WeatherTech DigitaFit Floor Liners Now Available for BRZ

[Ingen]

Originally Posted by michaelahess

Think it how you will. These things cost a few bucks to produce. The cost to the manufacturer comes from the initial design work. These aren't worth that much. Margin on a product like this is recouped in no time, quantity isn't a huge factor. They just know they can gouge because of your logic.

And the tooling for the piece costs probably over 50k. You're talking about a huge tool steel brick with the necessary shape carved in. Driver and passenger footwells. It's an investment and they price them accordingly to make the money back. The price was the same for the Tacoma I used to drive.

Highest quality mats though, so... Worth it. Whether its a gouge or not, it's a thing we feel we need so we buy it. The market clearly supports this price so the price must be correct! Lol.

[michaelahess]

Originally Posted by Ingen

And the tooling for the piece costs probably over 50k. You're talking about a huge tool steel brick with the necessary shape carved in. Driver and passenger footwells. It's an investment and they price them accordingly to make the money back. The price was the same for the Tacoma I used to drive.

Highest quality mats though, so... Worth it. Whether its a gouge or not, it's a thing we feel we need so we buy it. The market clearly supports this price so the price must be correct! Lol.

Interesting. I find it curious how this forum has a lot of people that think this, yet for such an "affordable" car to begin with.

These are basic rubber molds, the only way they'd cost 50k is if they are doing it REALLY wrong, which I doubt they are.

[Zgrinch]

Originally Posted by michaelahess

Full set of 4 for my Mustang was $76 shipped. This is crazy overpriced.

Originally Posted by michaelahess

Think it how you will. These things cost a few bucks to produce. The cost to the manufacturer comes from the initial design work. These aren't worth that much. Margin on a product like this is recouped in no time, quantity isn't a huge factor. They just know they can gouge because of your logic.

Then just use a pair of cheap scissors to cut your Mustang mats to fit.

Everyone's happy.

[michaelahess]

Originally Posted by Zgrinch

Then just use a pair of cheap scissors to cut your Mustang mats to fit.

Everyone's happy.

lol

I prefer hand made, platinum plated, luxury scissors to dollar store ones. Makes the rubber shear cleaner. The cost is more than made up for in the quality I think I get.

[choi0706]

Wonder if there might be a group buy?

[Lytheum]

put mine in today! perfect fit and they cover the whole floor area really well.

[DaJo]

Originally Posted by Lytheum

put mine in today! perfect fit and they cover the whole floor area really well.

I just ordered mine a couple hours ago. $150 CAD! Damn!...

Anyways, any chance you got some pictures???

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by DaJo

Anyways, any chance you got some pictures???

Ahem:

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...&postcount=104

[DaJo]

Originally Posted by OrbitalEllipses

Ahem:

Thank you sir, for that.

[Foobar]

I wish they had extended the mat to completely cover the dead pedal instead of leaving it half exposed to allow snow and water from your left foot to get in there behind the mat.

Also, since they left holes for the clips, won't water just leak through there as well? Since its a digital fit, I'm not sure why they felt it necessary to use retaining clips.

The husky liners seal completely in other vehicles I believe.

[Dorb]

I think I would get these if I drove my BRZ in the winter time. I will check these out from my Avalanche for sure.

[Ingen]

Originally Posted by michaelahess

Interesting. I find it curious how this forum has a lot of people that think this, yet for such an "affordable" car to begin with.

These are basic rubber molds, the only way they'd cost 50k is if they are doing it REALLY wrong, which I doubt they are.

Well the car itself is affordable, but I see no impact that this would have on the manufacturing costs of outside suppliers. I love that the car is affordable! My previous car (06 Tacoma 6spd) was even more so, like $16k out the door. The weather tech mats for it were no cheaper.

And here's why. Warning, I work as an engineer, so I'm about to nerd out on this topic. I hope that you're interested in learning about this - if so, read on!

Think about your foot well in your car. From behind the pedals to just in front of the seat rail, and door sill to transmission tunnel - about as deep as 2/3rds up the dead pedal. Doesn't seem like a HUGE area, does it?

It kind of is though, for injection molding. In order for injection molding such a large area to work you need plastic (hah, of course), heat, and pressure. You need a LOT of pressure to keep the plastic moving and fill all of the nooks and crannies in the mold, knowing your customer would balk at even a single bubble. These pressures could be in the several thousand PSI.

The heat in the mold is required so that you don't have a partially cooled plastic front joining with another as the flows from various points in the mold meet. This would result in visible (and weak!) seams, and a perception of a lack of quality. Therefore, you will need kilowatts of heat jammed into the mold, basically all the time.

Now, if the mold separates, you're going to have something called flash. This is when the mold separates under the pressure and some plastic escapes around the edge. This plastic then hardens and looks sort of like flimsy webbing. It is easily trimmed off, but if you have to trim it then you have a worker doing it. This worker is prone to injury, expensive to insure, and probably a lawsuit waiting to happen when they realize they need only jab themselves in the leg with their trim knife to retire comfortably on the company dime. So we avoid flash.

The mold needs to hold its shape rigidly, and also have enough room for all the plumbing, runners and plastic channels that flow through it to introduce plastic throughout the mold. For a floor liner 6 inches deep you can probably expect the mold to be about 8" thick. now we're looking at two bricks of tool steel, 24" x 36" x 4". That by itself is several grand. Now pay a machinist to slowly chip away at it for what feels like about a billion years, at $100/hr. And I know, blah blah, CNC. A CNC mill with a deck that size, combined with an operator who knows what they're doing, and the slow feed speed of tool steel, and the consumption of tooling... The price is still there, and it doesn't make everything magically quick like people think it does.

Plus it's made in America. Insurance, safety regulations, and incredibly high wages. You can bet everyone who touches the design / mfg / packaging of this product costs the company $50/hr of their time. They aren't paying them all that, of course, but they're paying their benefits and everything else. And probably their overtime since they were flooded with requests for this product

In short, yes the price is high. Of course it's high. Nice things cost money, especially when they need to recover the money for that expenditure in what probably won't amount to 3000 sets of front mats, total. They provide a great product and deserve to make money doing it. I don't want to shampoo my carpets every 6 months, so I give them my money. If you don't want to that's totally fine

[White64Goat]

I figured out why they are $118................$18 for the mats and $100 for that big ass cardboard box.................

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Foobar

I...I'm not sure why they felt it necessary to use retaining clips...

My guess is liability. Same reason all new cars have them.