why are motorcycle disc brakes so expensive

[snofrog]

I priced a set of disc`s for the front of my bike and they were around $200 a piece .WOW

[ant_129]

Well it does have a lot to do with braking.  You wouldn't want them to fail would you?

[Red01]

If you're comparing the price to that of your car, the primary reason for the expense is simply volume.

[Sven]

The discs (rotors) are pretty darned simple:  flat pieces of metal that have holes cut out of them.  The same amount of work and metal made into a picture frame would be $19.95 at a discount store.

This is what is aggravating about ANYTHING to do with a motorcycle, from the jacket to the oil to the rotor...it's all at rip-off pricing where comparable items (like a regualr jacket made out of the same material) would be half the price.

The MC dealers/manufactueres claim that prices for MC stuff is higher because they do lower volume, but let's be real, making a rotor can only get *so* expensive no matter how few you make.

I wonder how low the volume is.  In my area of the world, it seems every thrid vehicle is one of those idiot Escalade SUTs (or "twucks" as I call those giant toys), but I just reasd where they've onyl sold something like 40,000 over the years.  They must have all been sold here!

[Red01]

"Sven" sez:
The discs (rotors) are pretty darned simple:  flat pieces of metal that have holes cut out of them.  The same amount of work and metal made into a picture frame would be $19.95 at a discount store.

Not quite so simple. Better go look at your front rotors again. You have a disc, carrier (center section), and all the floating bushings. All have to be built to close tolerances and reasonably balanced. A lot more work than a picture frame. They're even more complex than most automotive rotors.

This is what is aggravating about ANYTHING to do with a motorcycle, from the jacket to the oil to the rotor...it's all at rip-off pricing where comparable items (like a regualr jacket made out of the same material) would be half the price.

For the most part, I agree! It's because they have a captive audience that's willing to pay those prices. On jackets, you'd be hard pressed to find a jacket made out of the grade of materials for much less - and it wouldn't have the impact protection. With the rotors (and other bike specific parts), you either pay the price or you don't fix the bike. There are aftermarket suppliers of some parts (like rotors) that cost less than the OEM part, but they're still high compared to buying a similar part for your car. As for oil, that's one reason I don't use m/c specific oil. My owners manual says nothing about using m/c specific oil, so I don't. With >40K trouble-free miles on non-energy-conserving auto/diesel grade oil, I don't see the need to change. That, and I've yet to see any conclusive proof that m/c specific oil is any better.

[andrewsw]

Look at the brakes on a motorcycle -- you effectively have only 1 brake. (okay its really like 1.25 or so, but you know what I mean). That 1 brake has to do its work in all conditions and with 100% reliability. If it fails in any way you're toast, butter side down. This means the part has to be manufactured with the highest grade materials, with the closest tolerances and the lowest attainable level of manufacturing defects. If not someone will die. Furthermore that brake is expected to perform at the highest levels. A modern bike is expected to perform like an exotic sports car. On the power side that's fairly easy -- make more of it. On the braking side, it means you have to build high quality brakes. That's just expensive. You can't use just any ol' press to put the floating bushings in, its got to be a press with high accuracy and tight tolerances. If you made the rotor by hand, you couldn't just use cheap labor to turn the thing on a lathe, you need a highly skilled professional machinist to turn the thing out properly. On top of all that, weight is an important factor too -- you don't want just any old hunk of iron, but something that is relatively lightweight and strong and that's not cheap.  And then, you are only going to make a few thousand of them meaning the investment in this high quality machinery or labor and materials has to be recouped in only a few thousand units while making a profit.

Now compare that to a car. Here you've got 4 brakes. If one fails its not catastrophic. It might be bad, but not the instant disaster that a failed motorcycle brake creates. That brake is NOT expected to perform at the same level as a motorcycle brake, generally speaking. Add in things like ABS and the actual required quality of the brakes probably goes down even more as the technology can compensate somewhat. So that means the part can be manufactured with lower tolerances and out of lower grade materials. Then scale that up to a manufacturing run an order of magnitude or more higher than that for a motorcycle... then multiply that number by 4 (4 brakes on a car, remember?) and you'll see that it makes sense. Lower infrastructure and manufacturing costs coupled with dramatically higher volume gets you cheap prices.

For a valid comparison of brake parts costs, compare the motorcycle parts to something more equivalent -- maybe the rotors for a 350z (or whatever they are now), rx7 (8?), 'vette, whatever, but a car that has similar production runs and similar performance characteristics and I guarantee you it will be a spendy little bit of metal.

Now having said all that, if I were making motorcycles, I'd use off the shelf parts, or parts that were the same across lines (I imagine they do this anyway) to realise some economies of SCALE, though you can't really get much in the way of economies of materials and manufacturing costs due to tolerance levels. So there should be some price break at some point. I don't doubt that likely the manufacturers and definitely the dealers are taking a nice tidy markup, but that is not the sole cause of the problem.

[Sven]

This means the part has to be manufactured with the highest grade materials, with the closest tolerances and the lowest attainable level of manufacturing defects. If not someone will die. Furthermore that brake is expected to perform at the highest levels.

Sure, but even so, we're talking about parts that are pressed out by machines on some production level.  The raw materials, the engineering, and the labor can only get so expensive.

Look at how cheap other consumer goods with more compents can be.  Youc an get a VCR for $25, for example.  Sure, nobody will get killed if a VCR fails, but if that were possible, that wouldn't justify a price hike.

