Am I missing something? Light price rant!

Am I stupid or something? I'm sure some of you will say I am and that's fine. But why do lights, fog, light bars etc cost so freaking much? I just saw a post for a set of 4 fog lights and brackets $751.00. Good lord, I don't get it. What makes these things cost so much? I know some of you will say "You bought a 50K truck and complain about the price of lights". Yea I do, how do you think I could buy my truck, by not spending stupid money on these type of things. Sorry for the rant, just blows my mind. Sorry you can't this 30 seconds of your life back.

If you want ones that are made in 'murica and fill up with water in 2 weeks then that's how much they cost.

There's plenty of other brands both foreign and domestic that are of various quality and prices.

I hear ya. I feel that Shop Rite mac n' cheese tastes a hell of a lot better than Kraft. Just sayin'.

American manufacturing is not cheap. It's as simple as that. To hire an entire crew of probably hundreds of workers and put them here in the states is not cheap. That's why there's such a price difference between American made lights and Chinese made lights. There's also a big quality divide between the two. We have seen it ourselves. Are there some good batches from China? Absolutely, and I won't lie. Are there pathetic batches from China? Absolutely.

What I can tell you without getting too deep is that it just isn't cheap to make stuff here (regardless of whether the parts are from here or not) to hire employees, buy or lease a good-size building, and have a full-time crew of workers assembling parts and then having another crew handling sales, marketing, product development, testing, PR, warranty, shipping, etc...

Hopefully that helps answer the question. I know it's not cheap. Believe me.. but there is a difference

My Rigid 50" took direct hit from a parking structure height limit bar at 15mph+ and only has a small knick. These high dollar light bars reflect the cost of engineering + R&D. I'm no expert but 1) making a light bar and 2) making a mil-spec product that can handle the abuse are two different endeavors.

Sure would suck to have a tree knock out your light 20 miles in and have to navigate back with the DOT approved headlights.

Edit: By the way, I too was unable to bring myself to pay 1200+tax for a 50". Instead I lucked out and bought it private party from a guy who never mounted it for $750. BTW, I would agree that the retail prices are somewhat high (for me personally).

daddycreswell said:

Am I stupid or something? I'm sure some of you will say I am and that's fine. But why do lights, fog, light bars etc cost so freaking much? I just saw a post for a set of 4 fog lights and brackets $751.00. Good lord, I don't get it. What makes these things cost so much? I know some of you will say "You bought a 50K truck and complain about the price of lights". Yea I do, how do you think I could buy my truck, by not spending stupid money on these type of things. Sorry for the rant, just blows my mind. Sorry you can't this 30 seconds of your life back.

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This argument could be made for a list of parts for our trucks.

Alpha 1 UCAs $1800. LMAO ya right

I'm totally with you on this, but didn't want to draw attention to it. I forgot about the production cost difference as mentioned. I can see the value in the indestructible part, where some of these trucks, especially offroad racing, deal with extreme situations. Where as the street/gravel road trucks don't see anywhere near, so the chinese knockoffs are quite suited.

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Alot of these products have merged over from the racing industry, hence the prices.

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Its also a market getting into more of the eletronics with the led panels, and the asian market has that nailed down.

You have to pay to play. Show me and industry where quality doesn't reflect price.

Companies front $$$$$$ for design, R&D with an expected ROI that's not seen until the product hits the market.


If you want old school low output lights they come at low cost. You want high quality cutting edge technology it's new; it costs. Simple as that.


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BobboZR2 said:

I hear ya. I feel that Shop Rite mac n' cheese tastes a hell of a lot better than Kraft. Just sayin'.

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Velveeta Shells and Cheese is all I have to say to that.

Just the lease on a building today is ridiculous, the shop my brother worked at was $16,000.00 a month and the landlord wanted 20% more this year to renew and shop materials went up 7% along with Indian shops opening up and low balling, caused them to close last month.