I've just brought a pair of "Brembo" vented brake disks for my Passat from GSF (OEM fitment) and they were £26.50 each including VAT.
Why is it that if these were for a motorcycle (of which I have a couple) they would be upwards of £200 each, (maybe more)!
I know the old chestnut "supply and demand" come into it and modern bike disks are generally more complex to manufacture but can there really be any justification for a 650%+ difference in price?
I can hear the "biker haters" sniggering from here ;-)
|
I'd bet the car brakes would outsell the bike 10,000 to 1 (and thats very conserative) around the world making tooling / set up costs minimal. Not only Golf , Passat, but Seat, Skoda et all
|
I'd bet the car brakes would outsell the bike 10,000 to 1 (and thats very conserative) around the world making tooling / set up costs minimal. Not only Golf , Passat, but Seat, Skoda et all
Thing is though that there will be a smaller number of factories producing the bike discs, which would mean that the setup costs should be similar as it's not just the same amount of companies making much smaller quantities of parts.
In that instance supply and demand comes into play, but even then the parts should be no more than double the price of the car components, assuming a similar manufacturing cost.
I can see why the OP is frustrated.
|
|
|
|
Nick,
I read the other day that you were based in Merseyside and you have a lot of bikes. I don't suppose you have a place opposite a famous (in biker circles) pub do you?
|
Adam,
Not lots of bikes, only three (and one of them is in bits). so I'm not sure where you mean, sorry!
|
Where I'm thinking of is Maghull.
It was a long shot but it's been a small world on here before!
|
I would give the discs a thorough check over, Nick. I bought some Brembo "High Carbon" ventilated front discs for my car from a mail order place. When I looked at them I spotted that one disc had two hairline cracks on the inside edge, which could not have happened in transit. The mail order place just said "do what you want with them, we'll send you some more", which they did without any hassle.
With the Brembo name I was expecting high quality, but this particular disc must have slipped through their quality control. They look to me like quite rough castings machined up to suit; I would guess bike discs are a much more precision engineered product? (but I know very little about bikes!).
Rich.
|
Car discs - apart from a few high performance models - are purely functional.
Bike discs are functional and are also an item of decoration.
You pay extra for the finishing...
madf
|
|
Bike disks (if you ignore the centres that hold the braking disc with floating buttons) are just a flat bit of steel - car ones are many shapes and possibly vented. Still difficult to see where a tenfold increase in cost comes from.
|
|
|
|
Are you sure these discs are genuine Brembo? £26.50 seems very cheap for what are regarded as "high end "quality components. Fiat recently quoted me around £180 for a pair of OE discs for my coupe. A search on the net puts quality car discs (vented and grooved) at well in the £150-£200 area.
|
Are you sure these discs are genuine Brembo? £26.50 seems very cheap for what are regarded as "high end "quality components. Fiat recently quoted me around £180 for a pair of OE discs for my coupe. A search on the net puts quality car discs (vented and grooved) at well in the £150-£200 area.
Yep definitely Brembo, but brought from "German Swedish & French" motor factors (otherwise known as GSF) and not from VW.
They also sell the special VW PD spec. 505.01 oil for approx £25 for 5 litres, whereas VW charge approx. £40 for the IDENTICAL product.
|
|
|
|
