A pet pevee. So many never use their signals. I think, do you have any idea how much you paid for those damn things? I imagine many would say, well they come with the car. Yup they do and you pay for them.
The multi-function switch (turn signal arm for us common folk) went out on my truck this past year. No big deal, I thought. I drive with my window down most of the time anyway, so I figured I'd just use hand signals until I could get it in the shop to fix that and another problem I was having. I damned near got killed more than once. NOBODY knows what hand signals are, and it's not just the kids, it was the older people too.
Arm bent up, right turn, arm staight out left turn, arm straight out and low at eight o'clock palm vertical slowing down. Middle finger, it aint a booger. That's reserved for the index.
"awarding of $2.8 billion in new Department of Energy grants for projects". I wonder how many CCP companies are going to benefit from this largess. Don't forget 10% for "the Big Guy". 'Course $2.8B is pretty much a drop in the bucket these days.
This isn't just reserved for the hoidy toidy set. My kid bought a Mazda 3 about ten years back and one of the HID (High Intensity Discharge) heaplamps went out on it. He couldn't buy just the bulb. He had to buy the whole assembly... FOR TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! All those "cool looking" LED taillights are the same way. You can't just replace the bulb or the lens anymore. It's all one expensive piece. The lens on my 2012 Chevy cracked. The lights still worked but water was getting in. They were UNAVAILABLE new. I paid $175.00 for a used one on Ebay. Welcome to the new normal...
Two complete headlight / parking light / turn signal assemblies for my 2003 Ford Ranger were $55 on eBay. For both of them! Complete with all the bulbs!! With FREE SHIPPING!!!
It took 5 minutes to install them after I figured out how they worked and required nothing but a screwdriver to slide a single clip up.
All in all, the experience made me feel like I'd died and gone to pickup repair Heaven. But then, that was back in the Pre-Brandon days.
meh. Had a friend whose front marker light went out on his wife's Mercedes wagon. The LED marker light assembly was $6K and they wanted another large to pull the grille to replace it. He found one at a salvage website for $2k and we fixed it in 2 hours.
Most of the cost is 'cause the manufacturer/dealer thinks you can afford it.
Part of the problem is that manufacturers have patented(?) the different parts in such a way as to freeze out after market manufacturers. If you control the market, you can charge whatever you please.
I started seeing this about 10 - 12 years ago at the electronic factory I was working at. LED tail light assemblies became the greatest part of our production. A typical one had 5 circuit boards to point the LED's in multiple directions, all mounted in a big complex plastic molding. And that was for just one side of one car model. For the other side, there were 5 more mirror-image circuit boards and two more mouldings. They were complex and expensive, and generally different for every model and year. OTOH, a good LED light should run fine for decades, as long as it isn't overheated, physically broken, or too corroded.
I doubt that the marginal price of producing one more of these assemblies was much over $100. But there were tooling costs to start production of each circuit board and molding, and there were so many _different_ parts. Whether the car company directly paid for tooling or we factored it into the per unit price, every time the designers changed the look of the rear end, it cost tens of thousands to re-tool the PCB's and mouldings, and reprogram our parts placement machines and testers.
That still leaves the price of a tail light assembly more like $200 - $300, not $2,000 - $3,000. But where production parts generally go directly from the end of the parts production line onto a truck, and from the truck to a rack at the assembly station, spare parts have to be stored for years. And there are generally two part numbers for each model and model year, so that's a LOT of part numbers to store and keep track of. That is costly. And they have to guess at how many spares to order before the parts factory switches over; guess too high, and they wind up scrapping the excess after storing them for a decade or more. Guess too low, and they have to pay through the nose to re-start production for a short run - and if they wait too long, all the tooling has to be replaced, and even the computer file formats may have to be updated.
But even that doesn't explain a $3,000 tail light. The car companies are profiteering on replacement parts because they can. The complexity and uniqueness of these assemblies guarantee that even if they forget to file a patent and a competitor found the prints in the trash, it would be rare for a competitor to be able to sell enough units to make up the cost of tooling up to produce knock-offs.
A pet pevee. So many never use their signals. I think, do you have any idea how much you paid for those damn things? I imagine many would say, well they come with the car. Yup they do and you pay for them.
ReplyDeleteThe multi-function switch (turn signal arm for us common folk) went out on my truck this past year. No big deal, I thought. I drive with my window down most of the time anyway, so I figured I'd just use hand signals until I could get it in the shop to fix that and another problem I was having.
