Talk about value for money - £650 for a turbo kit

[Flozman]

Is it me or is this a cheap as beans? £650 for a turbo kit

http://livetospeed.com/Products/BMW/BMW.html

[elliott]

sounds to cheap to be true that does..
would it not also be for a left hand drive e30!!!!

[Flozman]

I wasnt telling you to buy it i was trying to highlight that we are getting ripped off. Besides not everyone drives on the wrong side.

[Chuntington101]

you can pick turbo exhaust manifolds up for about 100 quid on ebay.

Chris.

[ric325i]

nice.

is it due to the exchange rate at the moment which is helping us for cost of american parts?

how tempting, but then you would have to consider shipping etc

still its a bloody good bargain from the looks of it.

[daimlerman]

Cost of shipping and duty to pay....and it will only suit LHD,just goes to show that these things are around if you look hard enough.Seem to remember we argued for 17 pages when Hottuning started to sell RHD 6 branch manifolds for £200 when BTB's offering was £650.....

[Flozman]

yeah but i dont think its all that bad shipping wise, i think because its being exported they would knock the Tax off at their end and UK customs would add a percentage on our end. But to be fair the world is not as big as we may think i dont think the shipping would exceed £50 really.


I agree that the manifold might not fit but i think it would be cheap to convert a car to left hooker if you found a scrap french imported 316i.

[daimlerman]

You could always ask the American supplier to markthe box of goody's as a 'gift'...

[Flozman]

hang on, that took long
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/bmw-325i-converti ... 286.c0.m14

[Flozman]

You could always ask the American supplier to markthe box of goody's as a 'gift'...

Great mind think alike!

[fuzzy]

all depends on how good the quality is. i wouldnt like to risk using a cheap turbo copy instead of a proven make as they can cause a lot of damage if they fail.

[d6dph]

I've heard very bad things from some of the jap drivers I know about cheap manifolds and turbos.

The manifolds tend to be made of real thing metal and crack like crazy.

[Flozman]

To be honest although i respect your opinions guys, its all this school yard brand name allegiance that keeps the prices so high in our market.

I think only Garrett make T3/T4's as stated in the spec.

Just how many companies make turbos?
BorgWarner
Garrett
KKK
IHI Turbo
Mitsubisho
Holset
Schwitzer....

[fuzzy]

dont get me wrong. i have no particular allegience to any manufacturer but having witnessed first hand ,several times, the problems that can be had using cheap and even recon turbos its not a risk id take again.its an expensive game and if one breaks up and bits of the internals gets sucked into the engines induction system....
id rather pay the £800+ for a good,brand new turbo and that has proved the most reliable option for me.
ive no personal experience of these sort of 'imitation' turbos and sometimes i wonder about all the scare stories banded about, seems to mainly be " a friend of a friend" type story rather than someone saying " i bought one myself and this happened..."
but when the general consensus is 99% the same,throughout a very knowledgeable scene, it would be an expensive risk to buy one to find out.
isnt a t3 sized turbo to small for a bmw 6 pot anyway?

[fuzzy]

all the parts shown in the kit picture? there seems to be an awfully lot of bits there. is that just a generic pic showing random parts as there wouldnt be that many bits of pipe,hoses,clips etc needed surely?
and tested and proven figures have shown time and time again that random parts thrown together or cheaply made parts like intercoolers can have a detrimental effect on power compared to tried and tested proven specifically designed "named" parts.

[fuzzy]

no ecu to control it supplied with the kit?

[Colonel Sanders]

isnt a t3 sized turbo to small for a bmw 6 pot anyway?

na not at all, these in the right size can swollow 600hp on an m20..

[a_kara]

nice.

is it due to the exchange rate at the moment which is helping us for cost of american parts?

exchange rate is pretty poor at the moment, down to about $1.6 for every £1.00, thats over 30cents down in less than 3 months and currently the £ is at it lowers againts the dollar for over 2 years, and at its lowers against the euro sint that first came in

roll on the recescion

when i was in vegas in june the exchange rate started dropping but i saw it coming and change my money up in march this year for my trip and got a 2 to 1 rate.