£675 incl VAT and shipping in the UK.
Wow, what a deal! 
I take it you get tyres for that price as well? 
Sorry Thorney but as the us chavs come further into the forum, your prices seem more and more ridiciolous. I respect the fact that you are one of only two real UK VX specialists, but some of your prices are a little extreme. 
Look how successful the diffuser in the for sale thread has been. The majority of us are not after something that has been developed in a windtunnel by NASA, we just want well made, well priced mods.
But you have to understand what he is saying about the nature of these parts in terms of the VX being different to other cars and having to have parts specially made
and in very small numbers. There quite simply is a much higher cost to produce these parts (by the manufacturer) and therefore that cost has to be passed on.
For all you and I know (unless you've been told what Rimstock are charging him) Thorney might be buying his wheels at £675 and making absolutely no margin on them whatsoever. In fact I would be surprised if the supply of this sort of product (inc the carbon fibre bits, nitrons, miltek etc) was making him much margin at all. I would have thought it was probably the least profitable part of the business.
Remember that he is in business in this industry and not just doing this to help out a few mates, so who can complain if some margin is made on the items he sells? As as for the diffusers, well the alternative ones were described as "homemade"! Even if the quality is top notch, there's hardly the same costs involved as getting a proper manufacturing company to fabricate them so the two things can hardly be compared can they?
Organising a one off group buy, offering your time for free and making no profit is one thing, but if you are going to offer a full range of products regularly then you are not going to want to do that for nothing are you?
The same thing goes for the other parts that he sells. Yes technically many of them are overkill for most people and yes they are more expensive that alternatives (if you don't get the technical benefit from them), but then again he has the same cost issues here as with the wheels, plus he would have worked out a price for them where he can attract enough customers to produce the return that he needs to make his efforts worthwhile based upon an understanding of the demand for such parts.
Thorney has obviously decided on the type of product that he wants to sell which appears to be proven components, rather than something that's not proven or is purely for asthetic purposes. It's up to him to make that call and it will be him alone (as the business owner) that will suffer from making a wrong decision. Personally I think that there is a whole plethora of retailers out there selling all sorts of "performance" parts, 99% of which are utter crap, however money is made on them (e.g. Halfords, Demon Tweaks etc), and I for one strongly apreciate that there is at least a handful of companies that are willing to ignore that and concentrate only on the things that really make a difference. Plans and Courtenays are exactly the same in this respect, just look at their websites and see the items that they sell
Also remember that you yourself have the freedom of choice and if you don't like or can't afford what he's offering then go elsewhere. As you've said, for some things (e.g. diffusers) there are alternatives, so use them. The same applies to Muncher's wheel group buy. If you are happy with the product he is offering and the advantages of buying a slightly different product from TMS doesn't concern you (e.g. different offsets, big brake kit compatability, aftercare etc) then go for it, it's your choice.
Edited by RichH, 17 January 2007 - 04:54 PM.
This topic is locked
mate, but really, I'm only trying to help. 
).
it is very generous for Munchers company to do/set up this deal and make no profit etc from it. 
