Quote:
Originally Posted by qoncept
I'm not comparing what platforms' products cost the most. I'm talking about what is actually happening. You're writing a few different bytes to the ECU no matter what kind of car you drive, yet car x costs hundreds more than car y.
When I bought spark plug wires for my 944 I couldn't find a set for less than $125. That's $25 each for 4 spark plug wires plus distributor wire. Not even OEM, just replacement. You can get a set of plug wires for a ford V8 for $25. Same materials, same quality, trivially different hoods for the spark plugs. It is unequivocally a ripoff.
The tuning options for our cars and for DSMs and Hondas are functionally equivalent. It's the same deal. We're just bigger suckers.
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Supply & demand, research & development, and the amount of money the consumers have and are willing to pay all play a role. A car like a GTR is much less common than a Civic, which means that the costs of R&D for the GTR aren't recouped through volume of sales the same way a Civic is. There is also more vendors developing products for the Civic, which increases the supply of the available products. Lastly, A GTR costs 100k whereas a Civic costs 20k.
Obviously, the vendors selling similar products for a GTR at 5x the cost (or however much) are making more profit per sale, which does make the consumers the suckers, sure. The vendors do this due to the smaller volume of products sold. Between overhead costs and R&D, sometimes this is necessary... other times, it's price gouging. At the end of the day though, a product is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.