Don't destroy your R Wheels.

[PP0001]

You're not at a net loss. The R Package is $13,500. high quality monoblock forged wheels can get VERY close to the weight of these wheels. With Magnaride doing much of the work, I'd go to say 99% of us won't ever get it to the point where that recalibration would be needed. Since I'm not buying this car to keep it pristine and valuable, I'm buying it to drive it - keeping wheels that are more expensive to replace than to initially buy, is more of a risk than worth. But I want the other bits and bobs of the R package, including the Sport Cup 2 Tires and standard Magnaride.

So I don't agree with you. I'd rather sell the wheels, put something comparable in weight/quality on, eat a few less pizzas a month, drop the weight from my gut balance out the remainder, and tear up some asphalt without worrying I was going to thrash a set of wheels that will cost me half the car to replace.

And I'd damn sure not want to buy a 15,000.00 set of wheels only to have to paint them.

But as I said, your mileage may vary.

Certainly respect your opinion on this issue but I really can't imagine myself ordered a GT350 and then adding option 920A after which time I start removing the wheels because of the possible road rash etc. to the wheels?

As we all know these 19" carbon fiber wheels are a big part of the "R" package and personally I cannot see replacing them with aftermarket wheels if you are using your "R" on the street only?

If you are tracking the car I can certainly comprehend your thinking but not just for street use?

Reminds me of one of my good car buddies that orders a deluxe burger and then removes all of the extra condiments before he eats it? He is a great friend and have to respect his choice just as I respect your opinion here.

Are you selling just your wheels or will the Cup 2 tires come with the wheels? Hopefully they will be sold as a complete set?

Let me know what you want for the set and if the price is reasonable I will consider taking them off of your hands?

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[Bullitt2065]

I see many R's being left on blocks in the near future once this info gets around. :tsk:

Even though a Ford dealer charges HUGE money for them and buying from Carbon Revolution would cheaper, what would a thief do with a set of these wheels? He can't scrap them for cash like he would a set of metal wheels. And as rare as they are, it'll be pretty obvious if someone's gets stolen and a set shows up on Craigslist or eBay for sale...

 

[Sered]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember literature stating there would be some form of identification chips embedded within these wheels like rfid.

 

[Spa2k]

Yes, some parts are much cheaper. 10% is pretty much considered industry standard...

So what does this 10% include? Is it parts delivered to the manufacturers ready to install, or is it just raw materials? I'm curious because I've seen percentages that are much higher than this for the cost of parts for a manufacturer to build a car - up to 40-60%. In McKinsey's 2012 analysis of the supplier industry, for example, they said the cost of parts was $13,400 for what they defined as an "average" car costing $18,000-$23,000 (e.g., Civic and Camry).

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm just trying to understand the disparity.

 

[Spa2k]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember literature stating there would be some form of identification chips embedded within these wheels like rfid.

Yes, an RFID chip is embedded during the manufacturing process, before the finish is applied.

 

[Bullitt2065]

Yes, an RFID chip is embedded during the manufacturing process, before the finish is applied.

But RFID doesn't mean it's GPS trackable if one goes missing, right?

 

[Spa2k]

I don't know - one story I saw said it was for tracking the wheel during the manufacturing process. Or maybe it will be scannable if you find a "lost" one, like a dog with a chip embedded in its neck.

 

[MS52390]

I don't know - one story I saw said it was for tracking the wheel during the manufacturing process. Or maybe it will be scannable if you find a "lost" one, like a dog with a chip embedded in its neck.

Yup, RFID has very limited range. Similar to that of NFC in newer cell phones. The chip probably just has the car's VIN written to it or something.

 

[Blk2015GT]

I really don't get it. You're buying an R which the MAIN feature is the CF wheels over the G350, but want to take them off and store them. What for a rainy day?

You can get magnaride in a regular 350 and delete the rear seat with an aftermarket kit in a few mins of effort. There's really very very few other differences with the R.

I understand a 2nd set of wheel not wanting to track the CF wheels i certain scenarios risking damage since they're expensive, but put in storage and never use them? Why even buy an R to begin with then; just get a 350 track pack and save $. The big part of the price difference from the 350 to R is those CF wheels. Mine as well just garage queen the whole car for fear of a paint chip, I mean cmon if you buy an R use the CF wheels you paid extra for to get an R model as intended.

 

[krt22]

So what does this 10% include? Is it parts delivered to the manufacturers ready to install, or is it just raw materials? I'm curious because I've seen percentages that are much higher than this for the cost of parts for a manufacturer to build a car - up to 40-60%. In McKinsey's 2012 analysis of the supplier industry, for example, they said the cost of parts was $13,400 for what they defined as an "average" car costing $18,000-$23,000 (e.g., Civic and Camry).

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm just trying to understand the disparity.

I think 10% is extremely aggressive for a running average, perhaps he was talking 10% of the list price once they are sold as piece parts? In that case, I can see it being true in many cases, and of course there are always heavy hitters that are outsourced and wont carry such margins. But when ford charges you $2 for a pop rivet that costs $.17 to injection mold, then it puts truth to some of those numbers

If you were to price together an entire car via piece parts, that total price would be many times more than what an OEM sells it for. Take 10% of that number, and it might just well fall into the 40-60% range of the actual invoice cost. I don't think the OEMs would have gone through the shit storm they did if they really had 90% gross margin on each unit sold.

 

[RustedAngel]

Certainly respect your opinion on this issue but I really can't imagine myself ordered a GT350 and then adding option 920A after which time I start removing the wheels because of the possible road rash etc. to the wheels?

