What seems simple to people on the outside of a large corporation might not be so simple on the inside. Releasing a new lubricant and putting it through the dealer network is unlikely an easy thing to accomplish. These aftermarket lubricant companies should really do what it takes to say what OEM specs their lubricants meet. I realize they don't do it but they could vastly improve their sales if they did.
I have repeatedly looked into the claim of widespread MT-82 problems in the Ford transit and the land rover defender. Outside of a few complaints in forums there really isn't much. In the defender forums some have clearly stated their version of the MT-82 is not the same and not as heavy duty as the one in the transit and mustang. The MT-82 does not even make the lists of common/top transit problems floating around.
Made in China comes in several grades. Yes it's common for people to discard safety items and ramp up production in ways that hurt quality. This is usually not something that happens in owned factories, but does happen at contract manufacturers and suppliers. Companies that US and European companies do not have their own people running or monitoring things on a constant basis. And constant means living there, because reversion comes 1-3 weeks after someone gets back on the plane. There are things that can happen in factories with various degrees of oversight, but the more oversight, the more controlled, the smaller the degree.
Getrag has enough on their websites to show roughly how they are operating. It appears that their plants are making pretty much the entire transmission in house and have a western presence permanently in China overseeing the three plants. Sure it's not perfect info and some of it is three years old, but it does show the scheme of things.
In any case the really scary stories of removed safety equipment, thinned out plastic, and other ways of making volume at the sake of quality should not really apply to this situation. What does are the finer problems that can happen pretty much anywhere a company places a factory that isn't in their own backyard and sometimes when they do.
The scariest piece of info I found in that was a reference to a Chinese bearing supplier from 2008 for the MT-82 on the GETRAG (Jiangxi) Transmission website. On the bearing company's website they claim to have become a supplier to GM in 2007. (
http://www.cjb.com.cn/en/yxwl.asp ) So this company's bearings are in 'made in the USA' assemblies. Essentially this can happen just as easily with made in USA and made in Mexico these days with suppliers & manufacturers that source their bearings in China.
I've also been looking into NHTSA investigations and they appear to be pretty common and routine. I found a website that tallies investigations. The 2003 mustang and a honda accord of roughly that same time each had 10 investigations, just to give a couple examples.
