3d led rear lights retrofitable

[Bigfeet]

Yeah possibly, although given a lot of us already own DS3's you'd think it would make sense to price them lower, whilst still making a profit and sell them to current owners who fancy the upgrade ?

You need to understand the supply process to know why these parts cost as much as they do, the factory that makes them will be geared to supply a certain number to Citroen at a certain cost. Extras, such as ones you order, are added to the production line and are built on request - hence the price.

[lfcrule1972]

Thanks Biggie, yeah I do understand that but I think I expected them to be stocked by dealers going forward as replacements will eventually be needed for cars being sold with them. Perhaps I'm too quick off the mark ?

[Bigfeet]

Thanks Biggie, yeah I do understand that but I think I expected them to be stocked by dealers going forward as replacements will eventually be needed for cars being sold with them. Perhaps I'm too quick off the mark ?

Doesn't really work like that I'm afraid, dealers will only order in the stock as they are required. Some of the large agents may do so if they run a bodyshop on site but since most parts arrive within a couple of weeks....

[DaveB]

You need to understand the supply process to know why these parts cost as much as they do, the factory that makes them will be geared to supply a certain number to Citroen at a certain cost. Extras, such as ones you order, are added to the production line and are built on request - hence the price.

Sorry, but that's not how it works. The price the manufacturer pays a
component supplier will be fixed, irrespective of quantity. Of course,
at the quotation stage the supplier will base pricings on sales forecast
figures. Unit cost is made up basically of design & tooling costs, which are one-off costs spread over the whole production run, material & labour costs which are the same per unit & fixed & variable overheads.

I assume that Citroen, like other manufacturers, operates its production
on the "Just in Time" principle, which means that bought-out parts will
be supplied against a schedule & only delivered as required.
However, as it's very unlikely that the line the components are
manufactured on will run at the exact same speed as the assembly line,
& the logistics of delivery mean that there will be a minimum
quantity it is economical to deliver at a time(e.g. a truck-load), plus a
lot of other factors, the component supplier will be manufacturing in
batches.

Components for the replacement market are, for current production models, manufactured on the same production lines as parts which go onto the assmbly line. I don't know how the ordering process works, but the component manufacturer will either run an extra batch or add to an existing run & divert products to fulfil a replacement order - it's very likely that the component manufacturer will be packaging replacement parts individually whereas OE items will be bulk packaged.

I don't know about Citroen, but light units I've bough for other makes have had the bulbs already installed. Seems odd, but it's a clear indication (no pun intended!) that the part number for both OE & replacement is the same. It may seem logical to supply replacement units without bulbs, but that would require the generation of a separate part number, increasing ordering, inventory, etc., costs.

Replacement items are more expensive because they carry much higher overheads. Apart from packaging there are additional costs such as warehousing; then you have to factor in the much higher costs of, for example, order processing - more steps in the process & each order covering one item rather than thousands, distribution - again costed per item rather than in thousands, &, of course, we mustn't forget that the dealer expects to make a profit on parts sales! Add all these & the cost to the consumer is many, many times the factory cost.

[Bigfeet]

^ I stand corrected

Thanks for filling in the blanks, I only know about the factory construct and supply of parts in a simplified version and your breakdown made interesting reading.

[lfcrule1972]

It did make interesting ready, would've have preferred a cheap source for the 3d led lights but there you go