Mackin Playing Hardball

[tricky_ab]

Originally Posted by Matej

TE37's were 'played out' before Varrstoens even existed.

Pfft...Never...Volks are timeless...

Originally Posted by beb

Geez guys, have you not realized that EVERYTHING from Japan has gone up in recent times? The Dollar to Yen f'ing sucks. Materials cost more. Fuel to transport costs more.

Mackin doesnt sit around twiddling their thumbs and thinking up ways to raise the price for no damn reason. On the contrary, they spend majority of their time trying to find ways to market and keep these wheels as affordable as possible. None of you know what goes on behind the curtains... you dont see the hard work people put into developing things like the 57D, Genesis or Superlap - all of which were created to save the consumer money! You dont see how people are cutting down their profit to try and keep the price from going even higher. Rays Engineering and Mackin are not dumb, they know that raising prices makes it harder to sell these wheels!!

Its just so disappointing to see some of the stuff said in this forum.

Those who want to defend and rock replicas, go right ahead. But DONT say there is nothing different between an authentic Volk wheel and a replica. There are years spent on designing and developing quality wheels, yet hours of tracing for replica companies - there is a difference?? What about structural integrity? A wheel isnt something like a wallet, where even the fake ones still serve the same purpose just as well as a real one.

Anywho - Varrstoen was actually selling VOLK and TE37 stickers....as well as calling their TE37 replica a Model: TE37... And YES, there are trademarks in place.

Quoted for truth...Well said my man!

[ManoNegra]

Originally Posted by Matej

TE37's were 'played out' before Varrstoens even existed.

And so is the type x bandwagon you're on. What's your point?

Anyhow, my track car will have forged wheels one day
don't need that quality on my daily, less priced Enkeis or Works will do
would never rock fake wheels just for 'a look'
but that's just me

material cost isn't that high right now
but I now Alcoa invented the forging process
maybe Rays pays a licensing fee to Alcoa appart from high coast of
manufacturing already present in the process?
and on top of that there's the shitty exchange

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Armx02_R7Y0

[ronmcdon]

Idk if I buy the hypothesis that exchange rate is the main culprit here.
(Japanese yen to US dollar).

OK, no doubt it plays some part, but does it account for a 50% price hike?
Can you honestly say, EVERY part made in Japan has a 50% price hike?
Last I checked, that clearly wasn't the case.
Don't see Tomei, HKS, etc parts go up 50%, and I pay a lot of attention to those prices.
Have cars made in Japan gone up 50% in price? No way.

To me, the exchange rate arguement falls short of being even remotely plausible.
Maybe, a 10% increase I'll give you that.

Also, please explain why forged wheels will make any practical difference for a 'track car'?
Maybe some of us truly are proffesional race car drivers, I'd i'd be genuinely intrigued to get some contructive feedback.
For the rest of us, even those who do track days regularly, I have my doubts it's going to make any difference at all.

I do track days, and I will readily admit I got my ce's and te's for looks alone.
As mentioned by another poster, they are "timeless"
It's a very good quality product and it looks cool, but I doubt it offers much more utility than a quality cast wheel.
at least not enough to justify some approx $1,500 premium, but's that's just my opinion.

[beb]

Ron - My argument was not between cast vs forged. We're talking replicas here. You are opening a whole other door lol.

AFA Cast VS Forged, you are right - there is not big diff from someone using a more affordable cast wheel like Gramlights or Advan to using a 1pc Forged - Emphasizing on 'quality' as you said. For a track day every once in a while, its fine... The 1pc forged does come in handy when you want to reduce as much rotational mass as possible while maintaining strength - something most of us dont necessarily need - but its nice to have if you can afford it.

Mano - The exchange rate is pretty shitty right now. Material costs ARE high. This isnt HKS or some other companies you have mentioned that use significantly lower amounts of raw metals for the production of parts than wheels. Also, the process is completely different! Rays uses the most advanced forging process available and uh.. the machines are mooooooooooney. Theres still ALOT that none of us understand - unless any of you have been to the Japan and US facilities and seen first-hand everything that goes on, its very unfair to come to the conclusions alot of you have.

Honestly, I dont know everything.... But from what I do know, every effort is always made to make the products still accessible to most end users. Trust me, there is alot more going on than any of you could probably imagine... and to think that these price raises are without valid reasons is pretty insulting.