993turbo

I just bought a set of GAZ custom made dampers and matched springs for my Strosek. I could not find a set of Bilsteins at a ''normal'' price.

The GAZ dampers for my car are made from scratch to fit the 928. Fully height / damping / rebound adjustable with 2.25'' id springs.

Came out very good pricewise!

tv

Perfect time to hit Koni with a request for a run of FSD shocks.

Rick Carter

In 2002 Ohlins in Hendersonville, NC had my car on their Vehicle Dynamics Simulator for possible shock development. They may still have the info but I have no idea. Pete at Stuttgart Motorwerks set it up.

BC

Those koni fsd are what we should put our sights on.

Tom in Austin

Interesting discussion ...

I don't think any conventional inventory management/EOQ/safety stock process handles "group buy" demand in a small market niche (Greg's "ripples").

If you're Bilstein and see all the inventory for a particular application suddenly disappear, how certain can you be that another Roger or "group buy" will come along? More likely than not, a rational business person would look at that as an opportunity to close out those 'slow movers' and simplify their catalog.

mervynp

Agreed. For road use there is little better going by experience on other cars

Landseer

Company's make this happen with deals to expedite the close-out.

Problem from my armchair position is exhorbitant upcharging that limited the flow of the shocks to begin with.

The read to "closeout" something doesn't happen with one buy. It happens via the review of longterm shipment history. People get rewarded for identifying and recommending sku closeout. Once a decision is made to discontinue a set of skus, the execution of a big sale becomes a celebratory event. Sales gets rewarded for beating the timeline on running them out of the supply chain.




That's the general dynamic, anyhow. Not sure in this case if its a special circumstance, but its doubtful.

docmirror

I have graduate degrees in both econ, and business. This shock surge, or dumping or whatever you want to call it is not even noticeable on Bilsteins radar. It is an anomaly, and will be treated as such.

Further, since I'm also an owner of the 928, my business is getting the best product for the best price. None of these cars are going to disintegrate if they don't get Bilstein shocks on them in the next 6-9 months. A hassle? I guess, maybe a minor one. For the benefit of saving a few hundred bucks on good quality products it's something that I and many others are willing to live with. Also, as there are alternates avail, it's just not that big of a deal.

Bottom line, if you don't like doing business with Roger, then don't. There are other vendors. He's been an advocate of the 928 for many years. Go ahead - pay more(likely), wait less(unlikely) somewhere else. I've counseled him several times before that there are just some customers you're better off declining. He doesn't listen to my advice very often. Smart guy....

Tom. M

I used to be worried about all these supply/NOS/no longer available stuff issues.... but when it gets down to it.....there will always be a way to get shocks (or whatever is not available) for our 928's....

Someone will usually step up and "create" an adapter or the like to make a more readily available item fit on our 928's. Happened with the brains..happened with the tensioner....all sorts of examples I'm forgetting...

I can easily see a adapter plate made to mount in the upper part of the shock towers so a variety of shocks can be used.. Like the racers already have..

GregBBRD

Good point! Time will tell.

I'd think that if Bilstein wasn't "dumping" their 928 inventory of shocks, they would have responded by making additional shocks...long before there were none available. Certainly there were several requests for "inventory" made by other vendors....SSF inquired several times.

That would make me think perhaps the sale did register with Bilstein and they made the decision to not make another run of these pieces.

Again, time will tell. Thanks for your input.




A fun data point, for you, independant of this thread, Doc:

I "sat" in on Berkeley's ceremony for graduating "Phd" students and listened to the "genius" ecconomists tell us, in detail, how the recession is over. One idiot, in particular, who had just returned from Washington, where she had been for two years working daily with Obama (no names), gave a 20 minute speech on how they had saved the ecconomy. What a crock.

Somehow, they failed to tell the "working class" of people in the US that it is over.

