ARB Air Locker Copies

[jetcrew]

I did the shopping once , had a $300 budget that the Mrs shops with ,I took a calc with me and added up as I went cause i thought I would be able to sneak some extras.

Bloody hell I only got through half the isles and the $300 was gone.

I don't know how she does it. can feed the family on $300 but can't find shoes any cheaper go figure

jetcrew

[Burnsy]

Gee I would hate to go grocery shopping with you guys and yes I bet your wives go to save the whinging and complaining about being ripped off as Coles has got it cheaper than woolworths 

Mark

The reason I buy gear OS is my shopping bill regularly hits $450   And that is with no alcohol, crap food and a big vegie garden at home with everything home cooked.  Bloody nappies and baby formula.  With two girls my woolies bill will always be less than with two boys but I reckon I might have to bend over to take the clothes and shoe bills - bring on the OS clothe and shoe shopping

[JCOJ]

Got nothing to do with looking after their own. It's pure economics that unfortunately many if you will never accept. You have it already formed in your mind that its a rort and no amount of info will sway you.

Don't buy the product, there you go problem solved.

By 'thier own' I am not just talking about the end consumer but also their Australian distributors.  There are many examples where ARB charge the retailer more here in Aus wholesale than what you can buy it for retail in the US so it encourages people to buy from the US which results in the Aussie retailer missing out.

[letsgoplaces]

Coke also 'do it' to small retailers. The cost prices to small owner/operators is higher than the retail pricing at Coles/Woolies. So the guy walking out of Woolies with 7 cartons of coke is generally not your average Joe stocking up for xmas

[noel_w]

By 'thier own' I am not just talking about the end consumer but also their Australian distributors.  There are many examples where ARB charge the retailer more here in Aus wholesale than what you can buy it for retail in the US

Not just in the US.
I run a small IT business on the side and more often than not I can buy parts in Umart cheaper than I can buy off my wholesalers/distributors. Makes it hard to add my xx% on to make a buck when my customer says "but Umart have it cheaper". No wonder I am not making any money.

[LJs GU]

Coke also 'do it' to small retailers. The cost prices to small owner/operators is higher than the retail pricing at Coles/Woolies. So the guy walking out of Woolies with 7 cartons of coke is generally not your average Joe stocking up for xmas

Just the other day I saw an Asian lady and her son wheel their 2 trolleys full of Coke from the local Coles 20m round the corner to their '$2' shop...

And there I was thinking Coke was a stable part of an Asian's diet... 

[jr]

"There are many examples where ARB charge the retailer more here in Aus wholesale than what you can buy it for retail in the US so it encourages people to buy from the US which results in the Aussie retailer missing out."

They didnt miss out, they still sold an AirLocker, Ill bet they still made money on the original sale to the US distributor
More than anything it reflects the markups the Aussie market can bear

If anything we should not buy the product at all, THEN maybe the price will drop locally.........dreamin I know!

[markymark]

If anything we should not buy the product at all, THEN maybe the price will drop locally.........dreamin I know!

This should be done to Toyota, if people actually stopped buying them they would charge a reasonable price...look how quickly they dropped the $$$ off the Hilux when it finally had some real competition. Did it suddenly become cheaper to produce the Hilux? How can they make the Grand Cherokee so cheap when for the same specs you pay double with a Toyota badge. Twice as good? NO.

[maverick_sr71]

Shock,. Horror, Oh the shame of it.

I've finally found the answer to the question I'd been asking ARB for many years now...... Why are ARB Lockers cheaper in the US than here in Oz, where they are made?

Well folks, seems ARB has shipped it's locker manufacturing over seas. Go on guess where!!!!!!

That's right the good old US of A.  And that is why they are cheaper there then over here, they are no longer an Australian made product, but an imported product. By the way, most ARB products are now manufacture overseas. But I guess we should have known that already.  :-(

[McGirr]

Bummer that means for 4 pages of whinging and bagging ARB , they are making their gear overseas.

Here comes another 4 pages of how dare they do that, I am not buying overseas products, I am not supporting companies that don't make their products in Australia etc etc

Lmao

Mark

[Mace]

 

[LJs GU]

I think it's going to be more like 4 pages of "Why didn't Mr ARB just come straight out and tell us"
Would have saved us all a lot of time and arguing debating...
LJ

[D4D]

Shock,. Horror, Oh the shame of it.

I've finally found the answer to the question I'd been asking ARB for many years now...... Why are ARB Lockers cheaper in the US than here in Oz, where they are made?

Well folks, seems ARB has shipped it's locker manufacturing over seas. Go on guess where!!!!!!

That's right the good old US of A.  And that is why they are cheaper there then over here, they are no longer an Australian made product, but an imported product. By the way, most ARB products are now manufacture overseas. But I guess we should have known that already.  :-(

I think you have your facts wrong. Calling Sam...

[ARB 4X4 Accessories]

Well folks, seems ARB has shipped it's locker manufacturing over seas. Go on guess where!!!!!!

That's right the good old US of A.  And that is why they are cheaper there then over here, they are no longer an Australian made product, but an imported product. By the way, most ARB products are now manufacture overseas. But I guess we should have known that already.  :-(

This is totally incorrect. Air Lockers are and always have been made in Australia.

I'd be happy to arrange for a group of Victorian MySwag representatives to come out and do a tour of the factory one night to show you our extensive manufacturing facilities in Kilsyth, and in particular, where the Air Lockers are made.

