New Stock Location Intercooler just came in!!!
- Thread starter BamBamBigelow
- Start date
Turbo6Smackdown
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2005
unethical? I'm not totally sure the vendors are making a 550 dollar profit on those 'hundred dollar' intercoolers lol. Still though, with an american vendor, that's personally into buick automobiles, I think you can be assured that before any of these squared away vendors order 200 units, theyre going to order one, try it on to see if it fits, and then possibly order more. Sometimes, they even try it out for a while before ordering it. to see if it not only fits, but works too. And THEN, when you order it, if somethings amiss, you have the person who actually ordered and sold the piece, to talk to you direct right here and now.. and if the problems not resolved, more than likely, you can just send it back to him for a refund.
Try that with some obscure xiang-huang nguyen lee automotive products out of shanghai, and see if youre going to get your money back... THATS why you pay, when utilizing genuine buick vendors. never forget, Unlike EVERY ford/chevy vendor, these guys here actually DRIVE grand nationals. Theyre going to know what theyre talking about, if you ask them a question. Call the dumbf*** at summitracing.com, and ask him 'does the new so and so water pump for the 4.6's really help out?' Do you know what that guy is going to tell you?? "uuhh I dont know, I drive a cavalier" and thats that. End of story. Buying from a vendor here is SOO much better all the way around. It just doesnt make any sense to go anywhere else. Can you IMAGINE buying a translator plus for our cars, from say, Jegs? What in THE hell would you do, if you had some technical questions, and those two (mike and bob) werent here to help you? You'd be screwed. (sure we have people like lubrant, micale, cotton, razor, spina, burough, hartline, carter, cramer, underwood, grumpy etc etc that know already, but if mike and bob didnt initially spread the knowledge, we'd be done)
Morale of story: Buy here, or youre going to be left hangin in the wind on your purchase, if it decideds to go tits up.
Try that with some obscure xiang-huang nguyen lee automotive products out of shanghai, and see if youre going to get your money back... THATS why you pay, when utilizing genuine buick vendors. never forget, Unlike EVERY ford/chevy vendor, these guys here actually DRIVE grand nationals. Theyre going to know what theyre talking about, if you ask them a question. Call the dumbf*** at summitracing.com, and ask him 'does the new so and so water pump for the 4.6's really help out?' Do you know what that guy is going to tell you?? "uuhh I dont know, I drive a cavalier" and thats that. End of story. Buying from a vendor here is SOO much better all the way around. It just doesnt make any sense to go anywhere else. Can you IMAGINE buying a translator plus for our cars, from say, Jegs? What in THE hell would you do, if you had some technical questions, and those two (mike and bob) werent here to help you? You'd be screwed. (sure we have people like lubrant, micale, cotton, razor, spina, burough, hartline, carter, cramer, underwood, grumpy etc etc that know already, but if mike and bob didnt initially spread the knowledge, we'd be done)
Morale of story: Buy here, or youre going to be left hangin in the wind on your purchase, if it decideds to go tits up.
turbobob924
Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2001
very nice!
Turbo1dr
9 Sec Wanna-Be
- Joined
- May 25, 2001
salvageV6
Daily Driver
- Joined
- May 25, 2001
I once had a question for a Buick driving gooroo vendor that stole his idea, but still was well respected in the Turbo Buick community, and made great stuff. 
Turns out he was in jail and couldn't answer it.
Otto as long as both vendors pay the dues here it's double the revenue, simple math.
Turns out he was in jail and couldn't answer it.
Otto as long as both vendors pay the dues here it's double the revenue, simple math.
I once had a question for a Buick driving gooroo vendor that stole his idea, but still was well respected in the Turbo Buick community, and made great stuff.
Turns out he was in jail and couldn't answer it.
Otto as long as both vendors pay the dues here it's double the revenue, simple math.
Seems as though some may have a Napoleon complex.
In the end GREED is why.
Imagine this,A whole new intercooler thread:biggrin:
I once had a question for a Buick driving gooroo vendor that stole his idea, but still was well respected in the Turbo Buick community, and made great stuff.
Turns out he was in jail and couldn't answer it.
Otto as long as both vendors pay the dues here it's double the revenue, simple math.
Also I dont really have a problem if one vendor may take anothers and make a BETTER product,But to take it and make a less quality peice and sell it cheaper is just plain old greed.If it was better quality and cheaper,I would definetly be interested
Patents do not mean a danged thing to the chi-coms...try suing the chinese government and i personally will laugh at you.
So the issue could come down to not necessarily where a product is made but, who sells it? If I am understanding correctly, the position is as follows. If someone is in the market for headers and has a choice between purchasing China headers on evilbay for $149.00 and purchasing China Headers from a supporting TurboBuick vendor for $500 a person should be ok with the $350 premium because the Buick centric vendor will provide (hopefully) more support when/if there is help needed with them.
I can see the logic in that arguement, but, to me, that a stiff price to pay. I always looked at this board as more of a community than strictly a built in customer base. Maybe I'm naive, but I would hope a balance could be stricken. I'd hate to be loyal to TurboBuick.com vendors only to learn I've been taken for a ride.
