Why why why carbon fiber parts so expensive?

[1SerieStud]

Originally Posted by M_Anthony

Bad comparison, Apple's products are often not well made, suffer from loads of problems (especially on first-generation models), and need servicing frequently. Apple knows this, which is why their customer service is so good, it's the only way to retain customers when you sell laptops with motherboards that fail every few months or phones that don't make phone calls...

Either you've had terrible luck with Apple products, or you have only heard of the negative incidents. I have quite a few Apple products and they have been great throughout their life cycles...in fact, I'm typing this from one that I acquired 3 years ago and has probably been rebooted no more than 20-30, and just for updates/software installations..always on, otherwise.

Apple does put a lot more effort into R&D, manufacturing, and development, and for the most part, their quality is superior. You wanna talk about shitty motherboards? 90%+ of Dell's sales include machines that are at high risk of failure, and they know it. Also, HP/Compaq are as crappy as they come. And let's take it up a notch...none of the last companies I mentioned are capable of developing an OS, and rely solely on Windows as a factory option, which again, gets completely run over by Mac OS.

[11N55]

Originally Posted by M_Anthony

Bad comparison, Apple's products are often not well made, suffer from loads of problems (especially on first-generation models), and need servicing frequently. Apple knows this, which is why their customer service is so good, it's the only way to retain customers when you sell laptops with motherboards that fail every few months or phones that don't make phone calls...

Apple products are only made from superior quality materials. Every apple product I have owned has lasted for a long time and many have taken a beating and still continue to work. It isn't a coincidence that they control such a large market, its common sense. Good products with great engineering that are made from top quality materials will always be bought because they last and outperform the competition. Instead of having to buy 2-3 crappy products you buy one that will last...not to mention, all the time and effort that goes into designing the product. Every Apple product looks good, is easy to use, and doesn't feel cheap.

sorry if i was redundant...

[Simon_135i]

Originally Posted by DTMrack.com

There is a simple and valid explanation for this.

I always thought that the iCarbon pieces had an excellent price. Here's why:

iCarbon is the only carbon fiber company that produces EVERY PIECE out of PURE carbon. They use the SAME manufacturing methods to the 't' that BMW uses as well. So when you buy iCarbon, you are actually paying (a great price) for carbon fiber, not OVER paying for fiberglass (like with most companies).

When I was in SEMA I got to see SO many things and detail so many companies, in wheels, suspensions, etc... So when comparing the carbon fiber pieces, EVERY other company used FRP in most of their pieces.

When you consider the fact that, for example, Vorsteiner's front lip is $887.00 + shipping and it uses FRP construction, and that iCarbon's front lip normally goes for around $700.00 SHIPPED, and uses PURE carbon construction, then the iCarbon lip is extremely cheap.

It's all in the construction. Just like with wheels, you can have wheels that mimic a forged design but are gravity cast and they will be cheap. And the forged ones will be more expensive because they have better construction and are lighter.

Bottom line is that, in actuality, the iCarbon pieces are worth way more than they are sold for. We CHOOSE to only carry products from companies we believe meet high standards of quality. And our opinion is biased always only TO quality.

http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showt...81#post8655481

Hey DTM you better check at some of your stock to make sure this ain't happening... Not so sure if this is the high standard that you were referring to. Hopefully it's an isolated incident but it looks like the trunk pieces may contain resin defects.

[BrokenVert]

I'm not a Mac guy but I've dropped my iPhone a solid 10-15 times and it's still fantastic with almost no scratches or evidence of the fall.

[M_Anthony]

Originally Posted by 1SerieStud

Either you've had terrible luck with Apple products, or you have only heard of the negative incidents. I have quite a few Apple products and they have been great throughout their life cycles...in fact, I'm typing this from one that I acquired 3 years ago and has probably been rebooted no more than 20-30, and just for updates/software installations..always on, otherwise.

Apple does put a lot more effort into R&D, manufacturing, and development, and for the most part, their quality is superior. You wanna talk about shitty motherboards? 90%+ of Dell's sales include machines that are at high risk of failure, and they know it. Also, HP/Compaq are as crappy as they come. And let's take it up a notch...none of the last companies I mentioned are capable of developing an OS, and rely solely on Windows as a factory option, which again, gets completely run over by Mac OS.

I write iPhone apps for a living, my entire office is full of Apple products, I've been using their gear consistently, day in, day out, for the last decade.