[Sven]

Not quite so simple. Better go look at your front rotors again. You have a disc, carrier (center section), and all the floating bushings. All have to be built to close tolerances and reasonably balanced. A lot more work than a picture frame. They're even more complex than most automotive rotors.

On jackets, you'd be hard pressed to find a jacket made out of the grade of materials for much less - and it wouldn't have the impact protection.

Yeah, a picture frame was a bad example, but I just couldn't think of a good example of the time.  Bottom line, very complex household goods can be had at incredibly cheap prices, compared to MC stuff that has no more engineering/production costs.

As for the jackets, you can get a three-piece suit cheaper than many textile MC jackets.  Sure, the jackets have a different job to do, but the raw material and labor cost can't be that different.

I guess that's the point I have not made very well...a lot of things have different jobs, but the cost of what it takes to make them is the same.  Look at the cost of liquid hand soap, body wash, and shampoo...even though they do roughly the same thing, and have roughly the same ingredients, they have widely varying costs.  A pair of leather Isotoner gloves can be had for what only the cheapest & thinnest MC gloves cost, and might be thicker and better constructed.  A MC handlebar is pretty much the same as something off a backyard swingset, but you can buy a whole swingset for the cost of a handlebar.

Ultimately, any specialty interest product has the ability to gouge you, because if you will either pay the cost, or live without.  Check out the cost of items at a hobby store vs. the cost of finished products at a superstore.

[amboman]

I absolutely agree that the pricing mark up for anything to do with motorcycles is rediculous.  I have been shown the difference between cost and retail on a number of random items and it just floors me how we are forced to pay such an increase on manufactuing costs.

One example I have is the difference in price for bikini screens for my CB 1300.  The retail price for the 1300 is $NZ500.00 the cost price to the dealer was around $NZ380.00.  The funny thing is that the sceen listed for the Hornet 900 is identical to the 1300 one and I payed only $250.00 retail.  

By the way the cost price to the retailer was about $NZ140.00.  Seems to me that there is no consitency in the pricing discrepencies and the retailer just looks for an excuse to screw us.

    I just hope my wife does'nt see this posting she knows that boats are expensive to maintain but has no idea about motorcycles yet.

[Vidrazor]

When it comes to clothing and peripherals, it's the same in any sport. For instance, I paid $35 for a pair of polyester thermal shirt who's primary market are hiker/climbers/skiiers. We're talking polyester here. I can get a polyester turtleneck for under ten bucks at a local discount shop.

How 'bout ski clothing? How 'bout skis? Notice anything familiar? You should try pricing scuba-diving gear. Ever mountain climb? It's a racket. All this stuff cost the manufacturers peanuts. It's all made in China by the same people that make that turtleneck.

Motorcycle clothing, with some exceptions, is made out of the same materials and even the same manufacturing plants as "regular" clothing. The Joe Rocket synthetics are made out of plain old nylon, there's nothing special about the material in JR synthetics. Same goes for Icon, Alpinestars, et al. It's all junk, priced special just for you.

While there ARE good motorcycle synthetics, what was annoyingly expensive becomes painfully expensive! My Kevlar Cycleport outfit cost over $1000. Thats as much as a  one-piece leather outfit. While we're at it, why does a one-piece leather outfit have to cost $1000?

Some peripherals are made of decent material. I wondered why I had to pay  $60 for my tiny Cortech sport tailbag, until I paid closer attention and realized it was made of 1680 Denier ballistic nylon with quality stiching, and of course had neat features like built-in bungee cord hooks and a removable shoulder strap. Sometimes you can justify the price of motorcycle gear.

A lot of the time you can't...

[Sven]

Like I said above, it's the story with any speciality interest.  My friend gave me a hard time about the number of accessories I bought for motorcycling and how much they cost.  And then she got into pottery.  And bought a wheel, and some tools, and little caddies for her tools.  And a special clamp for doing the bottom of the pots.   And listen to people talk about buying stuff for golfing.

In the end you can do without, make do with a substitute, or just bend over and take it up the tailpipe.  It all depends on how much it means to you to have the right tool for the right job.

[solman]

Look at the brakes on a motorcycle -- you effectively have only 1 brake. (okay its really like 1.25 or so, but you know what I mean). That 1 brake has to do its work in all conditions and with 100% reliability.

I don't know which bike you have, but I have 3 brakes on my bike.  2 in the front and 1 in the rear.

[Rocketboy]

You guys should check out prices for high performance bicycles and bike parts sometime.  Doesn't even have a motor but if you wanted to you could walk out of the shop with one that cost more than your bandit and then naturally, the consumeables follow suit.  60 dollar chains, tires 50 bucks apiece, 150 dollar cassettes....the list goes on.  And then at the end of the day you're all tired and sweaty and haven't even gone that far.  

[Sven]

And then there's the high cost of being on the leading edge, or bleeding edge of technology.  High-end AV or PC equipment which may become obsolete or end up being the non-standard format can be very thrilling bu very expensive.

[Landry]

Yes, fun costs.  I HATE the markup on bikes parts.

WRT the picture frame vs. brake rotor . . . not many picture frames are spec-ed to within the thousandths of an inch of being "true," so I can see where some extra machining is going to cost.  Also, brake rotors are spec-ed with a high quality steel that's going to cost more than the cheap crap picture frames are made of.  Not many picture frames take the temperature fluctuation that a brake rotor takes without warping.  

But like I said, I see your point . . . they shouldn't be THAT damned expensive.  Even taking volume into consideration.