Found an Ebay front lip - replica??
08-08-12, 12:51 PM
#31
Lexus Test Driver
@ zmw that was not intended towards you the afford part was in vbb's statement
i think we are all pretty much on the same page even vbb obviously things are so convoluted when it comes to who makes the internals and all of that anymore just like the watches it is amazing lol damn and i wanted a new watch so bad! I do one day want a breitling they are bad ***!
i think we are all pretty much on the same page even vbb obviously things are so convoluted when it comes to who makes the internals and all of that anymore just like the watches it is amazing lol damn and i wanted a new watch so bad! I do one day want a breitling they are bad ***!
Last edited by Murph145; 08-08-12 at 12:54 PM.
08-08-12, 01:00 PM
#33
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Expanding on the point vbb was making... It's all about opportunity cost. Sure you could spend $770 (+$370 for CF) on an authentic Lexon front lip and pad their profit margin or you could spend $220 on an eBay one which will look and function exactly the same. You could do any number of things with the money you saved... toss money at your 401k, buy some new clothes, go out and get a roof spoiler, intake, etc etc. Like somebody pointed out - we're not talking about brake or suspension parts here. It's a freggin' lip! Unless you're showing the car or keeping it in a museum, who cares. Sure Lexon needs to recover R&D costs but if they really need to charge >50% profit margin then maybe it's not a viable business and the market will dictate what happens with their company.
On the subject - if I know for a fact that a company goes out of it's way to hire Americans, incorporates as many sustainable practices as it can, or handles it's animals humanely (in the case of food), then I will go out of my way to support them.
On the subject - if I know for a fact that a company goes out of it's way to hire Americans, incorporates as many sustainable practices as it can, or handles it's animals humanely (in the case of food), then I will go out of my way to support them.
08-08-12, 01:16 PM
#34
Expanding on the point vbb was making... It's all about opportunity cost. Sure you could spend $770 (+$370 for CF) on an authentic Lexon front lip and pad their profit margin or you could spend $220 on an eBay one which will look and function exactly the same. You could do any number of things with the money you saved... toss money at your 401k, buy some new clothes, go out and get a roof spoiler, intake, etc etc. Like somebody pointed out - we're not talking about brake or suspension parts here. It's a freggin' lip! Unless you're showing the car or keeping it in a museum, who cares. Sure Lexon needs to recover R&D costs but if they really need to charge >50% profit margin then maybe it's not a viable business and the market will dictate what happens with their company.
On the subject - if I know for a fact that a company goes out of it's way to hire Americans, incorporates as many sustainable practices as it can, or handles it's animals humanely (in the case of food), then I will go out of my way to support them.
08-08-12, 02:36 PM
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Actually the biggest reason I wouldn't spend $1,000 on an authentic front lip . . . the only people who will even notice or care are the dorks at car meets. I'll admit I'm one of those dorks since I own an "F" hat and a shirt that says "2UR-GSE, My Anti-Drug".
08-08-12, 05:31 PM
#38
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My point is these comapnies would see far less up take on fake parts if their parts were marked up into the sky for something that costs them maybe 25$ to make. It's not like I think ANY of these companies did any real R&D, I would bet that spoiler has never been wind tunneled or flow tested for turbulance, and it's purely there for cosmetics, in which case it took someone just a few days to take a design they've used on other cars, re-arrange it a bit, redo the mounting holes and and then create a mold.
The reality is that the brand name companies are very likely NOT producing their own product and are having them mass made in China anyway.
The reality is that the brand name companies are very likely NOT producing their own product and are having them mass made in China anyway.
Look, if people want to buy replicas, then by all means go for it. Just man up and admit that you are too cheap to buy the real thing. No shame in it. But don't try to justify it by:
a.) Blatantly dismissing the process and resources required to produce a car part to the market. If it's as easy as you mention, then we would have tons of original designs to choose from, rather than having 5 different knock offs of the same lip. It doesn't matter that the part is ultimately made in China or not. It's their product, and they can charge a billion dollars if they want to, and you can choose to not buy it. But that still wouldn't make it appropriate to rip off their design and sell it for 10 bucks. Unless your name is Robin Hood, I suppose.
b.) Rationalizing that it's a cosmetic part to be damaged. How the product is used cannot be utilized to objectively judge the value of the product. I can use $100 bills as toilet paper, but the bills are still worth $100.
c.) Claiming that the general public will not be able to identify the real vs. the fake product. Actually, you know what, that's a really great point. Most people have no idea what an ISF is, and they think I drive an ISX50. I'm going to trade in my car now.
