Originally Posted by steve hackel
My comment is in no way meant to be political, but to explain something from my point of view when so many of you are discussing reproduction and or replacement parts for our cars that are not produced here in the United States.
For the past 40+ years I have been rebuilding & restoring small electric motors for antique cars - mostly wiper motors & washer pumps for G.M. cars that were originally built for G.M. by Delco Manufacturing in the 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s.
I am only going to give one small example, but I have dozens of them just as many of the people I work for do, and all of us are in the very same situation when it comes to cost / quality / availability / and U.S.A. vs over seas suppliers (and very cheap consumers too)
My example is this; the washer pumps use small plastic nozzles - squirters, and these are either straight or 90 degrees. The sets are comprised of a base plate, the nozzles, and 5 individual rubber pieces, and every G.M. washer pump uses this example. I can have the injection tooling produced here in the USA by more than one company, and just the 3 pieces of tooling comes to more than $40,000 by the least expensive companies quote. The minimum initial order needed for each item would have been 20,000 pieces (60k total)
and the average cost per piece was nearly $1.35 each. Amortize the cost of the tooling into the per piece and figuring my first order, I need to come up with $121,000. I located a manufacturer in India that produces, among other things, many of the plastic interior components for Lexus corp. and their quotes were the average of all that I received. MY tooling costs were nearly $2,000 each, my minimum run were at 2,000 pieces each, and my per piece cost was at $.42 each - plus shipping, import duties, VACS etc.
I can either have the parts made here in the USA or have them made over seas- my customers are NOT WILLING to pay the cost of the items if they are made here in the states, but are willing to pay less and look the other way
for these and other items that all of them need!
So lets assume that Terry Burtz is able to produce a short block engine here in the states for $8,000 to $10,000 and one in China for $3,000, which one are all of you patriots going to buy to continue our hobby?
Look at Todd and all of his personal efforts to produce something we all need, but few of us will ultimately buy; he's producing a great USA made block to our specifications, but he has to do EVERYTHING himself because either no one is capable of producing it or no one is willing to produce it. Where will he be with the cost of his block, what about the crank, rods & pistons, cam shaft
& lifters, valve train and other components?
Soooo, in conclusion, to all of you complaining about foreign made parts but are not willing to pay the cost of American made parts, STOP YOUR CONSTANT BITCHING - step up to the plate and produce something here in the USA , risk some of your hard earned retirement and solve all of our problems by offering something we need for far less than you have invested in it because people will not pay you what you ask, just to break even!
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