Did these guys pull a fast one on me?

[Normallysailing]

Heeding the admonition to only buy Mikuni parts and avoid aftermarket, I ordered a kit, spring, and needle valve from two different suppliers. It's important to note that I chose based not only on availability, but the seller's willingness to ship to Canada, which is a real problem. I'm fine with the kit that came from Sudco - shipping it to a friend's Montana mailbox saved me about $50 and the recent (partial) reopening of the border to land traffic meant I was able to get it quickly.

The needle valve is what I'm concerned about. I ordered what was being sold as a Mikuni 786-35015-2.0 very carefully via Amazon. What I got was a WPS 14-1077. I don't know who actually made the spring that came with it. Should I be expressing my dissatisfaction to the seller?

[edit: Small correction to that - the spring came from Sudco along with the Mikuni rebuild kit.)

 

[mikidymac]

WPS or Western Power Sports is a distributor of genuine Mikuni and what all mine are packaged in.

The easy way to tell genuine Mikuni needles and seats is on the bottom of the seat there will be a little square within a square stamped next to the size 2.0.

 

[Normallysailing]

I see those markings, so this would appear to be the real thing, despite the packaging suggesting otherwise.

Based on my experience in the electronics industry, though (and we happen to be discussing this at the moment in a group dedicated to a particular brand of test/development equipment), counterfeiting is rampant (especially in China), and I would have no trouble believing that such markings could be forged as well. And we've seen this during COVID too - a certain Chinese manufacturer, when asked if they made N95 masks, answered "Sure - we'll mark them any way you want!"

 

[mikidymac]

I understand the counterfeit thing.
WPS is a quality distributor of Genuine Mikuni parts.

 

[Normallysailing]

Much appreciated.

Btw, the vendor in question is Purdy's Powersports in TN (oemcycle.com, oemcycles on amazon). And for the benefit of those other beleaguered canucks in the audience, they ship to Canada without skinning us on the shipping. Seem like good guys, between this and another slightly-troublesome order (problem with amazon, not them) that they resolved quite nicely.