This Chinese Are Already Knocking Off Parts

[gthirtyfizle]

Some "replica" parts look better than authentics... just sayin (i have all auhtnetics)

[rubber_ducky]

Originally Posted by YMB_M3_j2

I love paying less for mods. The markup on the OEM parts is up there a little much..its not about the money at all..its principal..even some of the forum sponsors charge outrageous prices for stuff that shouldnt be that high. $110 for paint reflectors? really? the parts cost is only $21.00 and paint labor and costs probably around $15.00 but since they are the first ones to sell them they can charge a higher cost so i welcome the chinese products because a lot of them are great quality.

For me personally, it's well worth the extra dough to not have to lob a call into the parts department at my dealer to order unpainted reflectors. Then to drive there to pick them up. Then drive to a body shop to get them painted. Then drive back to the body shop to pick up the finished product.

[motex]

I just got painted my front grill rings using my usual body shop and they did not charge me a dime since I'm a long time customer, perfect job, no regrets

[JL M3]

Anyone actually order these?

[Boostin FD]

Originally Posted by JL M3

Anyone actually order these?

I would if shipping wasn't more than the part.

[DandyKing]

Originally Posted by Boostin FD

I would if shipping wasn't more than the part.

Hahaha exactly. Shipping costs are crazy! I was like oh man savings passed up to the shipper lol

[myemailsea]

Originally Posted by rubber_ducky

For me personally, it's well worth the extra dough to not have to lob a call into the parts department at my dealer to order unpainted reflectors. Then to drive there to pick them up. Then drive to a body shop to get them painted. Then drive back to the body shop to pick up the finished product.

[04RC51]

Can someone buy the cheap knockoff junk and put it next to the OEM stuff a year from now so we can laugh at how the resins faded and turned yellow? I've seen cheap, knockoff carbon on cars and bikes and the carbon pits and fades much quicker than the bigger, namebrand stuff due to higher quality resins and materials used. But spend your money and save your pennies buying the cheaper stuff. You spent $80k for the car, it's not like you have an extra $20 or $30 left to buy the higher quality parts with.

[Merli]

Originally Posted by 04RC51

You spent $80k for the car, it's not like you have an extra $20 or $30 left to buy the higher quality parts with.

Some people on here... thinking they're the Bill Gates because they paid $80k for a car.

BMW M3/M4s cost $180-$200k in Australia. I guess I should be thankful that Australians who paid $80k for their Volvo V60 wagons and VW Passats don't have their golden dildos shoved halfway up their asses like half the people on these forums

Pull your head in... Talking down on Chinese-manufactured parts doesn't make you cool, it just highlights how much of a flaming idiot you are, and draws attention to your complete lack of fiscal responsibility and understanding.

edit: I'm not done.

The purchase price of the car should have little bearing on the price of accessories. Some, but not to the extent that we're getting slapped with these days. A straight-through exhaust with little R&D, just piping and exhaust tips (like a certain exhaust currently being advertised on the forums) that costs $400 to manufacture (total cost - R&D, materials, labor) shouldn't be sold for $600 for a Honda Civic and $4000 for a BMW M3 just because of the inital purchase price of the car. $1k? Sure, I could stomach that... $1.5k? ehhhhhh... But $4k, simply because the initial purchase price of the car was a certain amount? Come on.

Stop driving the prices of aftermarket equipment up because paying 4000% markup for goods makes you feel rich. You're not. You paid $80k for your car, not $500k. We don't drive a McLaren 650S or a Pagani Huraya, we drive BMWs. Mass produced, just like the 320i and 420i.

The fact that you're willing to pay $6k for a Akra exhaust for an $80k car makes the situation even MORE ridiculous. If you paid $200k for it, then that's one thing, but paying 7.5% of the purchase price of a car for an exhaust, and talking down to people who don't want to pay 7.5% of the cost of a car for some metal piping and valves, or 4% of the purchase price for a front lip and rear diffuser??? Someone wake me up. This can't be reality.

If you have the financial means to pay for premium products, at a massive markup, then great... Nothing wrong with offering premium products to the market. But how did we get to the state where this was the norm, and paying a few hundred dollars (the reasonable price point for these NON-STRUCTURAL, COSMETIC items) gets you ridiculed by some college graduate who thinks $80k for a car means you should be paying ridiculous pricing for aftermarket goods?