08-08-12, 06:03 PM
#41
Lexus Champion
Which part of the afford statement didn't you like? I simply was making the point that being able to afford a 60k$ toyota is something most people can't do - and you didn't get to that point in your life by being stupid with money.
I will contest you one thing though, being a watch guy, I really enjoy having nice watches - it's one of my things - and since men only wear but one piece of jewelry (well me anyway - and my wedding ring) I can justify buying nice watches, or sort of. BUT I also have some very very nice swiss made replicas, and they are every bit as good of a watch as the rolex or brietling they are replicating - and in the case of the rolexes actually are more accurate and keep better time. In this case you are still paying for swiss manufactured watches where only the styling is replicated.
Again don't get me wrong, I value and wear the real watches, but they are no better a product than some of the replicas I have, the exception I would say is with the breitlings where every breitling time piece has a COSC certification and the replicas do not - not all Rolex, or PP, or tags are COSC certified watches. - There however is a HUGE difference in quality from the chinese and even japanese knock off watches - and if you're a watch guy you know that virtually EVERY watch manufacturer uses one of two or 3 movements, and not even breitling makes their own movements anymore, in fact even most Rolex's now use a mass produced ETA 27 jewel movement or zenith movements - all of which are available for just a few hundred dollars to virtually any watch manufacturer, with valjoux being the 2nd most used movement, and the lesser expensive option (not a bad movement at all, just not quite as exact as the ETA)
Watches and the watch business is a bit of a farce honestly, with huge huge huge mark up, when everyone is using all the same internal components, the only difference is the case design, the case material and the brand name...
-Z
This is a huge tangent, and largely moot
I will contest you one thing though, being a watch guy, I really enjoy having nice watches - it's one of my things - and since men only wear but one piece of jewelry (well me anyway - and my wedding ring) I can justify buying nice watches, or sort of. BUT I also have some very very nice swiss made replicas, and they are every bit as good of a watch as the rolex or brietling they are replicating - and in the case of the rolexes actually are more accurate and keep better time. In this case you are still paying for swiss manufactured watches where only the styling is replicated.
Again don't get me wrong, I value and wear the real watches, but they are no better a product than some of the replicas I have, the exception I would say is with the breitlings where every breitling time piece has a COSC certification and the replicas do not - not all Rolex, or PP, or tags are COSC certified watches. - There however is a HUGE difference in quality from the chinese and even japanese knock off watches - and if you're a watch guy you know that virtually EVERY watch manufacturer uses one of two or 3 movements, and not even breitling makes their own movements anymore, in fact even most Rolex's now use a mass produced ETA 27 jewel movement or zenith movements - all of which are available for just a few hundred dollars to virtually any watch manufacturer, with valjoux being the 2nd most used movement, and the lesser expensive option (not a bad movement at all, just not quite as exact as the ETA)
Watches and the watch business is a bit of a farce honestly, with huge huge huge mark up, when everyone is using all the same internal components, the only difference is the case design, the case material and the brand name...
-Z
This is a huge tangent, and largely moot
After reading through all of this, I would like to retract my statement. I mean if it looks the same, fits the same, and you can get it professionally painted and it looks good...then why not?
blitz_714 made a comment about my "exhaust" setup a few weeks ago...he said i should buy the Joe Z exhaust system and don't be cheap. But it had nothing to do with being cheap. I didn't see the value in spending $1600 for an exhaust, and PERSONALLY, I didn't like the sound. I wanted something loud....aggressive.....ricey maybe even...so i went with the resonator & muffler delete. It cost me $100 and i love the way my car sounds. Did I gain performance? Probably not...may have even lost performance. The thing is I just didn't see the value in spending $1600. Perceived value is something Murph145 brought up.
