kaymar bumper

[Gold Finger]

Albert Durer a famous 15 century German Artist was asked by a business man to make some sketches, this he duly did in a remarkably short time and presented the business man with the bill.
Business man “That much for only ten minutes works”
Artist “That ten minutes work has taken me a life time to learn”

I think that you guys are very fortunate to have such wonderful expertise on your door step and a club member as well. Are Slee Off Road products available in the UK?

 

[Hltoppr]

For me, I love learning new stuff, so If I decided to take on the job of a bumper or sliders I'd rather not look at my time/money equation....I could just buy another cruiser. For example on a rear bumper I would estimate:

Welding class: $250
Welder: $1000
Time in class (at billable hourly rate): $2700
Machine shop bending etc: $300
Materials: $400 (at least)
Time to build bumper (at billable houly rate): $3000
Misc.: $200

Total for rear bumper (conservatively): $7850

Now, for a learning experience....great!
For a good quality rear bumper....Slee or Hanna would be a lot less $$$.

-H-

LOL, for my cost I would come out ahead to DRIVE to Golden, Colorado and have Christo install the thing!

 

[concretejungle]

come on guys, quite bustin' my balls here. I know what you all are saying and where you all are coming from. I work in an engineering consulting buisness. I have to set up projects and estimate my billable time, time for report writing, report reviewing, mileage, equipment rental, ect....... i did not mean to get out of line with any of my comments except the one to dd113 (sorry about that).

You could make the argument about how i borrowed a welder, didn't calculate my mileage to get the steel, ect...but i think that's a little extreme.

Point is that christo's stuff is excellent quality, great customer support (which in it'self equates to higher cost), but most importantly all the combined hours of tinkering and learning 80 series cruisers inside and out, there is no way to put a dollar figure on that. ARB mass produces their bull bars in-house, guess that's why they are in the $700 range. I imagine, as christo has pointed out that if he built his bumpers in house, the cost could go down in the future. But there is a huge expense in buying manufacturing equipment and such. But for a guy like me who doesn't have the highest paying job, still paying off the cruiser and student loans, but loves to learn and tinker, i'm having a hard time spending that much $$ on a rear bumper. Just running the numbers through my head and they don't seem to equate (and i'm not a math major either). I would love to build my own bumper, but i'm not sure i could fab one up that i would be really proud of.

I have spent a lot of $ with Christo, and plan on continuing doing so. Just trying to justify $2000 for a bumper........

 

[montocr]

Slee rocks

I guess if you cant understand why great products are priced the way they are, then you probably wouldn't understand why anyone would buy a Landcruiser in the first place. Jeeps are less expensive. Its kind of funny that as LC wagons get older and less expenxive, there are more and more owners that only care about saving $$$ and getting something cheap. Landcruiser owners are lucky that there is someone like Christo that can operate a business to support this very small community. Remember, much of the 4x4 industry doesn't even think about late model LC's. I have had several 4x4 people in the past ask me how I swapped the solid axle into my 80!

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Alex, one more thing is that you're comparing apples to oranges with the front ARB price compared to a rear tire-carrier. Regardless of whether the tire carrier is mass produced or not, there is a substantial increase in the hard parts required to assemble the bumper. Your front ARB doesn't have a hinge assembly, a latch, a swing arm, or any of the other things that make a tire carrier a tire carrier. You can buy a Kaymar rear bumper(just the bumper w/ no swing arms) for $730 from www.man-a-fre.com and that's the regular pricing. Seems pretty comparable to the ARB to me Slee's is a little bit more than $730, but we've already hashed out the reasons for that. Anyway, take that into account as well, and it makes a lot more sense.

Ary

 

[cruiserdan]

Just trying to justify $2000 for a bumper........

A couple quick points:

It isn't $2000, it's $1795. You are off by 10% there.

Second, it is not a bumper. It is a bumper and tire carrier. his rear bumper-only is $950 and you can get a raw one for $850.

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Second, it is not a bumper. It is a bumper and tire carrier. his rear bumper-only is $950 and you can get a raw one for $850.