DeleteI damned near got killed more than once. NOBODY knows what hand signals are, and it's not just the kids, it was the older people too.
Arm bent up, right turn, arm staight out left turn, arm straight out and low at eight o'clock palm vertical slowing down. Middle finger, it aint a booger. That's reserved for the index.
DeleteSee? How hard is that? Hell, it was even on the written driving tests I took.
Delete"awarding of $2.8 billion in new Department of Energy grants for projects". I wonder how many CCP companies are going to benefit from this largess. Don't forget 10% for "the Big Guy". 'Course $2.8B is pretty much a drop in the bucket these days.
ReplyDeleteNemo
I guess this comment is on the wrong article and I can't find the right one.
DeleteNemo
This isn't just reserved for the hoidy toidy set. My kid bought a Mazda 3 about ten years back and one of the HID (High Intensity Discharge) heaplamps went out on it. He couldn't buy just the bulb. He had to buy the whole assembly... FOR TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! All those "cool looking" LED taillights are the same way. You can't just replace the bulb or the lens anymore. It's all one expensive piece. The lens on my 2012 Chevy cracked. The lights still worked but water was getting in. They were UNAVAILABLE new. I paid $175.00 for a used one on Ebay. Welcome to the new normal...
ReplyDeleteTwo complete headlight / parking light / turn signal assemblies for my 2003 Ford Ranger were $55 on eBay. For both of them! Complete with all the bulbs!! With FREE SHIPPING!!!
DeleteIt took 5 minutes to install them after I figured out how they worked and required nothing but a screwdriver to slide a single clip up.
All in all, the experience made me feel like I'd died and gone to pickup repair Heaven. But then, that was back in the Pre-Brandon days.
meh. Had a friend whose front marker light went out on his wife's Mercedes wagon. The LED marker light assembly was $6K and they wanted another large to pull the grille to replace it.
ReplyDeleteHe found one at a salvage website for $2k and we fixed it in 2 hours.
Most of the cost is 'cause the manufacturer/dealer thinks you can afford it.
A Hummer EV? A $4,040 right rear taillight assembly?
ReplyDeleteA fool and his money are soon parted.
That Hummer $100,000 piece of shit needs a Trafficator, not a tail light turn signal
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH4X1vo7OKs
We had a1960 VW with those type signals. I always wanted to get them wired back into the system.
DeleteThe virtue signaling should include a caveat: your idiocy will be expensive, so buck up!
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the exotic cars that they gouge you on:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/shorts/5T3hQTGxfK0
Part of the problem is that manufacturers have patented(?) the different parts in such a way as to freeze out after market manufacturers. If you control the market, you can charge whatever you please.
ReplyDeleteI started seeing this about 10 - 12 years ago at the electronic factory I was working at. LED tail light assemblies became the greatest part of our production. A typical one had 5 circuit boards to point the LED's in multiple directions, all mounted in a big complex plastic molding. And that was for just one side of one car model. For the other side, there were 5 more mirror-image circuit boards and two more mouldings. They were complex and expensive, and generally different for every model and year. OTOH, a good LED light should run fine for decades, as long as it isn't overheated, physically broken, or too corroded.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that the marginal price of producing one more of these assemblies was much over $100. But there were tooling costs to start production of each circuit board and molding, and there were so many _different_ parts. Whether the car company directly paid for tooling or we factored it into the per unit price, every time the designers changed the look of the rear end, it cost tens of thousands to re-tool the PCB's and mouldings, and reprogram our parts placement machines and testers.
That still leaves the price of a tail light assembly more like $200 - $300, not $2,000 - $3,000. But where production parts generally go directly from the end of the parts production line onto a truck, and from the truck to a rack at the assembly station, spare parts have to be stored for years. And there are generally two part numbers for each model and model year, so that's a LOT of part numbers to store and keep track of. That is costly. And they have to guess at how many spares to order before the parts factory switches over; guess too high, and they wind up scrapping the excess after storing them for a decade or more. Guess too low, and they have to pay through the nose to re-start production for a short run - and if they wait too long, all the tooling has to be replaced, and even the computer file formats may have to be updated.
But even that doesn't explain a $3,000 tail light. The car companies are profiteering on replacement parts because they can. The complexity and uniqueness of these assemblies guarantee that even if they forget to file a patent and a competitor found the prints in the trash, it would be rare for a competitor to be able to sell enough units to make up the cost of tooling up to produce knock-offs.