Some things in life are worth it...some things aren't. I had a Gucci wallet and after 2 years of wearing it, it's falling apart. My Tumi wallet that was 50% cheaper I've had for over 6 years and it's still fine. Price sometimes doesn't mean quality.
Look at the carbon fiber in the engine bay of this Ferrari F430
and one last note...
LOVE MY ZENITH!
08-08-12, 06:59 PM
#43
meh id buy a rep lip cause i know im gonna destroy it
no point in buying something authentic cause i know it will get destroyed. if my f was a show car or i had more money than i could count sure id pay for a real thing.
im not gonna lie to people and tell them i bought the real thing when i didnt. dont care that much about what people think. its my car and i do what i want
no point in buying something authentic cause i know it will get destroyed. if my f was a show car or i had more money than i could count sure id pay for a real thing.
im not gonna lie to people and tell them i bought the real thing when i didnt. dont care that much about what people think. its my car and i do what i want
08-08-12, 08:25 PM
#44
The comparison I would make is this - Yamaha makes the ISF 5.0L motor, Toyota buys this motor and the ZF transmission for the ISF, if someone were to build a car that looked JUST like the ISF, and then bought the same motor and trans for it, the car would perform identically, and it would take a fully trained specialist to determine whether or not it was a real ISF - In fact it might actually take disassembling the new FISF (fake ISF!) to figure out if it were real.
This is the same as good replica watches. The internals are made by ETA swiss in most cases where a high dollar automatic is concerned, the lower end line of breitling and rolex also use the valjoux swiss movements, that same movement is also used by invicta for example in their reserve line of automatic, and just because invicta makes some 50$ watches mean they don't have other very high quality watches.
I could go on and on about watches but just suffice it to say that watch replicas come in varying qualities, I assure you the one you bought in NY was the 25$ chinese knock off variety, which when inspected even by an amateur watch collector would be obvious.
In fact I actually own a perfect example of how the above works, I have a 750$ invicta reserve watch with the ETA27 chrono movement, cosc certified invicta (one of few they make) - it's a great daily wear watch, solid titanium case, solid titanium band, honestly one of my favorite watches. I also have a 2004 Breitling chronomat 44, this breitling uses the SAME movement yet it cost nearly 10x as much. It's a stainless watch, stainless bracelet, so the cost wasn't for precious metal or stones, it was simply brand name and quality of case, and face. In the case of the breitling it also has a real sapphire crystal, where as the invicta uses a hardened glass they call "flame fusion" treated, it's very scratch resistent but not scratch proof the way the breitling should be.
In the 50s it was very different, rolex, breitling, Philipe Patek, hamilton, IWC, etc they all used to make their own movements by hand, with generally hamilton, IWC and breitling being considered the most accurate as they catered to pilots and military - but just like this thread started, it wasn't cost effective for them to continue to do that so they began to outsource, in the case of Breitling they still own a company that makes some of their movements, but for the majority of their watches they acquire ETA or Valjoux movements, still made by the swiss (note that both of those movements also have japanese counterparts, that while mechanically identical are considered less accurate, and cannot be COSC certified) - so the truth is if you buy a $500 invicta $5k breitling or a 100k$ breitling, or a 250k$ Hublot, they all use the same movement inside now.
The irony of all of this watch nonsense is that even the crappiest Chinese quartz movement using a battery is 10x more accurate, often to with in 15-30 seconds per YEAR where as even a COSC timepiece can drift 15-30 seconds per month at the very least.
sorry for the rambling
can you tell i love watches? lol.
08-08-12, 08:28 PM
#45
oh and as it relates to carbon fiber, and the ferrari, I think I could justify OEM quality type parts for a car like that, but for multiple reasons - the carbon fiber is light, it resists heat soak, and for many it's a piece of artwork - if an intake manifold made out of paper towel rolls made more power, but looked like ***, I would still probably opt for the shiny carbon fiber unless it was a purely dedicated race car...