i know you pay for what you get...

Absolute garbage. Generic intercooler piping which a person can get for next to nothing normally. Those turbos won't last either. Throughout the year get hundreds of people that call us trying to get them rebuilt and they all get told the same thing. Throw the scrap metal in the trash and buy a quality turbo. A good quality turbo like a Garrett ball bearing will run you anywhere from 1000 to 2000 per turbo depending on what size you want and if you want a cast or billet wheel. Borgwarners are cheaper (but still quality) if you want to go journal bearing route.

The big problems with Chinese knockoff turbos is they use inferior quality metal so typically they make all their internal parts bigger to compensate for the weaker metallurgy. Meaning an oem Garrett turbo rebuild kit wouldn't work to rebuild the turbo because the internal parts are all different sizes etc. The other problem is just the quality control. Balancing can be way off which will significantly shorten the turbos life before catastrophic failure. The final straw is just the bad metallurgy which leads to many shafts snapping or comp wheels exploding under boost. These reasons are why my company won't even touch a knockoff turbo.