I do agree they are producing in lower volumes and in fact for a smaller market.

Please don't tell me they don't make money on some of their stuff. The ported head package costs well over 1000 $.. Please. the gasket kit is roughly 120$ from my dealership. A head job with flow testing 500-600$

I just don't get why WE buy this stuff. Only thing i got ported from them is a TB, and i got it second hand for 100$

 

That's the real question. If people don't like the price, rather than whine about it online, buy it somewhere else.

 

I think one of the main points what that there is a serious lack of places/shops to buy from for the Lancer though.

I see both sides of the argument. On one side I am a consumer highly upset by high prices (especially since minimum wage in Nevada is 5.25 last I checked). Yet, if I knew I was one of the only reputable shops for a certain platform, I'd jack prices up knowing people would pay!

Custom (turbos, porting, poslishing, etc.) is the only way to save money with our cars if you don't want to deal with the prices, yet that can end up being VERY costly if done improperly.

 

I happily paid $30 more from rrm because I could pm rock, find out if they had what I needed in stock, they shipped it right away and all is well in the world. I would rather support them or rpw or speedcorps etc. because they support the lancer platform and they contribute to the comunity.

 

That's true of almost any decent vendor. I've had the same experience when buying parts for my current car and for my lancer. Something else to consider, is a company really supporting the community if they're charging more for a commonly available product? I'm not taking sides, I'm simply posing a question for people to think about. RRM has done a good job with the lancer platforms but I don't think anyone can argue that they don't have a rather unusual relationship with their target market.

 

This has been argued before and you have to understand that the reluctancy by parts manufacturers to make parts for the Lancer is based solely on the fact that the Lancer isn't a large enough market. Thus, it is up to smaller manufacturers to fill the void. This creates another situation where in the absence of compitition there will be those manufacturers who set the prices higher, in part because they can, but also because the cost of doing business in this market is harder.

Because the 02-06 Lancer didn't sell very well compared to the Civic for instance, and because the tuner market for the Lancer is much smaller when compared to the Civic, you are not going to have many aftermarket part manufacturers making parts. The Lancer owners who have succeded with the Lancer platform have been unique in their ability to adapt universal parts or make one off creations.

In my humble opinion, which has been formulated for the course of the past five years or so working on this platform, we aren't about to see a huge rush from the outside of the community to push the Lancer platform. The 08 Lancer and future models have far more promise in the way of aftermarket support.

 

I understand and that is a very good point, I'm just saying that it could go either way. They could have high prices because they can, or they could have them because they NEED to have higher prices. Or possibly a combination of both. I know that we aren't going to see a rush from outside our community, it would just be nice if things were as easy for us as it is for the Honda guys lol. Cheap parts from a reliable company, but as we know, people aren't as likely to mod the Lancer as much as the Civic.

 

Like I said, RRM has much more support than just this site, there is at least one other site, and they have walk-ins. They even sell to some car dealers! (I'm just going to leave out the other platforms)

And as far as the customer service thing goes...I'm looking at it this way. They HAVE to do that. Imagine if you will; you bought a turbo and at the end of your install with no outside help you have about 4 nuts and bolts left over and you decide to call RRM to ask and someone picks up and laughs in your face. That situation would be on these message boards before you knew it! Say it happend to a second guy. Next thing you know RRM is going the way of A-2 designs. And we all know how quick everyone with opened arms turned right around and put their hands back in their pockets!

Same thing with Accolade. If they screw a few people from this board and we find out I'm pretty sure their buisiness from us will come to a very slow roll.

That is why they HAVE to offer good customer service and such because even though they arent a "small" company they are not a "large" one either. Say K&N was a regular vender for us and they decided to get a snobby attitude and we stopped buying from them. They would take their hit, laugh it off and move on. I think certain vendors here can't stomach that kind of hit, and it they can I'm pretty sure it would knock the wind out of them. I'm sure it would get somebodies attention if the whole Lancer community here stopped buying products even for a month. (I'm in no way trying to say we should!)

I feel its a give and take relationship between a few of our vendors. But lately they have kinda been taking more and not really showing us why we love em (besides giving us more opportunities to give them money).

Yeah, we may "need" them but, to some extent I think they need us also. We just don't realize that yet.

