Quote:
Originally Posted by porsche-land
Mr. Raby,
With all due respect to what you do, you can keep pushing your theory to everybody out there who believes in you like in God. People pay you $700 for a bearing that costs you $100 to make. We know you don't produce the actual bearings, you buy them, you just produce the rest. Everyone can go to any CNC shop, and get all the remaining parts made for about $60. You buy your bearings, and simply engrave your name on it, or you might have the factory engrave your name on it.
These bearings are the same exact quality as ours, or any other good quality material bearing available out there.
Anyone can buy these bearings themselves if they search for it!
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With all due respect, you do not know what you are talking about. Yes, our bearing races and cages are made by IJK out of Japan. The balls themselves are made by SKF for our bearing supplier who custom assembles these bearings for us and only for us. They are not cheap but I'm not going to discuss specific bearing cost with you, and no, you can't buy these specific bearings from anywhere else.
Furthermore, the issue of price has been hashed out years earlier on several forums- there is more than just material cost that goes into a product. You have many pricing levels for resellers from the wholesaler to the shop to the end user, and you have to provide margins for everyone along the way. If we didn't have a worldwide distribution network and sold direct, we could sell the kit for less than what you charge for yours.
Now, since we are talking about bearings, let's talk about your bearings - you supply a Romanian URB bearing, part number NUP 204E:
Cylindrical roller bearings KFB/URB NUP 204 E (new machine offer).
Even though you took some effort to remove the part number off the bearing, it was still visible. I asked our bearing engineer about this bearing and their consensus is that "URB is sort of the “Harbor Freight” of roller bearings." You advertise this kit as made in Germany on eBay, but the bearing is not German at all.
You could easily find the same size and type of bearing made by FAG or SKF, but of German origin in the $30-40 range. The rest of your kit consists of a cheap bolt, a few nuts, and spacer. There really is no reason why your kit should be any more expensive than the Pelican Parts kit which is also designed to use the original flange. Your kit also comes with no instructions whatsoever. Wayne wrote a book and has a whole section in there and on the Pelican website about installing their bearing kit. And we have the Bentley Publisher's video that Tony Callas helped make along with very detailed instructions (albeit without any pictures).
And speaking of roller bearings, the other commercially available roller bearing kit offered also uses a URB bearing (and they also claim made in the USA), but their bearing is much larger, so comparing apples to apples, their bearing has more load capacity. Also, their kit has seen several revisions, adding provisions for extra oil to the bearing, which yours does not, since their kit comes with a new flange.
Forsche-Land's bearing kit is shown left - the EPS kit is shown right.
Furthermore our European agents, even one from Germany, has never seen or heard anything about your roller bearing kit. So again, like many before you, you can say there are thousands of these in service and that everyone uses them, but where is the proof?