sodacraft

I just wanted to say, as I realized it would not be appropriate to discuss this in my other post that over the years it seems that it's ok for companies to take someone else's product, and make it their own. Even to the point where they say it's an A style or MG style hood. I really find this reprehensible. I realize this put's a products in the hand's of many buyers who couldn't or I should say wouldn't pay so much for an auto part. I'm not blaming anyone in general, but I thought I should put it out there as a lot of people seem to have forgotten the rules. If I paid to have something made (let's say a wing), tested, treated, put through CAD analysis, and wind tunnel tested...that would cost a lot of money. Then I had to advertise, and actually produce the thing in an expensive autoclave and re-tested. Every mold needing to be reproduced periodically. I'm spending a crap ton of money. Unfortunately, someone can buy my wing and make a copy which they have done zero investment upon and sell it for half the price or less. I don't see how anyone can justify this let alone buying this. It's more of a moral question than one of economics. Please don't say it's the american way or democratic way. It's not. To allow companies to blatantly steal from someone else's hard work is not the American way that I'm proud of. There are a ton of great American companies making or selling services for the S2K that have genuinely created a product by themselves. I'm glad many of them are sponsors here. My real problem with this industry in the last decade has been with the copiers. If a company get's permission to do a cast version of a forged wheel by all means go ahead and say we're :::: selling a copy of the famous MF-10 for a quarter of the price. But don't pretend it's your own. Therein lies the real problem. Everyone on S2ki
is pretty smart....judging by your car choice of course. So, we all know when we're buying authentic or "replica". In the long .... long run we're killing ourselves buying these "replica" parts. Ask yourselves what are the three most sought after front and rear bumpers. What's the most desired aero, and I'll bet you there's a replica easily attained. For half the price. There's a thousand builds on this thread with these parts as opposed to 100' 15 years ago where there were very few. When I bought my S2K it was really a matter of a 9 month wait and hard work to get a "Feels" spoiler. Now it's just call up your local body parts place and get the "Fls" spoiler. It's not a matter of money, although you do get what you pay for. So next time you want to buy an authentic JDM part but "pshhh" at the notion of paying JDM prices. Ask yourself if your destroying the very style you like. Because if things keep going the way they have been, all of these JDM stylists won't be around much longer to produce anything else...or just can't afford to. Then, who is your domestic copy house going to copy? Food for thought. I hate to compare this to Tyler Swift...but you get the point. Proceeds should go to the artist...don't ya think?

Manga_Spawn

Jesus Christ. How about some paragraphs. That's an unreadable wall of text.

Shakeel

Yes add some paragraphs please!

Lucky I was able to read through all that and I completely agree with you. If these legit companies stopped researching and developing new parts then the 'copycats' would have nothing to base their products off.

Surely these legit companies will have to close down one day as they are losing business to the 'fakes'. While it isn't an immediate problem it will definitely be a problem in the future!

arsenal

How long has mugen been around for? HKS? Spoon?

mongomery1234

I agree to an extent but these JDM companies aren't going to close down because people make copies of their parts. I mean pretty much everything in the world is mass produced/copied ect but name brand companies are still doing better in the long run for the most part then their counterparts. I don't see it as hurting the hobby either if anything it makes it more available to people who don't want to save 5 pay checks to buy a front bumper. I see no reason why they should be exclusive to people with a wallet full of cash. Lets face it even with R&D ect spoon parts among others are probably produced for half to a third of the cost they sell them for. It's all about the money hell there's plenty of people that run high quality reps that would probably do more for the community or show more compassion towards fellow enthusiasts than the huge JDM companies anyhow.

zeroptzero

You make some good points and I don't care for fake parts. But keep in mind that people who buy replicas would never buy the real product, so the original part manufacturer really doesn't lose any sales. The sales never would have materialized. The quality difference between replica parts and the real parts is often quite substantial, so you get what you pay for, too bad more people don't realize that. It happens in every facet of life it seems.

mongomery1234

For the most id agree with you but honestly ive bought authentic and replica parts some just make more sense to me. Spend 1500 on a header that's not going to get damaged ever? Awesome. Spend 3k on a bumper that can meet any number of unfortunate ends? Don't really seem the point. Especially considering shine produces such great replica's at fractions of the cost. Its not feasible for some people to replace an authentic spoon bumper once a year because of a pot hole or something. Granted some replica's don't deserve to be put on even a civic but don't knock them all some people put a good bit of work into them.

vanDiemen

Not true about the price mark up. You're not taking into account the innovation or R and D. Yes the cost to make the part is half to a third, (and even if it was that, why do you expect a company to sell it for what it costs to make?) but the creation and testing is what costs pretty much an unmeasurable amount, dyno, track time, wind tunnel etc.

WhyW

Not to mention shipping costs from Asia to the US.

JDMfrank

My opinion here but from what i see in the scene in ireland is a lot of people dont see the value in the genuine parts, The attitude is why would i bother when i can get the cheap parts and have them now. a lot of people also dont have the patience to wait for parts or wait that bit longer to get the money for the genuine part.

I know personaly i cant stand fake part's, im currently a college student so dont have a lot of money to spend on my S but im willing to spend 6 months to a year keeping every penny i have to get that genuine part that i love so much, no better feeling for me than recieveing that box with brand new Genuine parts from the likes of Spoon. Something special about it to me.

I know in ireland the fake parts are big buisness so when you go to a meet or show you can tell straight away the people using the genuine parts. The quality of there builds are always on another level to the guys who dont care and are willing to just grab that fake ebay mugen lip and slap it on.