This needs to be fixed.

[Wah]

I had knockoff CF mirrors on my last M3 and it really looked like shit after a year or two. I won't buy none OEM CF stuff anymore. On the other hand, I've been looking at the OEM mirror caps for a while now, and $700 for a pair is still hard to swallow.

[Swancoat]

Seems like there's several issues being discussed here at once.

Are parts overpriced for these cars? Sure seems like it, and the exhausts drive me insane. Nothing any more special than the exhausts sold for other cars, but coming in at 2-3x the price is ridiculous. Part of the argument can be that there are simply fewer M cars sold than say, Camaros, so the R&D costs have to be amortized across fewer units (driving the cost up), but even considering that, it appears that there's some reservation pricing going on here. They figure if you pay up for the car, you will pay up for the accessories.

As far as the Chinese parts go... Really, I don't care where the part is made, or that it has to be expensive to be good. That being said, there is a reasonable correlation between where parts are made, and the quality available, and the reputation of Chinese manufacturing isn't exactly stellar. I think there certainly ARE high quality Chinese made parts, but it's near tough to just guess from the photos posted on the internet. And at least American/European manufacturers tend to stand behind their product a bit more.

Most offensive to me though is Chinese manufactured copies of other manufacturers' designs and intellectual property. There's really no defense for this. They're taking someone else's R&D expense or design expertise and leveraging it for free. I hear a lot of people on here making all sorts of excuses to justify it to themselves, but basically you're buying a stolen design (that being said, some 'designs' aren't really much of a design, like say, BMW's 'diffuser'. Heck, if you sent anyone to the drawing board to make a diffuser for the M3 without seeing BMW's, I'd guess 8 out of 10 of them end up looking exactly like that. It's a pretty standard styling affectation).

So where does that leave us? I want to only buy original parts from the original designing vendor. There is value to having some amount of certainty on a higher manufacturing quality as well as better warranty, etc... (I understand that some Wal-Mart shoppers don't care for that much, and buy only on price. That's your prerogative, fine.). However, I also feel that some vendors definitely take advantage of this and price over and above that added value. (Exhausts are the great example again. There's no way the exhaust for a BMW costs 2-3 times to make as for another car).

Ultimately, the vendors taking advantage of this is what's leading to all of the knock off parts anyway. If they would charge a more modest premium to account for the lower volumes, there would be much fewer knock offs.

[YMB-M3-J2]

Originally Posted by rubber_ducky

For me personally, it's well worth the extra dough to not have to lob a call into the parts department at my dealer to order unpainted reflectors. Then to drive there to pick them up. Then drive to a body shop to get them painted. Then drive back to the body shop to pick up the finished product.

i completely agree with you and i did buy them for $110 because i didnt want to deal with all that crap you described. My point was that the markup on some of these "painted" OEM items are a little excessive because that vendor was the first one to buy a bunch of parts from the local parts dept and paint them. Maybe the reflectors were a bad example but i think the Black powder coats exhaust tips are a better one.. They are $400 for a set on a site sponsors website. I went to the powder coat place around the corner from my house and they will do 6 tips(M4=4 & X4=2) for $100 and it will take them 2 days and this is something i could deal with not having on my car for a few days to save a few hundred dollars.

[04RC51]

Originally Posted by Wah

I had knockoff CF mirrors on my last M3 and it really looked like shit after a year or two. I won't buy none OEM CF stuff anymore. On the other hand, I've been looking at the OEM mirror caps for a while now, and $700 for a pair is still hard to swallow.

Yep! You go with cheap, knockoff parts made with cheap resin and you get what you paid for after they turn yellow and the finish develops pits with a milky haze on it. In the end all that cheap garbage doesn't seem like much of a deal when you factor in that you need to replace it all after the elements all but force you to replace it after 18mos. But cheapos will buy it and think it looks amazeballs but in the end we will all able to tell who skimped on their aftermarket parts.

