Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:32:38 -0400
Reply-To: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject: Re: prices was: In praise of VW inline fours
In-Reply-To: <4628CE04.385.33989FE5@vwdiesels.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Since you asked, and I got several other emails with the same question I'll
repost one of my pmail replies at the bottom of this email.
And YES we are about to release the DIY "kit" version of the conversion to
remove our labor, and a bunch of shipping to have a zetec installed with the
same quality of parts for under $5k
Here's my recent news item from the support/dev site:
http://bostig.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=2
"Excellent question! And maybe since you asked others are thinking the same
thing.. so perhaps it needs to be made more public.
One of the design goals of the conversion was to do what others don't, which
is to not put all of your eggs in one basket. The engine being only $600
allows us to do other things, like use brand new wiring harnesses, use high
grade stainless parts and fasteners, use stainless mandrel bent exhaust, and
also to provide things like multiple engine tunes, and email updatable
engine management, ethanol support, develop and test new power adders like
the turbo etc. all while also providing the best warranty on all of those
parts. No other conversion can do this as a result of the engine itself
costing so much. Because we are able to spread the money around to other
parts of the conversion, we raise the total reliability of the conversion as
a whole since you're only as strong as your weakest link. Not only have we
not turned a profit (this is partly due to the lower number of sales, if we
had managed to sell 60 conversions in the same two years, since our fixed
costs would have been the same, we might have been able to pay ourselves
instead of just food and board). If we had to actually pay ourselves for
the labor we put in, it wouldn't work at all, which is why we are changing
the business model because it isn't sustainable. We can't sell people
conversions at cost anymore. That's why the price is going up EVEN higher on
the turnkey, BUT we're also prepping to release the kit version. which will
be the first truly complete and user friendly DIY conversion kit out there..
that way we can save money for folks by not having to ship each engine
twice(since they can find it locally) and let them choose the price of the
engine, if they want to save another $400 they can buy one with 23k miles
instead of under 8k. We can thus STILL maintain the highest levels of
quality like we do now. Just for reference, we calculated one time what it
would cost if we were to develop a Subaru turnkey using the same methods and
component quality that we do now, a Bostig Subaru Turnkey Conversion would
cost in excess of $14K making it totally unrealistic to even think about. In
the kit, the wiring harnesses and fuel pump modulators for instance will
still be brand new from the factory parts, and will be sent finished and
ready to plug and play, not the normal DIY harness with plug and pray. also
if the lower cost of the conversion kit increases volume of sales we perhaps
can edge the price even lower if we can find any economies of scale in the
manufacturing of components(which is VERY challenging when we're talking
about "big" sales numbers being in the tens and hundreds and not
thousands/tens of thousands. It will also reduce our labor burden which will
allow Brady and myself to pick up outside work for spending money so we can
do normal things like go out, or go on vacation, or even just have days off
and actually enjoy our own vehicles. which is what we miss the most and is
the reason it isn't sustainable, we'd still scrap along for room and board,
but we don't have the freedom we wanted to build into the business, the kit
may be just the thing we need to allow more people to have zetecs, and to
allow us to have some play time.
Jim
"
-----Original Message-----
From: Shawn Wright [mailto:vwdiesels@GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 10:28 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: prices was: In praise of VW inline fours
Jim,
Sorry to come out of left field, and probably a dumb question... but if the
engines are $200
used, why is your kit ~$8000? Is it a new engine instead? Do you sell the
parts to allow one to
convert a Vanagon using a $200 engine? Just curious...
On 19 Apr 2007 at 20:23, Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM> wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/2v8bcc
>
> That's true $600 IS 3 times $200. But that doesn't mean that the engines
in
> general are 3 times the price... they aren't. I'm just showing you yet
another
> example of something you can't get with the ABA. You won't find 30 of them
for
> $600 shipped, all with under 8k miles on them. And for the $200, the ABA
will
> still have way higher mileage. Sorry about the long link. Actually it
would be
> much more helpful for me to see what you mean if you go to car-part.com
and
> lookup what you're talking about and tinyurl the link to me... pmail
perhaps
>
> Jim
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pdooley [mailto:psdooley@VERIZON.NET]
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 7:22 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: In praise of VW inline fours
>
> Jim- check out http://tinyurl.com
> The link you gave below is not click-able.
>
> $600 is still three times $200..
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Jim Akiba
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11:55 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: In praise of VW inline fours
>
> Here you go:
>
>
<http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?userSearch=int&userPID=1000&user
>
Location=All+States&userIMS=&userInterchange=F%3DB%40N&userSide=&userDate=20
>
01&userDate2=2001&dbModel=27.20.1.1&userModel=Ford%20Focus&dbPart=300.1&user
>
Part=Engine&sessionID=234400624&userPreference=price&userUID=0&userBroker=&i
> Key=&userPage=75>
>
> Page 75 of 101 of results.
>
> Our average price paid is $600 shipped to boston, all less than 8k miles
> across 30 engines so far, that is very hard to find in anything else.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pdooley [mailto:psdooley@VERIZON.NET]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10:50 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: In praise of VW inline fours
>
> That's a pretty generic link.
>
> I poked around but could only find zetecs in the $1000 price range.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Jim Akiba
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 9:01 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: In praise of VW inline fours
>
> Yeah you can, and with less miles.
>
> www.car-part.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pdooley [mailto:psdooley@verizon.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 8:25 PM
> To: 'Jim Akiba'; vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: RE: In praise of VW inline fours
>
> The zetec sounds like a nice engine.
> Too bad you can't buy for $200 like the ABA.
Shawn Wright
http://members.shaw.ca/vwdiesels
'88 Westy 1.6TD 5 speed
'85 Jetta Diesel 1.6NA
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