The R3VLimited rare parts thread

[TeXJ]

nice score!

[McGyver]

DealinDave was also selling them a few months ago, something like $1250 for a new dash and everyone got pissed because everyone here is cheap and driving hoopties held together by zipties.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

DealinDave was also selling them a few months ago, something like $1250 for a new dash and everyone got pissed because everyone here is cheap and driving hoopties held together by zipties.

And they weren’t even making money that was cost. BMW just keeps raising the prices of parts for these old cars. Every time they sell out it goes NLA for a few months and then comes back with a 20-30% increase in price for no reason.

[mr2peak]

Yup, that's what happens. They are currently NLA with no dates announced to restart production.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Yup, that's what happens. They are currently NLA with no dates announced to restart production.

Its really annoying and really only hurts BMW. It opens the door for aftermarket companies to come in and make a quality product but half the cost and take all their sales. Yet BMW says they are going to be supporting the older models more but clearly just want the money from them.

[varg]

Not quite. While I'm no fan of BMW I have to defend them here and say I think you misunderstand production and supply/demand a bit. First of all, just because a part has been made before doesn't mean producing more merely costs material and factory time. Molds and tooling wear out, and anyone remotely familiar with production knows that stuff is really expensive. That cost has to be paid off, a company doesn't exist to lose money pleasing forum users. If you make stuff with old worn out molds and tooling quality suffers and then you guys would be complaining about that. Also, as the cars become less common there is less demand for parts so the cost of the new tooling and production has to be spread out over fewer parts, and price goes up significantly. Molds and production for something like a one piece dashboard are worse, the part is fairly complex and very large, the production of it isn't simple and shares no parts with any other item. The sales volume for a new dashboard has to be quite small by an auto parts standard too, the part is E30 specific and even then only to a small fraction of the cars out there will have it replaced over whatever period BMW's business end would like to see the production cost paid off.

DealinDave was also selling them a few months ago, something like $1250 for a new dash and everyone got pissed because everyone here is cheap and driving hoopties held together by zipties.

Well of course most people weren't happy with that price. It's ridiculous to spend 1/2-1/4 of your car's cost on a dash which only needs replacing for Vanity's sake in most people's eyes.

[flyboyx]

its a shame we don't have aftermarket support like the american made 60's muscle.

the mustang is a good case study. i'm pretty sure you can build the entire car with aftermarket parts if you have enough money

[bradnic]

truth. good look finding e30 floor pan sheet metal.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Not quite. While I'm no fan of BMW I have to defend them here and say I think you misunderstand production and supply/demand a bit. First of all, just because a part has been made before doesn't mean producing more merely costs material and factory time. Molds and tooling wear out, and anyone remotely familiar with production knows that stuff is really expensive. That cost has to be paid off, a company doesn't exist to lose money pleasing forum users. If you make stuff with old worn out molds and tooling quality suffers and then you guys would be complaining about that. Also, as the cars become less common there is less demand for parts so the cost of the new tooling and production has to be spread out over fewer parts, and price goes up significantly. Molds and production for something like a one piece dashboard are worse, the part is fairly complex and very large, the production of it isn't simple and shares no parts with any other item. The sales volume for a new dashboard has to be quite small by an auto parts standard too, the part is E30 specific and even then only to a small fraction of the cars out there will have it replaced over whatever period BMW's business end would like to see the production cost paid off.



Well of course most people weren't happy with that price. It's ridiculous to spend 1/2-1/4 of your car's cost on a dash which only needs replacing for Vanity's sake in most people's eyes.

I agree about cost of manufacturing but at some point the cost will be so high no one will buy them and just use an alternative. So they will just have them on the shelf for ever. The popularity of these old BMW’s have sky rocketed. So much so some of the dealerships are hiring techs with classic car experience to handle the customers that bring them in. If this is the case then you would think they would be trying to make as many parts as they can and try and keep cost down as they grow in popularity but they are just milking it for all its worth because they know the aftermarket world of stock parts is very small for these cars.

[Mustachio]

Got really lucky and managed to score a brand new Zender evo spoiler. Never thought that these are made out of rubber like material, considering the size and weight.

Finally managed to get the pics properly uploaded...





I have a new flap with it too, but it has what looks like a crack in the middle. It doesn't go all the way through, shows just on one side. Not sure if its a factory defect or got damaged at some point

[TeXJ]

just get the the photobucket hotlink fix, for chrome and firefox, pics are now working

[varg]

I agree about cost of manufacturing but at some point the cost will be so high no one will buy them and just use an alternative. So they will just have them on the shelf for ever. The popularity of these old BMW’s have sky rocketed. So much so some of the dealerships are hiring techs with classic car experience to handle the customers that bring them in. If this is the case then you would think they would be trying to make as many parts as they can and try and keep cost down as they grow in popularity but they are just milking it for all its worth because they know the aftermarket world of stock parts is very small for these cars.

They aren't as popular or as common as you'd think sitting on a BMW forum, and the market will bear the high prices as the cars become less common and more collectible. They aren't gouging, they're going for a supply/demand equilibrium. Going with the dashboard as that's a good example, collectors with $20,000 E30s will spend $1,000+ on a new dash to have that perfect look, r3v posters with $5,000 E30s will wince at $500 and can't be pleased. If you produce enough of them that you'd make a decent profit selling them all at half the price, you'll probably never sell them all and your surplus inventory will be taking up warehouse space and deteriorating indefinitely.

[bradnic]

^ this

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Just depends on the part i think. People would buy door seals cause just about every one of these cars needs them but at 300 a side. That wont happen

[bradnic]

^ also this lol

I think we would all love to see a classic car aftermarket like what exists for chevy ford mopar etc. Those markets are much bigger in the US than the E30 market ever will be.

So I guess it's really up to German aftermarket providers to deliver in sufficient volume to get us the unit pricing we all want. Even if that does happen though, OEM prices will keep growing to serve the wealthy collectors that can afford them.

Not to mention they'll have a lot more coin in their pocket now to dedicate to this stuff. Start buying real estate lol