 

I agree.

 

x2 /thread

 

I agree.

 

I'm sorry but that is kind of a stupid thing to say. First off i'm not "Whinning" about the prices. I am trying to bring up a real problem that should be discussed by the lancer community. And i noticed you made a few good points here and there. I'm doing this to give back to our community. I am trying to help those getting bent over by over pricing. Especially with how bad economy is.



I don't think anyone could have put it all better than the way you just said it. WE do not need them. We want them, but we do not need them. They are treating us like we need them. Somebody said that they have been contributing to the community. That is like saying the Tobbacco company's are contributing to the communitys by building cancer relief facilitys. They haven't given anything back to the community. Yes they come here and give some people information they did not know about the cars. But there are a lot of people in these forums that do know plenty about cars. I know i have seen threads i know the awnsers to but somebody already replied so i don't. Like Green_Bandit said, this is supposed to be a give take situation. They want our money so they can function as a bussiness. Well their customers would like good prices. This is not coming down to how much stock they have or that there are not many vendors. It comes down to the price they offer the community. Many of their products are made in store which means they have the equipment already, you know they have places to by metal everywhere down there so they don't have to ship it in. So other than taken an extra week or so because of stock. There should not be a problem with the in house stuff. They have pretty much got all the lancers bussiness from this forum and the other forum. Plus any other bussiness they have and the other cars. They are not a struggling company. Think of it this way also, if you were them would you tell your customers "Oh we are doing awesome, making a killing off you all since we have no competition." or would you tell people "No matter what we will supply you with the best support even though we a currently struggling as a small company."

 

I'm sorry but all you're doing is whining. As I said, if you don't like the prices, don't buy from them. You're naive if you think that A. this hasn't been discussed since RRM first became the go to place for lancer parts and B. that they need your specific business. It doesn't matter what they charge, someone will always complain. Seeing as how they've lasted this long doing what they're doing, I doubt they honesty care about what a few people think because at the end of the day, they're still getting orders. You can say over and over again that "we don't need them" but in reality, you don't have a lot of other options. If I'm unhappy with a vendor, I have a dozen other choices that will gladly help me since they have enough competition that they certainly feel that they need to work for my money. You don't have this luxury. Who else offers a ported TB? Who else offers a ported IM? A reliable and well tested turbo kit? Strut bars? I can probably name on one hand the companies that offer even close to the selection that RRM at the costs that RRM charges, hell I can only really think of one other vendor and they're not exactly easy to deal with. If you maybe understood a bit about economics you would see that RRM isn't unusual in any way. They're not a massive company, they really only develop a select number of parts in house, so to suggest that they could offer prices anywhere near that of warehouse operations is ridiculous. If I went to the grocery store today to buy some apples, I might pay 2$ a pound. The grocery store sure as hell doesn't pay this nor do the major restaurants. However, I can't afford to buy 1000 apples at a time nor could I use them. The same applies to RRM. They can't afford to buy 1000 sets of coilovers only to have them sitting on the shelf for years upon years.

 

Heres an option for you guys. Theres a new shop pushing mostly the same parts list as rrm with better prices. The shop is called Speed Corps. Ive bought from them and will vouch for the owner John. Good guy and gives great communication with his buyers. Tell him Adam from EvoM told you about it and he'll take care of you.

www.SpeedCorps.com

Quality is top notch on all his stuff.

 

I found that site on accident the other day while searching for turbo parts. It seems very legit and I've heard a few other people on the forums talk about them. I may have to order and make a review.

BUT, that is still only 1 other company, and their prices still aren't as low as the Civic crowds will ever be. Just a thought, if you want to be different (Lancer compared to Civic), you have to pay to be different. Not necessarily just price wise either, as I'm sure most of you know. People bash on our Lancers for being baby Evos or Evos with no *****, and sadly in the automotive community if you want something that many others don't (again, the Lancer) you are going to have less options, more people telling you it isn't worth it because it isn't popular, less companies building parts because it isn't popular, etc. I can see both sides of the argument here, but facts are facts. We aren't going to have someone producing enough product by mass to be able to get it at a very cheap price. If you wanted cheap modification you could have gotten a Civic or Integra, but you wanted to be different and mod a Lancer... and now you have to pay (more) to play.