But like I stated before, I'm a newbie and all of this is a bit disillusioning - educating, but disillusioning nonetheless.
...and please don't tell me the Translator Plus is made in China :wink:
- Joined
- May 27, 2001
Maybe to masses but not to me. I dont care where a product is made (Well, I do but again, I understand the economics).. the problem I have is people buying this stuff up and shipping it overseas and blatantly STEALING other people's hard work.
Case in point, AZ GN's headers. Dude buys a set, sends them over to China, has then knocked off and sells them for $250 on Ebay while Nick is paying 3 times that to have his made in the USA. His sales plummet and the guy who ripped him off profits. Where is the justice in that? Had Nick decided "Hey, Im going to cut cost and send these to China and have them made", I would have had no problem with that because it's his product and his decision.
Here's the thing. As a guy who's been RIPPED OFF by other vendors, it's a tough pill to swallow. When you look at other people's chips and see your calibrations in them or when you have other vendors blatantly soliciting people to copy your stuff so they can cut you out, what's the difference? Fortunately, tho, since the SoCal guys think my chips suck, I dont have to worry about them sending them to China to have them copied, but I digress. Screwing the innovator is bad for the community. Once the guys have bled the market dry and there is nothing else for them to copy, they'll just move on and all the vendors who led the technology development will be gone.
If these guys want to come up with their own stuff, do the R&D and send it over there and have it made, have at it. But buying a CAS radiator or intercooler or a Houston downpipe and sending it to China to be duplicated is not "tweaking" a product nor is it R&D.
Mark it down.. inside of two years, the guys innovating for the Buicks are going to be long gone. The writing it already on the wall. People are sick of the price cutting, they're sick of their stuff getting blatantly ripped off and the end users just lapping it up with no regard to the guy who shelled out for all the R&D. When you're sitting around wondering where the new products are for these cars (And there is still some stuff left to be developed for the cars even at their age), take a look at your engine bay and admire your pretty knock off TA headers and ching chong ching chong intercooler then you'll have your answer.
Very good points and I see the logic and agree with most of them.
But, as but a lowly end user, how do I know where is the line between paying a fair price for a product (with R&D and such behind it) and paying an exorbitant price for an item that is marked up 250% over what a prudent person would perceive as fair market value?
I'm looking at this from strictly I-wanna-do-the-right-thing-for the vendor community-if-the-right-thing-is-done-by-me-by-the-vendor-community point of view. I am, have and will continue to support our vendors, but I'm just afriaid that my "blind" faith could be/has been abused.
Hey, I'm sure all of us want a beach house in Malibu and 2 or 3 GNX's, but there are things some of us would not do to get them.
I don't know all the answers, but if someone does I'm willing to listen.
Dont forget the pretty ching chong ching chong engine girdle!
Cat representitives even said they were sent a girdle by someone in the US to have it reproduced.
I wonder if the sender designed and made the prototype girdle sent there.
- Joined
- May 27, 2001
- Joined
- May 27, 2001
I personally dont know any vendor working on that kind of margin. Im sure Nick's headers cost anywhere from $600-750 a set to have made and he sells them for what, $999?
Everyone is under the dillusion that you can get stuff made cheap in the US but if there's someone making headers cheap in the US, I havent found them. The cost of parts alone is way more than what the Chinese headers are sold for.
Its a safe bet that Mike isnt having Scanmasters and Translators made in China unless Bob has relocated to Bejing and everything Mike is selling that is Chinese, he hasnt made any bones about disclosing that. I have no idea what the profit margin is on that stuff but I cant see it being 200%+.
The header stuff, I have a very good idea what that stuff costs before you pay duty and shipping on it and yea.. that might fall into the kind of profit range you arent comfortable with. Add into that that no one selling these headers did a lick of R&D other than maybe test fitting a set on a car and that makes it even tougher to swallow.
I can tell you straight up that if Shane and I send our headers to China to be made, we have THOUSANDS (more than 1) of dollars in R&D costs to recoup. So I guess if we price our headers accordingly, we'll be ripping off the end user, huh. What happens when someone copies them and cuts the price down to barebones since they have no development cost to recoup? You know what people are going to buy.. its a game that the innovating guy cant win.
BlackMetal
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2005
I agree with Victory. I am not about to argue that blatantly stealing someone's product and copying it to sell for cheaper is WRONG, but at the same time it's not as easy as blaming the end-user for going for the cheaper price. A lot of us are "average Joes" and if we can get something for $500 less, it can be hard to sacrifice the money that feeds your family because you want to support the vendors.
In a perfect world, if I could afford to dish out my entire paycheck to make sure the company that designed a product is the one getting paid for it, I would do it.
Making people feel bad for buying "China" parts is just as futile as complaining that we use the "Parts for Sale" forum to buy used parts instead of going to a vendor and paying top dollar for a new one. We all try to save a few dollars one way or another. If I go buy an intercooler in the For Sale forum I'm technically not supporting anyone except the person getting rid of it... are we going to start picking on people for buying used parts instead of paying the vendors?
