*rant*
I always ask for quotes from places before I buy to prevent them having a monopoly over the charges - obviously they have no competition for my money if I don't know how much its going to cost until I get invoiced.

My dad is much more trusting and tends to say "well I'll just leave it with you, and let me know what it comes to". This was the approach he took getting hold of two flexible pipes to connect my oil cooler. He went to a local hydraulics place to avoid paying over the odds for automotive racing parts.

2 threaded fittings for the cooler, 2 banjo fittings for the sandwich plate, just under 1m of oil pipe and 2 meters of marked 'air hose' for the cooling system ("its better quality than water hose".

That'll be £60 before tax then..

Just looked on merlin motorsport and I'm sure I could have built the same setup for £20-£25 + the cost of the water hose!

It boggles the mind, you should just be able to leave stuff with people and expect to pay a comparative amount.

now to deal with the fact they've made the pipes longer than we wanted which means they wont fit in the engine bay..
*/rant*

[Edited on 30/9/09 by cd.thomson]

To be fair an hour of workshop time and paperwork etc etc and £60 seems like a reasonable commercial price to be honest.

We (locostbuilders that is) never really take our time intoo account when building and realistically that's an expensive part of most jobs.

Bugger. I got a flip hot hydraulic clutch hose made up with crimped fittings etc for £15, took the chap about 5 mins

quote:

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Originally posted by cd.thomson
now to deal with the fact they've made the pipes longer than we wanted which means they wont fit in the engine bay.

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Fittings (assuming they are crimp ones) probs about £5-8 each

Banjo fittings another £5-8 each

Oil hose probs £10/metre

Air hose is about £5/metre depending on bore size.

So all in that adds up to about £35-40 on parts, plus some labour in making up the pipes. So its probably not all that far out.

WRT lengths, are they massively over length? What spec did you give them when you ordered?

But yes, do always ask for quotes before buying.

David

Yea i get 1 meter of hose for a lift with a fitting either end and it costs around £300-£400 every time. So sounds reasonable to me- and they always ask for sizes with or without fittings.

If you ask for 1 meter of hose with 2 elbows on either end thats what you get and it will measure around 1.1meters in total.

The problem with thinking that all 'Trade' places will be cheaper, is that some have a minimum charge if you don't have an account.

when im trying to avoid getting bent over, i ring from outside - more likely to offer a competitive price that way, rather than walking in.