Another rip-off rant!!

[dk]

I have just bought a new wiring loom for a Yanmar that consists of four plugs and 12 x 3m long wires taped together into a rough harness - the sort of thing I used to knock out for motorbikes at a tenner a time. Guess how much? Well you're probably wrong - it was a mere £130!!!!

I'm in the wrong business!

 

[Jools_of_Top_Cat]

I am generally the first one to winge at rip off prices, but this might not be so unreasonable.

Last year when I bought and fitted two yanmar 1GM10's to my catamaran I needed to extend the starboard loom to bring it up to the panel at the helm. I am an electronics engineer so I am probably quicker than most but it still took me a couple of hours to measure out and then re-loom and cover. The origional loom looks hand built, and probably took as long to construct, i.e. measure and cut cables, loom then crimp pins and fit to plugs.

Most companies of appreciable size will charge out at £50.00 per hour minimum, so although this price if I had to pay it would seriously wind me up, at the same time it may not be all that unreasonable. Just a thought.

Julian

http://www.ukstaffords.com

 

[tcm]

Doesn't sound too bad. I see auto engineers at Toyota (lexus) charge 90 quid an hour and a new gearknob for a merc costs £120.

 

[david_e]

Re: Motorbike looms

Which bikes did you make them for?

 

[webcraft]

If you can make them for a tenner then make up some and advertise them for £50. There's plenty of Yanmar owners out there.

Otherwise, I agree with previous correspondents - it doesn't seem so unreasonable - I would expect to pay that for a wiring loom for my car.

<font color=blue>Nick</font color=blue>
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.bluemoment.com>

</A>

 

[dk]

Re: Motorbike looms

I used to do trials when I was very much younger - before decent off-road bikes were really built. We used to convert some atrocious machines into trial bikes. Suns, Fanny-Bs, even old Matchless 350s & AJSs before I got my first Husky. The looms were pretty simple I'll admit, but then so is the Yanmar one. I reckon I could knock one out (If I had the right plugs) in around 30 mins max. Quicker if I knocked up a jig with preset lengths. It's not even tinned cable!

But it looks like I'm in the minority here amongst the Merc drivers, so I'll shut up!

 

[brians]

Lucky it wasn't Volvo! nm

 

[jimboaw]

And I thought US boat yard hourly charges were a rip off at $50 an hour!! but ,no doubt, the British worker is worth the extra! Don't you all think that a healthy discussion of ways to save money is a good thing? lots of marine related products can be found cheaper if a little imagination is used. Harnesses etc sold for climbers and construction workers are very often 25% cheaper than those sold to us sailors. OK, you want to be a sucker thats your choice.

 

[stubate]

mercedes drivers

when i went to buy my bene from a hamble broker, was told, after i had agreed a price that some tosspot from down that way had offered 5k more, i told them to take it and may his dealings be always big ones!!
about a week later they came back to me, said tosspot couldnt arrange his finance, (i was a cash buyer) did i still want it?
yes but at a lower price.
heh heh
moral of the story
mercedes drivers dont always own them !! but they can distort the market for a while.
stu

 

[longjohnsilver]

So what did you do with the old one?? ;-))

 

[david_e]

Re: Motorbike looms

Did a fair bit of Trialing myself, had the very first Honda 125 trials bike, then a Beamish Suzuki 250 and finally a Montessa 348. (loved the Monty)

I should lock you up in a room with my dad (ex motorcycle dealer, and proper mechanic) he would rant and rave about the price of parts and then make his own, me I can't be bothered, buy a new one and stick it on)

 

[NigeCh]

Why didn\'t you go to Maplin?

... and buy all the coloured bits of wire, some electrical tape and re-use the old plugs?

If anyone knows of a Yanmar rev counter 2nd hand at less than £164 + VAT, perhaps they could let me know.

 

[paulrossall]

Re: Why didn\'t you go to Maplin?

I was looking for a rev counter for my Yanmar 2GM20 at the boat show. Yanmar said either buy a new "B" panel at £500 (I have the "A" panel with no rev counter) or buy a VDO rev counter. Looked all over but only stand that could supply a rev counter was ASAP Supplies who said VDO was very expensive and they quoted for a Faria counter ref. no. FAR32842 and you need a capacitor ref. no.708194 at costs of £53.84 & £1.75 respectively, both plus VAT & postage. asap-supplies.com. The chap I spoke to seemed to know what he was talking about and I will probably order the bits. ASAP seem to get a good write-up on the forum and they struck me as a down to earth cost-effective setup. Hope this is of use. Yanmar said VDO rev counters are used in Porches, Mercedes and other cars but I suspect you would have to know what your doing to get one from a scrap yard to work.

 

[philmarks]

Re: Why didn\'t you go to Maplin?

The ASAP catalogue is good on instrumentation, and quotes resistance values for temps, pressures etc, so it's easy to use that data to check a scrapyard item with a multimeter. I've found ASAP pretty good all round, and you can get to talk the techies there as well.

They also sell panels for Yanmars.