Not to mention the fact that we have multiple vendors selling the SAME polished intercoolers, the SAME 3" downpipes, where is the innovation in that? If we're so concerned about the "right" vendor getting paid for their product, why is there so much product sharing among our supporting vendors?
I agree that companies/countries who leech onto new products and copy them will eventually scare away anyone from paying to do the R&D to develop new products, but it still doesn't seem right to me to say the ones truly at fault are the Buick owners who choose a $500 product instead of a $700 product.
Besides I think many of us would like actual PROOF that the welds are any worse on the cheap intercooler or that the cores are installed the "wrong" way or the shrouds won't mount flush to the body. Until we have detailed comparisons showing WHY we should willingly pay more for a product, this arguement will go around in circles. Trying to compare blurry pictures from one thread to another isn't enough to convince me that these products are really any different. Let's get detailed comparison photos, or some proof that these cheap/China intercoolers will fail under boost, and I will support the vendors 100% in their arguement. But until we are shown that there really is a "good" version and a "bad" version of this intercooler, then it just seems like vendors are less angered by customers not getting a "quality" product and in reality are just mad that we didn't buy "their product" at "their price".
This is all theoretical for me, I have not purchased and do not plan on buying any of these intercoolers or other products in question. Just tossing my two cents into the pile of pennies we have going here.
In a perfect world, if I could afford to dish out my entire paycheck to make sure the company that designed a product is the one getting paid for it, I would do it.
Making people feel bad for buying "China" parts is just as futile as complaining that we use the "Parts for Sale" forum to buy used parts instead of going to a vendor and paying top dollar for a new one. We all try to save a few dollars one way or another. If I go buy an intercooler in the For Sale forum I'm technically not supporting anyone except the person getting rid of it... are we going to start picking on people for buying used parts instead of paying the vendors?
Not to mention the fact that we have multiple vendors selling the SAME polished intercoolers, the SAME 3" downpipes, where is the innovation in that? If we're so concerned about the "right" vendor getting paid for their product, why is there so much product sharing among our supporting vendors?
I agree that companies/countries who leech onto new products and copy them will eventually scare away anyone from paying to do the R&D to develop new products, but it still doesn't seem right to me to say the ones truly at fault are the Buick owners who choose a $500 product instead of a $700 product.
Besides I think many of us would like actual PROOF that the welds are any worse on the cheap intercooler or that the cores are installed the "wrong" way or the shrouds won't mount flush to the body. Until we have detailed comparisons showing WHY we should willingly pay more for a product, this arguement will go around in circles. Trying to compare blurry pictures from one thread to another isn't enough to convince me that these products are really any different. Let's get detailed comparison photos, or some proof that these cheap/China intercoolers will fail under boost, and I will support the vendors 100% in their arguement. But until we are shown that there really is a "good" version and a "bad" version of this intercooler, then it just seems like vendors are less angered by customers not getting a "quality" product and in reality are just mad that we didn't buy "their product" at "their price".
This is all theoretical for me, I have not purchased and do not plan on buying any of these intercoolers or other products in question. Just tossing my two cents into the pile of pennies we have going here.
HMM,I wonder if the guys from CAT were lying to Billy T when they told him who
Walker231T
Member
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2003
I'm hoping to have a surprise in a couple of weeks
We've decided to rework things a bit and try something different. We're not giving up on the old design but I want to try something else.
We're also going to do a 4 bolt set of headers that will be unique to anything the Buick guys have seen.
Ive hooked up with a new fab guy and if he turns out to be any good, it will greatly improve the speed we get this stuff out to everyone. He's local to me so I can oversee what gets done instead of having to send stuff across the country multiple times and pray its what I wanted when it shows back up.
Might even send them overseas to be made. If we don't, someone else will and our market will essentially be ruined as none of these new "vendors" seem to have any problems stealing other people's products and knocking them off and saying "Hey look, guys, dont pay the people who designed this stuff, buy it cheap from us!"
For the record, I dont have a problem with stuff made in China. I dont particulaly like it but I do understand the economics of it. What I do have a problem with is the backdoor shilling tactics of these new "vendors" and their blatant disregard for stealing other people's designs. I also have a problem with these new "vendors" lieing about stuff that's painfully obvious to me. "We're not BA Performance"
Jay
Are you still working on a twin turbo kit??
I too could care less where it comes from. I have archies 3"dp for external off the header, since he was the only one around with one!! and his first front mount intercooler which was posted by gbody that was blown up @ 18psi. I have had mine up to 25 psi with my t66 no problem, so what ever. Its not that i'm too cheap to buy something "better", but he's local, and damn you cant beat the prices. Also stands 100% behind his products, so i'm satisfied. if I could fit a cottons performance, or rjc intercooler in the elky, I would buy one. But I have to use what fits. Those stock locations are looking REAL tempting right now, but i'd rather pay a few hundred less locally, than pay somebody for shipping and a few hundred more for the exact same product. Does'nt it seem funny, gbody, hyetech, and gn1 performance started selling the "same" looking product at the same time? huh, i need some headers too, anybody know where I could get a good pair?
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