I'll even supply a few pizzas for dinner

Cheers, Sam.

[Fivid]

Shock,. Horror, Oh the shame of it.

I've finally found the answer to the question I'd been asking ARB for many years now...... Why are ARB Lockers cheaper in the US than here in Oz, where they are made?

Well folks, seems ARB has shipped it's locker manufacturing over seas. Go on guess where!!!!!!

That's right the good old US of A.  And that is why they are cheaper there then over here, they are no longer an Australian made product, but an imported product. By the way, most ARB products are now manufacture overseas. But I guess we should have known that already.  :-(

I think you will find that they have more than one manufacturing plant.  Lots of their gear sold in Oz is made here, a fair bit of their gear sold elsewhere in the world is made at plants OS.  I can't remember where it may have been Thailand or Korea or where ever but that is what we were told when we did a tour through the Kilsyth factory.  Our tour was nearly 2 years ago I think and things may have changed but there were lots of different areas in the factory making different things.  I can certainly remember the compressor assembly area and locker area, we saw lots of OEM toyota bars being made, we saw the area where lockers were developed and tested, there were racks and racks of broken axles, etc in there!  Fridges were developed and tested on site there although manufacture was outsourced but done to their specs, pretty much the same as the toyota bars that were being manufactured by ARB and put into boxes printed with Toyota Genuine Parts all over them... 

I think it is more the design and quality control of items that is an issue, not the place of manufacture.   There are plenty of items that people deem "Top Quality" that are manufactured in plants in China, a country renowned for crap products but with the correct systems in place they can produce consistently good quality items.  Look at Apple, Nikon, etc...

Previous posts are saying that companies need to get with the times, realise it is a global market, etc.  Here we have a company that has done this, they certainly have a massive investment and employ hundreds of people in Australia and if it was economical to manufacture everything here and export around the world I am sure they would  but we all know that the manufacturing industry in Oz isn't all that competitive.  It sounds like some don't like their pricing but thankfully we are a free country and one of the things that means is that companies are allowed to be privately owned and are allowed to price things to what they want.  Along with being a free country, no one is forced to buy their product...  If their products are so massively over priced, why are there not so many other companies producing the same products with the same quality, the same backup and same availability at a heaps cheaper price? 


Dave

[BigJules]

Well said Dave.

[qlddsl]

^^^x2

[ozbogwam]

Shock,. Horror, Oh the shame of it.

I've finally found the answer to the question I'd been asking ARB for many years now...... Why are ARB Lockers cheaper in the US than here in Oz, where they are made?

Well folks, seems ARB has shipped it's locker manufacturing over seas. Go on guess where!!!!!!

That's right the good old US of A.  And that is why they are cheaper there then over here, they are no longer an Australian made product, but an imported product. By the way, most ARB products are now manufacture overseas. But I guess we should have known that already.  :-(

How can people just waltz in with complete lies and post it up as fact? The nature if forums is now 20 people read this fabrication and ignore everything else about the topic that is true and spread this because, to them, it has to be true to explain something they can't understand or want to believe.


Where is your actual proof of your claim?

[OffRoadDave]

Seriously, did you all miss the part where Sam said he'll supply pizza? 

[maverick_sr71]

Happy to stand corrected if my information regards the Aust plant is incorrect, however my source is also an ex ARB machinist from Melbourne who manufactured the ARB locker components. He informed me that there is a US plant making the ARB lockers for the US market.

He said US labour and material is cheaper, thus the lockers can be sold cheaper.

Now had I recieved an answer like this when I kept asking the questions at 4WD shows I would have been satisfied, as I now am.

[Fivid]

Seriously, did you all miss the part where Sam said he'll supply pizza? 

I didn't, and what is a pizza without beer?

Seriously, I would love to do another tour through the place but a weeknight isn't a possibility.  I would encourage as many people as possible to go along and have  a look.  For me it was a bit like when I took SWMBO for a tour of the HSV factory, she came out of there saying that she could now see where the added costs for a Clubbie went over that of an SS, that it looked like good value and I had approval to buy one (that I never followed up on as we bought a 4wd instead)...


Dave

[Fivid]

Happy to stand corrected if my information regards the Aust plant is incorrect, however my source is also an ex ARB machinist from Melbourne who manufactured the ARB locker components. He informed me that there is a US plant making the ARB lockers for the US market.

He said US labour and material is cheaper, thus the lockers can be sold cheaper.

Now had I recieved an answer like this when I kept asking the questions at 4WD shows I would have been satisfied, as I now am.

Your mate told you there was a plant in the USA making lockers for the USA and you posted that they are no longer an Australian made product but an imported product???  Bit like the old Chinese whisper game where the story changes that little bit each time it is told.


Dave

[D4D]

Yeah! Proof or ban

[maverick_sr71]

No, he told me they moved the plant to the USA, I accepted that as he was an employee. Sam has since confirmed that there is still a plant in Melb. I can only pass on the information given. I accepted it as the guy was an ARB employee and his explaination as the the reason for the price difference was plausable.  If ARB would just come out with an acceptable explaination as to the price difference then we wouldn't be seeking information from alternate, less credible, sources. As I said earlier, I'd been asking for a plausable answer from ARB for many years now.

Anyway, I'll let you know in mid March when I'm back from the States with lockers for both ends.

Happy to not post here again if you guys feel agreived by my posts.

[Mace]

Will look forward to hearing about what you find at US end.