Quote:
Originally Posted by Vince@ V K Motorwerks
Holy shit, I go away for one day and all I log on to see that we were to talk of the town.
Just to make things clear the downpipes are the only item we made in China. However, they were inspected at the port there prior to shipment and then tested here again in the states. We still have high quality standards. What does a customer have to worry about they come with a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects, something goes wrong ship them back we replace them, end of story.
The FMIC and oil cooler are made in the US. The oil cooler has a Derale cooling core with the louvers and other components made in Addison, IL. The FMIC use to use an ETS core that was purchased from Mexico. We would have continued to use the ETS core but they decided that they wanted to do it on there own and even raised the price on the core. So we have now sourced a company out of Japan that makes the core. The end tanks are made in Addison, IL and also welded there. I support my local businesses and I am all for boosting the economy however, trying to deny globalization is just plain dumb. Everything you have probably has a component if not just the raw material coming from another nation. Remember the saying Money makes the world go around!
The e90 community is the biggest winners. They get options. Think about it other down pipes were $800-900 a set before VK's $300 set now they are $500-700 people are still makeing the profit margins but it goes to show how much over charging was going on. Then think about the FMIC's they were all around $1200 at one point, after we put ours out for $580 they are down to $700-800 range now.
This is the beauty of competition.  |
Vince,
I'm looking over your invoices and I see we quoted you the same price that you paid before. I'm not sure how we "Raised" the price on you. We started selling our own intercooler, but you knew that up front. I'm curious to see the results of the new core, since it looks like your still using test data from our core.
You are doing a great job, but price isn't everything. I think people should look at that when purchasing a front mount.
We go into great detail when we build each one of our products. I will attach pictures on the bottom of the thread.
We do a couple things that most competitors don't want to spend the time or money on.
- We hand port each inlet and outlet to give max flow. Most manufactures weld on a tube and you can feel the inside of the tube inside the end tank, this causes turbulence that is not necessary.
- We weld the inside and the outside of the end tank for maximum durability.
- Intercoolers are pressure checked at 35psi before shipment.
- We jig each unit before shipment
- LIFETIME warranty against manufacturer defects and cracking
Another thing why our intercooler is priced higher then $500 is we provide a pipe for the cold side that removes the restrictive pipe that BMW put in place when they designed this kit.
This pipe has a ton of indents that restrict flow.
We also replace the pipe on the passenger side with all the bellows, this creates turbulence in the system that is not needed.
The end result is a product that is substantially more efficient then the stock unit.
Intercooler Differences
eBay Core (This is what most cheap intercoolers are made from)
ETS Core (See the internal density difference?)
Which one do you think will dissipate heat better? You will also see how the ebay core (which is a very reputable vendors core) has slag/drop through on the inside as well as a straight through fin design.
Here you can see how we port and weld the inside of each end tank. This tank was cut off one of my intercoolers on the shelf.
The one good thing about these threads are the customers become educated on the parts they are purchasing.
If anyone has questions, let me know!
Thanks,
Michael