Kaymar rear bar

[GTiBren]

the aussie dollar is expected to at least par with the US (Maybe even 1.10) soon. makes it a no-brainer if you ask me. when a kaymar jerry can holder is like $700 AU and a quality LoD is $169 US it's easy to see why more and more ppl opt to import it themselves.

The same applies for roofracks. Surely we could make a decent one in Aust for less than $800

[JasperJ]

Originally Posted by GTiBren

the aussie dollar is expected to at least par with the US (Maybe even 1.10) soon. makes it a no-brainer if you ask me. when a kaymar jerry can holder is like $700 AU and a quality LoD is $169 US it's easy to see why more and more ppl opt to import it themselves.

The same applies for roofracks. Surely we could make a decent one in Aust for less than $800

I agree that the Aus$ will push up to about that sort of level, but this is in part to a weakening US$ and they will have to put up some of their base prices as the price of imported materials rise.

But the cost of items manufactured here will always be higher, I thought that a roof cage style rack would have been much cheaper to have fabbed up here, but in the end it was almost the same cost as buying and importing before taxes and duties from the US. The main drivers of that are wages (we have extremely high tradesman wages here) and economy of scale. The size of the market there (in the US) leads to easy mass production whereas here we have guys doing one off jobs. The last reason is simple competition, if there's is only one guy building a roof rack or even a decent heavy duty rear bar (back to the original topic) here he can effectively charge whatever the market will support.

The only way your going to save significant coin is to do it yourself, but then there are costs associated with that as well. Tools and time to develop skills to avoid driving around with a piece of crap bolted to your car. Speaking of crap bolted to a car, a funny story from yesterday. I was driving along the Ipswich Motorway and a matt black XD falcon drove past with a high set rear wing on, only two problems with this were the wing was from and AU falcon, and the standoffs were those verandah or shelf brackets you buy in bunny's. Piss funny!

[up2nogood]

Funny thing is, aside from the out of this world pricing, the Kaymar could be sold in the US. None of those manufacturers have a load rated tow hitch. Saves having two things fitted to the car. That and it is a good looking bit of gear. ARB rear bar is sold there.

As for economies of scale, then we move on to what Americans pay for ARB product vs what we do........... There's no way that's justified. $750-$800US for a locker that's been shipped to the US and then on-shipped to a distributor there, whereas I am expected to pay $1216AU for a locker here. Shipped from local manufacturer to local distributor.
And it's not selective acquisitions when the US dollar's strong. This is the same price I've been getting for months.........

And that's silly of ARB because they miss aftermarket sales when people fit mechanical lockers and they end up mostly selling to dealers for new cars under finance package. So they maximise the profit on the units sold, yet they shrink their sales as a result.

I have money to spend but I want value for it. But then I'm just a consumer, what would I know?

[JAG811]

Originally Posted by up2nogood

Funny thing is, aside from the out of this world pricing, the Kaymar could be sold in the US. None of those manufacturers have a load rated tow hitch. Saves having two things fitted to the car. That and it is a good looking bit of gear. ARB rear bar is sold there.

As for economies of scale, then we move on to what Americans pay for ARB product vs what we do........... There's no way that's justified. $750-$800US for a locker that's been shipped to the US and then on-shipped to a distributor there, whereas I am expected to pay $1216AU for a locker here. Shipped from local manufacturer to local distributor.
And it's not selective acquisitions when the US dollar's strong. This is the same price I've been getting for months.........

And that's silly of ARB because they miss aftermarket sales when people fit mechanical lockers and they end up mostly selling to dealers for new cars under finance package. So they maximise the profit on the units sold, yet they shrink their sales as a result.

I have money to spend but I want value for it. But then I'm just a consumer, what would I know?

Well put !!

[WranglerDan]

$2.5k? Phark me! My off road trailer was less than that, carries 2 spares, jerries and the camping gear to boot.

[Crackles]

I will buy a new Mig welder and make a bar with dual carrier. Will cost about the same but have a new welder afterwards.

As simple as you make that sound with the cost of steel, bearings, pins, plugs, bolts, lights, latch's, powder coating, studs & consumables doing it yourself will still cost $1600+ & likely end up with tyre carriers that rattle. It certainly wont look as good or have 1/4 the resale of a quality bar like that from Kaymar.
Have made them myself before & to get them right is a time consuming & costly process.