When you remove the second and third highest costs to the public (food and energy costs) from the CPI, it is hard to tell what the individual person is suffering through. Borrow money with one hand and print more money with the other...there's a good solution.

Obviously, the national debt is way too high to ever be payed back by the current values of our currency. The current monetary policy will, however, make it possible to pay back this debt. Rampant inflation will do it.

So here's my real question to you....what is the model for a severe recession combined with a huge amount of inflation, at the same time? Germany, after the First War, comes to mind. More recently, the Soviet Union's financial mess, leading to their downfall seems close.

Buy gold and silver? Seems to be the trend.

Drewster67

Will a 85 S application fit on a 88S4?

If so - AutoHaus AZ seems to have some in stock. They dont show any available for the 88S4.

http://www.autohausaz.com/search/pro...ock%20Absorber

edit:

OOPs my Bad - On Back Order as well - u can email them at Parts@AutohausAZ.com for a status update.

RKD in OKC

I've worked for the same oilfield equipment manufacturer for the last 30 years and my dad was working for the same company for 15 years before that.

When my dad worked there as a machinist he would run a machine that cranked out the same parts for weeks. While they were setup and running a part they would make as many as they thought they needed for at least a year. The idea being the setup time was absorbed into the cost of many parts. Also in designing new products the actual part design was based on how it would be most efficiently manufactured. And many times that meant the design was based on a particular machine that had time not how the part could be most efficiently made. This was the manufacturing climate our cars were designed in.

When making a car model the parts for the car were manufactured based on how many cars were being built and the expected life of the model for spare parts. If a part ran out of inventory before the expected support life Porsche would make another production run and the increased cost of replacement parts reflected this.

I remember ordering some front springs for my 944 Turbo. All the suppliers listed them as NLA and I found the last pair in stock at Porsche thru Porsche Motorsports. After 3 months Porsche Motorsports called and said the inventory count was wrong and Porsche did another production run on the springs. The price went from $200 to $600 for the pair, and for the next 2 years the springs were again available thru all the suppliers.

Over the years, things like JIT and Lean Manufacturing have changed manufacturing. It started with reducing the setup cost so lower quantities could be run and ended up changing almost every aspect of manufacturing from the machines used to the designs of the products themselves. Because of the reduced cost of manufacturing the company I worked for did not increase it's prices for almost 15 years as it went through the transformation despite increased materials and labor costs. One example part went from 22 hours to produce down to just 22 minutes.

What that means is that parts designed to be produced in the current manufacturing environment are easy to get in low volume numbers, but some parts are going to be prohibitively expensive to bring into the current manufacturing constraints, and some can not be produced to spec at all. An example of the is the hydraulic lifters for the 944 Turbo. The stock lifters are harder and last longer than current replacements. This caused lifter failure in high boost engines with radical cams. Even though sold by Porsche as factory they are made my INA. INA could not reproduce a lifter with the same hardness as the original lifter. It is just not within their manufacturing capability any more.

For a modern manufacturer to produce most parts from the old style manufacturing environment is pretty much like starting over from scratch. Even if that part was once produced by the same manufacturer. While great strides have been made there is still currently a quantity/cost barrier in going from design to production product. CAD-Computer Aided Design, CAM-Computer Aided Manufacturing, and Rapid Prototyping has helped but it is still pretty expensive. Until this cost/process has been improved sales projections are going to rule aftermarket parts availability for out-of-production cars.

mx22

When something is in demand and is no longer available, price goes up. I can only blame Roger for one thing - not forcing me to buy them when he had them for cheap. Can't expect someone to tie a lot of money in a product and then sell it over the years just to keep the price from going up. He saw the opportunity to make money quick and grabbed it, more power to him.

finally!

Well I for one blame Roger too! Dadgumm it, the wally should have known I would be buying a 928 and pushed me to purchase a set before they went EOL!

GregBBRD

I agree completely.

I'm speaking totally about the ecconomics and problems associated with that action....not about the action itself.