[03Saleen]

Originally Posted by 04RC51

Yep! You go with cheap, knockoff parts made with cheap resin and you get what you paid for after they turn yellow and the finish develops pits with a milky haze on it. In the end all that cheap garbage doesn't seem like much of a deal when you factor in that you need to replace it all after the elements all but force you to replace it after 18mos. But cheapos will buy it and think it looks amazeballs but in the end we will all able to tell who skimped on their aftermarket parts.

My point exactly! You get what you pay for and end up paying double because you have to replace it!

[playinJ30]

Originally Posted by Merli

Some people on here... thinking they're the Bill Gates because they paid $80k for a car.

BMW M3/M4s cost $180-$200k in Australia. I guess I should be thankful that Australians who paid $80k for their Volvo V60 wagons and VW Passats don't have their golden dildos shoved halfway up their asses like half the people on these forums

Pull your head in... Talking down on Chinese-manufactured parts doesn't make you cool, it just highlights how much of a flaming idiot you are, and draws attention to your complete lack of fiscal responsibility and understanding.

edit: I'm not done.

The purchase price of the car should have little bearing on the price of accessories. Some, but not to the extent that we're getting slapped with these days. A straight-through exhaust with little R&D, just piping and exhaust tips (like a certain exhaust currently being advertised on the forums) that costs $400 to manufacture (total cost - R&D, materials, labor) shouldn't be sold for $600 for a Honda Civic and $4000 for a BMW M3 just because of the inital purchase price of the car. $1k? Sure, I could stomach that... $1.5k? ehhhhhh... But $4k, simply because the initial purchase price of the car was a certain amount? Come on.

Stop driving the prices of aftermarket equipment up because paying 4000% markup for goods makes you feel rich. You're not. You paid $80k for your car, not $500k. We don't drive a McLaren 650S or a Pagani Huraya, we drive BMWs. Mass produced, just like the 320i and 420i.

The fact that you're willing to pay $6k for a Akra exhaust for an $80k car makes the situation even MORE ridiculous. If you paid $200k for it, then that's one thing, but paying 7.5% of the purchase price of a car for an exhaust, and talking down to people who don't want to pay 7.5% of the cost of a car for some metal piping and valves, or 4% of the purchase price for a front lip and rear diffuser??? Someone wake me up. This can't be reality.

If you have the financial means to pay for premium products, at a massive markup, then great... Nothing wrong with offering premium products to the market. But how did we get to the state where this was the norm, and paying a few hundred dollars (the reasonable price point for these NON-STRUCTURAL, COSMETIC items) gets you ridiculed by some college graduate who thinks $80k for a car means you should be paying ridiculous pricing for aftermarket goods?

This needs to be fixed.

fiscal responsibility is strong with you... understanding of modern economics is not.

It's not up to you to determine the price of goods sold. The price is determined by the market. You are arguing that a business shouldn't take a higher profit margin on a product because the cost to produce it is still low. It would stand to reason that there are far more aftermarket exhausts made for Civics or other cheaper mass produced vehicles because there are more of those cars on the road than an $80K M3. This is what we call VOLUME. In order to cover overhead with lower volume, you need to run a higher margin on the goods you sell. If these folks are smart, they are trying to sell their products at the correct price point to maximize the balance between profit margin and demand.

You are also arguing that it is somehow the consumer's fault for driving up the price of aftermarket parts, and yet in the same post you are telling people they shouldn't criticize others for their purchasing behavior (something I agree with, but cannot ignore the hypocrisy of your post). The consumer clearly finds value at that price point, or else the products wouldn't be on the market... or they won't be for long.

We didn't "get to a point"... high quality aftermarket parts for more expensive cars have always been more expensive. Try buying a $5000 exhaust for a Ferrari... you might be able to buy a few tips at that price.

Is there some smoke and mirrors in terms of quality from one manufacturer to another? Yes. You can often find parts that will do just as good a job for a lower price... but in general, you do get what you pay for. A lot of the higher dollar parts also come with guarantees, warranties, higher levels of service... etc. Things that people who can afford an $80k car are willing to pay for... and sometimes not.

But your "critique", if you want to call it that, is frankly a bunch of hot, hypocritical air.

That's just my opinion.

[oldkingdom]

Hadn't seen this one until now...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-Performanc...6c1e12&vxp=mtr