drcook

We have probably spoke about this before, but the price of building a car is getting outrageous. A few years ago I started accumulating parts in anticipation of a total rebuild of my '96.

I started buying the transmission parts in 2019. 3 of the parts would cost more than $700.00 more today than what I actually paid.

$700.00 on 3 parts just keeps on building until its enough not to want to proceed at all. We don't have the money to buy everything at once, so I am fortunate that I started purchasing in a linear fashion after I set a goal.

I looked today, and the 2 row radiator from DeWitts lists for $839.99 today. That is nowhere near what I paid. I looked for the receipt but I think it is on a machine that went /\/\.

Compounding this is a loss of suppliers.

Since I purchased the car 6 years ago and joined you folks here on the forum, we have lost Banski Motorsports and VettAid (they were the ones that build wiring harnesses and analog dashes). With the loss of competition, along with the general supply chain, inflation issues, businesses are able to crank up costs.

Van Steel is asking a little over $1600 for what we got from Banski. Even with the spares I bought, I didn't pay over a $1000.00 (granted I bought them when he was clearancing out the first time he thought about shutting down).

I would project that it is only going to get worse and once a price point is set, it is awfully hard to roll it back a significant amount.

My point ? If you are wanting to do it, better get at it, or it might become unavailable cost wise or actually unavailable.

SmokinBlack

This is unfortunately the reality across the automotive repair industry currently. And believe it or not, it is much better now that it was just a few months ago.

FostersPerformance

Things are very bad and have been for 2 years...I run the service at my marina...ive been waiting for 3 weeks now for 3/8 rubber fuel line. Yup, you read correctly. The stuff grows on trees, but not anymore. (And this is inboard fuel line which is different than auto, but still.) Last year waited 7 months to get a very popular fuel filter as well. At this point I'm just rolling with it, not much I can do.

dizwiz24

Id like to see a massive class action lawsuit - to force the aftermarket (and GM) to supply quality parts for our cars

not just chinese repro junk (would like to see a military attack on the country producing this garbage)

and aftermarket focusing on newer corvette stuff vs our cars

AgentEran

This flywheel I paid $376 for in 2020 is now $735.. Double the price in 2 yrs??

vader86

Banksi is gone? i didn't realize that.

drcook

That is exactly what I was saying. I bought a stage 3 input housing and shaft (I am building a Stage 3 transmission following Sonnax's plan). I paid $626 for it (tax and shipping extra). It is now $1,061.57 at a lot of places and closer to $1100.00 at others (tax and shipping extra also). I was able to get Summit to price match the output shaft against Rock Auto, but even then it was $100.00 more than when I first saw it (If I would have had the money, it would have been $466 (shipping and tax extra), Summit wants $624.66 for it now. Someone on RA had only 1 and I was able to get from Summit for $518.78. Back on RA it is now $573.79 (shipping and tax extra).

It has gotten very expensive to build a hot rod.

He retired/closed the business. From his website:

JCSZ51

agree, prices are climbing quickly and available is hit and miss.

drcook

It is going to be hard for a business getting $753 to go back to $376, but if they don't interest will dry up. These prices are not sustainable, especially for cars as old as ours. People will quit building them and just drive them until they drop, doing only the bare minimum.

I know if I was going to start this now, I wouldn't.

BMH95

I bought the first Fidanza flywheel sold for my '95 decades ago, and had to get it machined to clear the clutch disk. It was really designed for the F Body cars and was assumed to fit the 'Vettes too. It didn't.

Anyway - the point of the story is that I paid around $750 for it 20 years ago or maybe more than that. It's a bell curve.... and I agree everything is getting crazy expensive.....

Natty C

I'm more annoyed by shoddy quality of the parts themselves (as well as the shoddy quality of their return replacements) being junk and falling apart right out of the box. It's just bad stock in many cases.

Just went through this with door switches from Zip.

Still don't have working door switches, even after returning them for replacements. Even the replacements fell apart right out of the bag. Out the money, too. Left a really salty taste in my mouth after that one because they're pretty expensive for what they are.

There's a part of me that's glad that we're still able to get these parts but if they're useless upon arrival, what's the real benefit when you're in a pot luck situation and have to hope it's gonna be functional when you get it. I'm to the point where I'm tired of being nice about it. I feel like being nice about it gets taken advantage of and you're treated like a pushover to pawn off bad stock so as not to take a loss rather than a customer who actually gets what they pay for. As I said, I'm still out functional parts and all I really accomplished is that my wallet ended up lighter than it was when I started. No resolution whatsoever. I've had better luck with parts from eBay, honestly.

drcook

File a dispute with your credit card company.

Natty C

That was months ago.

The thread just reminded of the hosing I took on those last parts I bought is all. So it's not just loss of suppliers and cost, and I don't even really care about the cost of parts so long as I get what I pay for and know the name of the game before replacing stuff, it's also just a reality that a lot of electrical parts (and even a lot of non-electrical parts) are just junk right out of the box anymore.

I'm just gonna replace them from another vendor whenever I get around to it.

Only reason I haven't yet is because they're probably all getting them from the same source anyway. If the stock is bad, it's likely bad everywhere, logically speaking.

Only thing that's gonna resolve that is time and waiting until those bad parts are pawned off on other customers and eventually out of the inventory across the board. I'm gonna be parking it soon anyway.

Anyway. End vent.

Proceeed...