[RANT]I like the nexus gauges and overall am happy I went with them, but freaking autometer is nickel and dimeing me to death with them. Most of it is just normal things you don't think about for gauge installs. Adapters, fuse holders, etc. But to top it off, they only give you 1 long cable with the nexus brain and the gauges come with 12" long cable(except the wideband, it has it's own long cable). That's only useful if the gauges are almost right next to each other. To top it off, Autometer 3-foot extensions are $19.99 and I need 3, maybe 4. That's just ridiculous. I'm running a typical terminator configuration, 2 in an SOS pod, 2 in the autometer gauge cluster trim panel(which I think i'm getting rid of and building my own)and 1 in the autometer steering column panel(also thinking of selling and building my own). I can somewhat understand not giving us 3 foot cables with each gauge since a lot of people probably run several gauges on a gauge panel(even though as expensive as these gauges are, they should). My problem is with charging $20 per cable. I've got a small fortune in these gauges and now you're telling me I need to spend $60 (plus tax or shipping) more.
Now I could just cut the existing harnesses and splice in some more cable, but I'm anal about that stuff and prefer to have things done more elegantly when possible. So I've decided to just build my own cables. Buying the parts in low quantities with no discounts I could build and sell these for half that and still make a couple bucks. For the quantities Autometer or whoever is making for them is buying them in, the cables cost about $2-$3 in materials to make(going just on the prices I can view). Someone who does nothing but make these cables all day should easily be able to pump out 10 of these in an hour. Lets be generous and say they get $15 an hour to do so(we all know it's unlikely they're paying someone that much or more to do this job). $15/10=$1.50, so thats $1.50 in labor. so we're up $3.50-$4.50 to make these things. Lets just round up to $6 just to be generous and cover any expendables(solder, flux, etc., though they look only crimped to me, so we'll give tool depreciation for that) So that's $14 in markup shared between autometer and retailers (and possibly a third vendor making these for autometer). That's a 233% markup(seriously giving them the benefit of the doubt on prices at that). I've got nothing against people making money, but it's this kind of pricing that just irritates me.
Now because I have to buy the cable in bulk and the connectors in low quantities, I'm gonna end up spending $70 or so in the long run, which is more than the cables would have cost me, but I'm doing this on principle now. At least for my money I'll have some extra supplies lying around.
[/RANT]
Now I could just cut the existing harnesses and splice in some more cable, but I'm anal about that stuff and prefer to have things done more elegantly when possible. So I've decided to just build my own cables. Buying the parts in low quantities with no discounts I could build and sell these for half that and still make a couple bucks. For the quantities Autometer or whoever is making for them is buying them in, the cables cost about $2-$3 in materials to make(going just on the prices I can view). Someone who does nothing but make these cables all day should easily be able to pump out 10 of these in an hour. Lets be generous and say they get $15 an hour to do so(we all know it's unlikely they're paying someone that much or more to do this job). $15/10=$1.50, so thats $1.50 in labor. so we're up $3.50-$4.50 to make these things. Lets just round up to $6 just to be generous and cover any expendables(solder, flux, etc., though they look only crimped to me, so we'll give tool depreciation for that) So that's $14 in markup shared between autometer and retailers (and possibly a third vendor making these for autometer). That's a 233% markup(seriously giving them the benefit of the doubt on prices at that). I've got nothing against people making money, but it's this kind of pricing that just irritates me.
Now because I have to buy the cable in bulk and the connectors in low quantities, I'm gonna end up spending $70 or so in the long run, which is more than the cables would have cost me, but I'm doing this on principle now. At least for my money I'll have some extra supplies lying around.
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