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Injection molding and stamping steel is more up front cost than machining something out of aluminum. The cost of the molds and dies is pretty high. Thats not an issue for an auto manufacturer who is planning to sell 3 million cars. They spread the cost of the molds out across all those cars plus the spare parts.That was ford 50yr ago. Nobody is making huge runs of spare parts for our cars these days. If some taiwanese factory has to make molds to reproduce a part, that mold still costs them a lot of money. Then they are selling smaller numbers of parts, so they need to jack up the cost to cover the initial investment. Same story with stamped metal like the grille trim.There are some parts where the aftermarket has acquired the original ford tooling. They are still doing very small production runs which runs the price up.And then the fact that they are running a business. They will charge whatever the market is willing to pay. For parts to doll up a classic car, old retired dudes have a lot of money to throw around. They know there are grandpas out there willing to pay $200 for the headlight rings, so thats what they sell them for.And parts that are "finished" and "externally visible" will have a higher rejection rate. Floor panels, and other body panels in general, it is understood that they will need work/bondo/paint. So they can be ugly. Grilles and headlight pieces are expected to look perfect right out of the box. They end up scrapping more of them which runs up the cost.
Injection molding and stamping steel is more up front cost than machining something out of aluminum. The cost of the molds and dies is pretty high. Thats not an issue for an auto manufacturer who is planning to sell 3 million cars. They spread the cost of the molds out across all those cars plus the spare parts.
That was ford 50yr ago. Nobody is making huge runs of spare parts for our cars these days. If some taiwanese factory has to make molds to reproduce a part, that mold still costs them a lot of money. Then they are selling smaller numbers of parts, so they need to jack up the cost to cover the initial investment. Same story with stamped metal like the grille trim.
There are some parts where the aftermarket has acquired the original ford tooling. They are still doing very small production runs which runs the price up.
And then the fact that they are running a business. They will charge whatever the market is willing to pay. For parts to doll up a classic car, old retired dudes have a lot of money to throw around. They know there are grandpas out there willing to pay $200 for the headlight rings, so thats what they sell them for.
And parts that are "finished" and "externally visible" will have a higher rejection rate. Floor panels, and other body panels in general, it is understood that they will need work/bondo/paint. So they can be ugly. Grilles and headlight pieces are expected to look perfect right out of the box. They end up scrapping more of them which runs up the cost.