At my current job, I've been here 3 years, there are 5 of us full-time on Apple gear. In that time period:

2 dead Mac Pros, one was a bad logic board that just died, the other logic board literally caught fire (burst capacitor or something along those lines, I'd have to find the paperwork) and the whole system had to be R&Red by Apple. It took them 6 weeks to get us a new machine, and we had to call corporate to complain numerous times about the delay; they did, in fairness, give us a completely new machine with upgraded specs compared to the one we purchased, but given the delay on a machine that cost over $10,000, they pretty much had to.

3 dead MacBooks, all logic board issues. The replacements all suffer from wonky display issues, like pink spots on the display, or short-circuiting connections around the display hinge.

2 dead MacBook pros, one logic board, one skitzo video card that would make the screen go half-dead or display random pixels all over the place.

1 dead Cinema Display, half of the pixels stuck green overnight and then it just stopped working.

4 dead iPhones, 1 dead iPad, and several MacBook chargers that overheated and had to be replaced when they started making loud sizzling noises.

The problems are well-documented and quite common. Meanwhile, the PCs we have here have barely had any issues whatsoever, hardware wise, but we don't buy bottom-of-the-barrel gear there either. We did have one piece of crap PC in the office, the fans failed several times and the power supply blew out spectacularly.

I'm not getting into OS X vs Windows, that's all personal preference at this point, I like things about both OSes. But to say that Apple's products are made with superior hardware is a lot of crap. At this point, most of their components are the same as you find in PCs (same processors, video cards, RAM, the cinema displays use the same panels as high end Dell & Samsung monitors, etc); it's the bespoke components like their chargers, logic boards, etc., that are crap and constantly fail.

[MikeinAlexandria]

Originally Posted by ulrichd

"CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced resin), after all, is 50 times as expensive as steel. A car body component made of steel sheet costs about €4 in its final form; the same part made from CFRP costs at least €200.

Yep. Also, in the last five years, aircraft companies have purchased massive quantities of carbon fiber, and increased the amounts of carbon fiber in wings, and various other components. This, in turn, drove up the price of the raw materials. Carbon fiber accessories in general have become much more expensive.

One series parts, even more so due to the limited quantities.

[1SerieStud]

Originally Posted by M_Anthony

I write iPhone apps for a living, my entire office is full of Apple products, I've been using their gear consistently, day in, day out, for the last decade.

At my current job, I've been here 3 years, there are 5 of us full-time on Apple gear. In that time period:

2 dead Mac Pros, one was a bad logic board that just died, the other logic board literally caught fire (burst capacitor or something along those lines, I'd have to find the paperwork) and the whole system had to be R&Red by Apple. It took them 6 weeks to get us a new machine, and we had to call corporate to complain numerous times about the delay; they did, in fairness, give us a completely new machine with upgraded specs compared to the one we purchased, but given the delay on a machine that cost over $10,000, they pretty much had to.

3 dead MacBooks, all logic board issues. The replacements all suffer from wonky display issues, like pink spots on the display, or short-circuiting connections around the display hinge.

2 dead MacBook pros, one logic board, one skitzo video card that would make the screen go half-dead or display random pixels all over the place.

1 dead Cinema Display, half of the pixels stuck green overnight and then it just stopped working.

4 dead iPhones, 1 dead iPad, and several MacBook chargers that overheated and had to be replaced when they started making loud sizzling noises.

The problems are well-documented and quite common. Meanwhile, the PCs we have here have barely had any issues whatsoever, hardware wise, but we don't buy bottom-of-the-barrel gear there either. We did have one piece of crap PC in the office, the fans failed several times and the power supply blew out spectacularly.

I'm not getting into OS X vs Windows, that's all personal preference at this point, I like things about both OSes. But to say that Apple's products are made with superior hardware is a lot of crap. At this point, most of their components are the same as you find in PCs (same processors, video cards, RAM, the cinema displays use the same panels as high end Dell & Samsung monitors, etc); it's the bespoke components like their chargers, logic boards, etc., that are crap and constantly fail.

At this point this has turned into an opinion matter....your writing iPhone apps for a living is not anymore valid than my being a computer engineer for a living. Of course problems have been documented...when something is superior, there is always a counterpart with a sole task to dethrone it, so every possible instance of failure will make news.

