Posted by JBizal on Thursday, February 01, 2007 at 08:27:37 :
In Reply to: Re: you cant build accurate rear fenders posted by John S on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 22:28:11 :
I will give you this. Yes, someone can make fenders or windshield frames. Yes, you can hand dolly and make one for yourself. The problem is that once you take it to a "shop" that is, and has to, charge 70-90 per hour to make a living, the cost of "hand" working a one off part gets out of sight real fast. Anyone can do anything they put their minds to, it just doesn't always make a good business decision. Most of you have not been involved in getting tooling made to make the parts correctly. Example. We tried to have the battery trays for the jeeps made on a production basis. We solicited 3 different companies to make the stamping dies. The cheapest quote back for the tooling alone was $27,000, the most expensive was $38,000. Now, we did get it done cheaper, but we sarificed productivity and added lots of time into the equation. Businesses in the US have high costs, and must produce large quantities in order to offset these costs. This is why we have lost so much production to China. Lots of parts that we want to have made, we can't get a US company to even quote, let alone make them. Just not profitable for most. Sad, but true.
My .02.
John
Follow Ups: