Armrest replicas - quality?
 

Hey everyone,

The hinge on my original toyota folding armrest is cracking where the inner lid meets the hinge here (picture is from before the damage but you get the point :) ) :

https://i.postimg.cc/YSv3JNQV/Captur...a-16-40-33.png

I don't really want to spend 200 bucks just to replace a place of black plastic, and was looking at getting an Alibaba one instead. Anyone actually bought one and can assess how good they are?

Based on the pictures they look nigh identical to the real deal. So much so that I could probably just use the inner lid from the Aliexpress one and mash it up with the good parts of my Toyota armrest.

You paid $200 for it? I bought one of the $35 ones of Ebay years ago and it's still doing fine. They're still available.

I *assume* mine is the real deal (it was on the car when I bought it), though when opening it up I saw no Subaru or Toyota logos anywhere.
The genuine ones that go by PN PZ435-10340-00 are all listed around $200.

I'll pull the trigger on the Aliexpress one and will report back when it shows up.

My OEM one had a crack in the same place after a year or two. I think it happened after accidentally pushing on it while it was completely open, which overstressed the plastic near the hinge.

I ended up opening it up, and applying from plastic JB weld from the backside. Still working fine 5+ years on, but definitely less than impressed that it started to fail so early for an expensive OEM part.

Mine is a sub $30 replica. Been in the car for a couple years now I think? It's great

I bought a replica when they were $90. I then wrapped it with a redlinegoods alcantara cover.

3/8” padding:

https://www.redlinegoods.com/BRZshif...SABEgKHxfD_BwE

I think I paid $20 for my replica armrest and overall it’s fine, but I had to use some small washers to adjust its fit for even gaps when closed.

So I received the Aliexpress replica. It's a 99.9% copy of the real deal. The armrest material actually felt like higher quality, but with poorer adjustment at the seams and poorer shutlines.

The frame also has its holes positioned in a very slightly different way, so if your console is already drilled for a genuine armrest, swapping a replica on would be annoyingly complicated.

My plan of using the inner lid of the replica armrest and keeping the other original parts worked in the end. It required a some adaptation to mount the lid to the padded part of the armrest, but nothing a little elbow grease couldn't fix.