Has the world really gone mad?

[mickthemaverick]

I generally keep an eye on the parts thread for interest but this morning Marc answered a request for some part numbers and as usual gave a full answer with the numbers and prices:

You can see the thread here.

The point I am picking up on is the cost of a single injector. It means a full set is around £2.5k compared to a new carburetor eg this one which can be had for a mere £120 or so. I can't help thinking that the 'enhance it for enhancements sake' has just taken the whole concept of motoring into realms of expense which just aren't necessary let alone desired!! No doubt lots of people will be saying, it's more efficient, it's greener, it's more environmentally friendly etc etc. My answer to them is stop flying all over the place in jet aircraft just to sit in the sun and you'll make a hell of a lot more impact on the environment than replacing old reliable cheap technology for the 'latest thing' etc etc etc.

[RichardW]

Most dealer prices are absurd - expect you can buy the same injectors elsewhere for half the price.

[mickthemaverick]

Even half the price would still be 10 times the price of a carburetor Richard!!

[mickthemaverick]

On this topic I've just been watching an old episode of QI. Apparently Edinburgh University studied voluntary charity fundraising and discovered that for £32000 raised by charity parachute jumps, the NHS had a bill of £625000 to treat the jumpers!! The main irony being that the majority of the funds raised were for NHS related services!!

[Zelandeth]

Not sure how far I'd trust a £120 carburettor to be honest. Though I'm prepared to be proven wrong. Even saying around £500 for the number of carefully machined bits involved (which was the price I found for a new Weber one I was digging for someone a couple of years ago - that was an actual genuine Weber) doesn't feel unreasonable to me in the grand scheme of things. A new flat slide Mikuni for the Trabant is ~£350 - though that is already tuned for the engine by the seller so wouldn't surprise me if you could actually find that a little cheaper.

I think a lot of the problem with really recent stuff though has just been the sheer lengths that have been gone to squeak existing engine designs through to meet the Euro 6 regs. Of course as ICE production is slated to be history in the relatively near future nobody wants to do the R&D to make a whole new engine - which really would have been the sensible way to approach E6. It does mean that parts for some components, especially fuel and emission control bits are just stupidly expensive. Third party ones seem to be such a lottery as well that if I had a car new enough for this to be relevant I'd probably just grit my teeth and pay for genuine. Assuming you *can* even get them from a third party, which I've read for quite a bit of recent VAG cars just isn't an option. Same cars which seems to make something of a habit of lunching the high pressure fuel pump and contaminating the entire fuel system with swarf - cue five figure bill to fix the car (if the parts aren't on indefinite back order) which is probably a year or two out of warranty if that.

I think the last ten years worth of petrol/diesel engined cars before electrification becomes the norm will turn out to be exceptionally short lived. Between over complication, complete and total lack of tolerance for even the slightest bit of neglect, ludicrous manufacturers recommended service intervals and utterly bonkers parts prices they're just going to be a liability. How highly stressed some of them are while only having a couple of pints of oil and coolant in them definitely won't help either. The current company car VW Multivan has a 1.4 litre petrol developing all of 114bhp - it weights 2.4 tonnes. That is backed by an electric motor...Which is great if the battery is charged. Which given how tiny the battery is doesn't seem to be often in our case. Electric only range (which it defaults to every time you start it) is...13 miles. VW quote more than double that, but that's the number we've found. It manages 32mpg on the motorway, most of the time, of course quickly depleting the battery - dropping several gears to maintain speed as soon as it's presented with anything vaguely resembling a gradient. If you commute five miles in town I'm sure it's great. Beyond that, it's absolutely rubbish. Especially as we can't charge it at home without paying it entirely out of our own pocket. ICE cars are fuelled up via a company fuel card which means we get a chunk of the cost back - they've not made any arrangements for EVs yet. The suggestion is to use the chargers at the office. All three of them. For a building of ~1500 people. Which they are pushing hard to use EVs or plug in hybrids. You can guess how often those are available (when they're not broken). It's also really sluggish when on petrol only! Reckon my 1.9SDI Caddy could have given it a run for its money!

[Hell Razor5543]

Quite a lot of the time it is the 'badge' that inflates the price. I remember an article (many years ago) where a London based company was making fuel injector pumps. When they sold these pumps in their own packaging they were around £900. However, this same pump was also used in BMW vehicles, and when it was in BMW packaging it was £1,600.

I also saw (on Wheeler Dealers) when they had a Maserati in. They needed a part for the gearbox (if my memory is correct). Getting this part from Maserati would have cost several hundred pounds. However, this part was originally made by Alfa Romeo, and was available from them for about £100.