upcoming release, the new Sports Display F unit!

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Here are some other things we got to see!

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That was a wonderful experience for our U.S. staff, and we certainly look forward to representing the U.S. at next year’s Tokyo Auto Salon!

TEIN Staff TAS 2016 blog

 

 

2013 Tokyo Auto Salon

We have started this 2013 year strong with our newly released Street Flex and EDFC ACTIVE.

Unfortunately TEIN USA was not able to attend the 2013 Tokyo Auto Salon show in Japan (physically), but we still attended the show in the form of our parent company, TEIN Japan, and our photo taken earlier this month. Thank God for the web and media as that would be our only source for consumers to check out those neck breaking cars.

Anywho, we had our new products on display, along with our knowledgeable Japanese staff to answer any questions that enthusiast had.

 

                        

 

They must have been swamped with questions with regards to our newly released product line.  Shoot, here in the US our phones don’t stop ringing, and our inbox is full of inquiries.  I’m sure that the next event we attend in the US will have lines longer than Best Buy’s on Black Friday.

 

                                      

 

 

Can anyone direct me to the TEIN booth??…lol

Overall it was a great show.  The consumers’ feedback was as we anticipated. Our new product line is being received with open arms and we couldn’t ask for more (well… except for more orders, of course!!! LOL).  Please visit the link provided below as it will direct you to our Face Book page. You can check out other photos taken at the show.  Feel free to give us a call or drop a message if you have any questions!

 https://www.facebook.com/teinusa/photos_albums