As we all know these 19" carbon fiber wheels are a big part of the "R" package and personally I cannot see replacing them with aftermarket wheels if you are using your "R" on the street only?

If you are tracking the car I can certainly comprehend your thinking but not just for street use?

Reminds me of one of my good car buddies that orders a deluxe burger and then removes all of the extra condiments before he eats it? He is a great friend and have to respect his choice just as I respect your opinion here.

Are you selling just your wheels or will the Cup 2 tires come with the wheels? Hopefully they will be sold as a complete set?

Let me know what you want for the set and if the price is reasonable I will consider taking them off of your hands?

I'm in Houston, and plan to not only sometimes daily drive it, but indeed track it. I live a mere 2ish hours away from COTA!

I do want to keep the Cup 2s. I plan to do something along the lines of Forgeline/BBS setup. I'll let you know once I find the right car at a price I'm okay with, and we can go from there!

I appreciate the cordial response, btw.

As for ordering a R, there's more to it other than just the wheels. It could be something as silly as wanting the red badges, calipers, and aero. Or the enhanced cooling tidbits in the R package.

But with wheels, there's so many things that can happen to them. I'd rather have something that is close in weight, comparable in durability, and more readily available to replace, not to mention more affordable to do so, if and when I flub a line a bit too much and end up in a gravel runoff pit.

Or blasting down a backroad and find a pothole that wasn't there the week before.

Different strokes and such.

 

[MS52390]

I really don't get it. You're buying an R which the MAIN feature is the CF wheels over the G350, but want to take them off and store them. What for a rainy day?

You can get magnaride in a regular 350 and delete the rear seat with an aftermarket kit in a few mins of effort. There's really very very few other differences with the R.

I understand a 2nd set of wheel not wanting to track the CF wheels i certain scenarios risking damage since they're expensive, but put in storage and never use them? Why even buy an R to begin with then; just get a 350 track pack and save $. The big part of the price difference from the 350 to R is those CF wheels. Mine as well just garage queen the whole car for fear of a paint chip, I mean cmon if you buy an R use the CF wheels you paid extra for to get an R model as intended.

I would say that the main reason people would purchase an R is simply for the weight reduction efforts, and the CF wheels are just a subset of that. The R is a bonafide race car, lets be serious. If I ordered an R I would contemplate a spare set also, and save the CF for track days. These old, beat to shit NE roads would ruin those rims.

 

[68fbjjz109]

So what does this 10% include? Is it parts delivered to the manufacturers ready to install, or is it just raw materials? I'm curious because I've seen percentages that are much higher than this for the cost of parts for a manufacturer to build a car - up to 40-60%. In McKinsey's 2012 analysis of the supplier industry, for example, they said the cost of parts was $13,400 for what they defined as an "average" car costing $18,000-$23,000 (e.g., Civic and Camry).

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm just trying to understand the disparity.

Ah, well we are starting to talk about different things.

It is hard to say for sure, because different companies make different arrangements for different components. For example who is paying for tooling.

However.

10% is a component price average, not vehicle. So for example the Mustang Fog Light is made by Valeo:

http://www.fordparts.com/Commerce/P...search=true&year=2015&make=Ford&model=Mustang

Commodities items like this isn't worth Ford Tooling up for. So they buy them, or have some one build them. They charge $62.95 to you the customer, Ford is generally not paying more that $7 could be even less depending on how many other vehicles Ford puts it in. Which is how Ford offers an aluminum bodied F150 for the same price as a steel Ram or Silverado. Bulk purchasing of components, component evolution vs revolution, and commonization.

I know that for Ram, the cost of a complete 5.7 Hemi as installed is a almost half of what Mopar would charge for a just short block.

So Carbon Revolution charges $15,000.00 for a similar style wheel set. If that wheel where to meet Ford's requirements (which I don't believe it did), and they bought it from Carbon Revolution as is, it would likely start to fall within that 10% threshold maybe a little higher. Because of volume; sure there isn't that many GT350R's but Ford would negotiate a deal for five years of production, and spares. So them may very well pay $1500.00 dollars a set because they now are Carbon Revolutions single biggest customer.

I would guess they maybe sold low hundreds of wheels a year to a variety of customers. Ford just bought 10,000.

Raw Materials are expensive but get cheaper as time passes and more Carbon Fiber is made and bought in volume. Especially with BMW.

 

[Blk2015GT]

I would say that the main reason people would purchase an R is simply for the weight reduction efforts, and the CF wheels are just a subset of that. The R is a bonafide race car, lets be serious. If I ordered an R I would contemplate a spare set also, and save the CF for track days. These old, beat to shit NE roads would ruin those rims.

Right but 40-50 pounds of the 100 something weight savings is the wheels. Another big one is a rear seat delete you can do to any Mustang or regular GT350.

Ok sure you get the aluminum front beam and no A/C but you nixed the biggest weight saver already. I just don't see the value at that point of the R over the 350 track package.

 

[Spa2k]

I would say that the main reason people would purchase an R is simply for the weight reduction efforts, and the CF wheels are just a subset of that. The R is a bonafide race car, lets be serious. If I ordered an R I would contemplate a spare set also, and save the CF for track days. These old, beat to shit NE roads would ruin those rims.

So here's another way of looking at it: The R wheels cost $467 per pound saved (using Ford's over-the-counter price of $28,000 per set and Ford's statement that the carbon fiber wheels save 15 pounds per corner). Colin Chapman, the master of "adding lightness" at Lotus, must be spinning in his grave! :eyebulge:

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