That's basically what I was getting at in the post above yours

 

[concretejungle]

Well, let me go sell my soul and i'll place an order! Damn guys, is christo paying you all? If not maybe everyone should get some commission from my sale!

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

I dunno about a commission, but maybe Christo would be willing to do a group buy

 

[e9999]

Hmmm....
just reading all of the above. Mixed feelings about it.

Sure, CJ's early statements were a bit "extreme" if taken literally but I don't think that was the intention.
It is true, however, that for a layperson, it is not obvious to see why a "few pieces of steel" can cost this much $$. So some clear-headed additional sensible explanations are useful.
But I also seem to detect some holier-than-thou or overzealous attitude here, JMHO... I trust that this also can be chalked to lighthearted off-the-cuff posts.

Christo -gracious here as always- can bloody well charge whatever he wants.
But, capitalism goes both ways, and it's perfectly appropriate for anybody to do some shopping and also question the pricing of some items.

Leaving Slee aside from this statement, it is also very clear that price is not necessarily a reflection of quality or even reality, as anybody who has shopped around and found something 1/2 the price somewhere else can attest to. So everybody can and should question pricing all they want. It keeps us all better shoppers, keep $$ from being wasted and keep the vendors on their toes. All for the better, IMHO. Let's not stifle discussion...

Personally, I think Christo is one of the good guys, and I'll buy from him as much as rare $$ allow.

my 2c.

E

 

[Kaderabek]

Personally, I think Christo is one of the good guys, and I'll buy from him as much as rare $$ allow.

to that.

TJK

 

[concretejungle]

I dunno about a commission, but maybe Christo would be willing to do a group buy

I'll drink to that one.

 

[concretejungle]

Sure, CJ's early statements were a bit "extreme" if taken literally but I don't think that was the intention.

E

That was not my intention and i appologize if they were. Anyone who has met me knows i'm an easy fella to get along with.

 

[fzj80kidpen]

Got to pay for got to have

I have been looking around at this for awhile.
Been pricing out some metal etc.
To get raw metal three pieces with basic big bends will run around $250 and that is not the high strength 3/16 that Christo uses.
Then I would have to fab up the mounting brackets, do some welding, buy a bunch of bolts etc.
Its alot of work. I figure at least 2 whole weekends. One for the bumper one for the tire carrier. Time is $

 

[Kaderabek]

Unless you're Billy Crystal, in which case mime is money.

TJK

(C'mon, don't talk back huh...mime is money, let's go come on, move it!)

 

[concretejungle]

Unless you're Billy Crystal, in which case mime is money.

TJK

(C'mon, don't talk back huh...mime is money, let's go come on, move it!)

Todd, i'm still trying to figure out what to say to that.....

 

[Kaderabek]

Let's boogie? ;p

TJK

(Hello. My name is Marty DiBergi. I'm a film maker. I
make a lot of commercials. That little dog that chases
the covered wagon underneath the sink? That was mine.
In 1966, I went down to Greenwich Village, New York City
to a rock club called the Electric Banana.
Don't look for it, it's not there anymore.
But that night I heard a band that for me redefined the
word "rock and roll". I remember being knocked out by
their, their exuberance, their raw power -- and their
punctuality. That band was Britain's now-legendary Spinal
Tap. Seventeen years and fifteen albums later, Spinal Tap
is still going strong, and they've earned a distinguished
place in rock history as one of England's loudest bands.
So in the late fall of 1982 when I heard that Tap was
releasing a new album called 'Smell the Glove,' and was
planning their first tour of the United States in almost 6
years to promote that album, well needless to say I jumped
at the chance to make the documentary, the, if you will,
rockumentary that you're about to see. I wanted to capture
the, the sights, the sounds, the smells, of a hard-working
rock band on the road. And I got that. But I got more, a
lot more. But hey -- enough of my yakkin'.
Whaddaya say, let's boogie!)

 

[concretejungle]

Todd, have you been up visiting T Y L E R?

 

[Kaderabek]

His avatar gave me a black eye.

TJK

 

[reffug]

His avatar gave me a black eye.

TJK

QUICK DUDE PULL YOUR FAWKIN HEAD BACK FROM THE SCREEN AND TAKE OFF THE GLASSES........................................................