4 ways automotive drives plastic plumbing

John Guest, the business behind JG Speedfit, is a name that has long been synonymous with the automotive industry as well as the plumbing market. We have been well established as a supplier of push-fit connectors for the automotive OEM market since 1983.

Ever since then we have made an effort to constantly bring the innovation and quality that we supply into this market, into the plumbing industry.

Here are just four ways the automotive market is helping to drive standards for plastic plumbing:

The automotive industry is recognised worldwide for its high-quality standards. Safety and efficiency are critical and OEMs can not afford frequent recalls, vehicle errors, or worse, passenger or driver deaths due to a vehicle’s manufacturing and design.

As a result, the industry has long adopted a strict failure rate of one in a million, a stringent measure for the supply chain, which is largely dictated by OEMs themselves.

At Speedfit, we follow this same standard for every fitting and pipe we manufacture. All our production happens in our UK facilities, which gives us complete control over the products that you use every day. By carrying out rigorous quality checks for every batch of fittings and pipe that comes off our production line, we can ensure that we are only supplying the highest quality plastic plumbing components, with a less than one in a million failure rate.

As a plumber or installer you will be well aware of the importance of pressure testing when you arrive at a first fix plumbing site, but did you know that the basis of this comes from the automotive market? 

When conducting a test on tyre pressures, automotive technicians will test the tyres at a rate of two bars. This is the same level that plumbers and installers are advised to pressure test fittings when they are on site, for a duration of ten minutes. This is a vital test because it replicates the typical operating pressure for these components in a live system, and will show up any fine scratches on a pipe that may be caused by poor handling or storage.

Speedfit also recommends that a further test is carried out at ten bars for ten minutes. This will ensure that the pipes and fittings will be leak-free following installation.

If ever you needed evidence of the automotive market’s impact on plastic plumbing, look no further than a professional servicing or maintenance facility, where our push-fits are being used in earnest.

The plastic push-fits that we manufacture in the UK are being used in a host of servicing tools, from the air-driven wheel nut jacks that remove wheels from a car, to the air-driven hand tools used in body repair stations to trim, grind and repair damaged vehicles. They are primarily used for the compressed air systems pipework at a garage.

As maintenance and repair work to vehicles is literally a matter of life and death in some cases, we need to ensure that the fittings being used by the technician’s tools are going to facilitate a professional and efficient repair.

If ever you needed reassurance that the plastic Speedfit fittings you are using in your plumbing projects are going to deliver exceptional levels of quality, look no further than vehicle brands such as Ferrari, BMW, Ford and Jaguar. Why? Because they are installing the exact same technology as you are!

Our push-fit connectors have been used in more than one billion vehicle applications worldwide for fuel injection systems, low-pressure steering systems, and the development of more environmentally-friendly engines!

If our fittings are good enough, effective enough, and reliable enough for these major automotive OEMs, then you can be assured that they are effective enough for your next plumbing project.

That’s just four ways our plastic plumbing fittings and pipes have been influenced by the automotive industry and will ensure our quality products can continue to be world leading.

View our push-fit plastic plumbing pipes and fittings.

We’d love to see some of the products you have installed. Share your photographs with us on Twitter at @jgspeedfit.