Many crucial Apple parts (which sets them ahead) are not created by the same manufacturers that create HP/Compaq/Dell parts, period. A simple search should educate you on the subject.

With that said, I choose to retire from the discussion given that this thread is not about Windows vs. Mac.

[Simon_135i]

For a second I thought this was another I hate apple thread!

[Hind]

I agree with OP. I have yet to buy anything CF due to price. A tiny slip of CF (spoiler) for our cars (for show purposes only) cannot cost ~$400 to make. Regardless of quality, iCarbon could monopolize the market by competing with the other companies' lower end product prices. Make the $shit twice as good for half the price = Win (walmart, McDonalds, Dell, etc.)

[DTMrack.com]

Originally Posted by 1SerieStud

I have to agree. I recently considered purchasing a diffuser and front lip from iCarbon, until I realized that they price things just to price them, without any logic behind the prices. For example, a diffuser is in the $700 range (which is rather pricey if you consider bang for the buck), and when I inquired about the front lip, the price was the same. Now, why in the world would a part that contains 1/3 of the carbon fiber material be worth as much as the other?

As others mentioned though, it does come down to supply and demand, plus these companies are aware that some people go to the extreme and pay any amount of money of these parts. Maybe if demand lowered, people stopped buying them due to high prices, the prices would come down...again, supply and demand.

Sometimes it's not just about the amount of material used. There is craftsmanship involved. The lip is priced at where it is because it requires a lot more craftsmanship than the diffuser. It's geometry is way more complex and because of it has to be made very carefully to meet all specifications, fitment being the most important one. Making sure the weave pattern is consistent on a piece like the lip is also MUCH MUCH harder than the diffuser.

Remember, a BMW CF diffuser is twice the price.

Originally Posted by Simon_135i

http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showt...81#post8655481

Hey DTM you better check at some of your stock to make sure this ain't happening... Not so sure if this is the high standard that you were referring to. Hopefully it's an isolated incident but it looks like the trunk pieces may contain resin defects.

Not at all. We QA all of the pieces that we stock when they arrive to make sure they all meet specs. Out of the 22 trunks we had in stock as of the last inspection, we had NO issues or claims. As far as that thread, I've already posted a response there. Thanks for the heads up though!

Originally Posted by Hind

I agree with OP. I have yet to buy anything CF due to price. A tiny slip of CF (spoiler) for our cars (for show purposes only) cannot cost ~$400 to make. Regardless of quality, iCarbon could monopolize the market by competing with the other companies' lower end product prices. Make the $shit twice as good for half the price = Win (walmart, McDonalds, Dell, etc.)

They already do that. A 3D diffuser for the oner is $1547.00 and has some FRP which means it's not pure carbon fiber. (This is not slander, I have pics from SEMA). The iCarbon diffuser sells for around $700.00

The BMW performance diffuser is $1605.00 (This one is actually pure Carbon Fiber like iCarbon. Again, nearly a grand more)

A Vorsteiner hood is $1500.00 vs $900.00 from iCarbon. And iCarbon has, as of December, held these in stock always vs. a 15 week wait time for Vorsteiner.

Seibon's hood goes for $950.99 which is comparable in price to iCarbon but light years away in quality.

Please understand that I am in no ways trying to bash anything here, just stating facts.

[M_Anthony]

Originally Posted by 1SerieStud

At this point this has turned into an opinion matter....your writing iPhone apps for a living is not anymore valid than my being a computer engineer for a living.

It is actually; you cannot develop those apps unless you use Apple software on Apple hardware (yes, you can use a hacked boot PC to load on OS X, that's neither here nor there), which means there's a very good possibility that I've used a far wider array of Apple's hardware for a longer period of time than most people have.

The failure rates for their hardware are well-documented, just like they are for other OEMs. Apple has better customer service and a rabid fanbase, but their hardware is generally no more reliable.

Anyway...

[1SerieStud]

Originally Posted by M_Anthony

It is actually; you cannot develop those apps unless you use Apple software on Apple hardware (yes, you can use a hacked boot PC to load on OS X, that's neither here nor there), which means there's a very good possibility that I've used a far wider array of Apple's hardware for a longer period of time than most people have.

The failure rates for their hardware are well-documented, just like they are for other OEMs. Apple has better customer service and a rabid fanbase, but their hardware is generally no more reliable.

Anyway...

And your use and experience with objective c outweighs that of the large masses, of course lol. Moving on...