When Carbon Ceramics were an option for ferrari (now standard on all models) the cost was $16,000 on the F430

 

Porsche charges this price because people are willing to pay it.
There is a performance factor to having them and a prestige factor to having them. If no one ordered them, the price would come down or the option would go away.
If you vote with your feet, things change.

 

Wow, almost double that of Porsche.

 

Some how I have a feeling very few owner have replaced their PCCB either 6 or 7 GT3 due to the cost. I could see $1200 to $1500 each on disc (not including hat) replacement but not over $4000 ... nuts!

 

The option cost has never reflected the replacement cost, which always made me suspect something was up as there is no way they'd be subsidising the option. I suspect they feel these only need to be replaced by insurance companies so its 'free money'. They forget about us who use the cars properly.

 

Well it is an OEM part. When you have no other options, when you have to buy from them, they are are going to charge as much as they want. Why wouldn't they? It is just business. Porsche makes money, Chev, well doesn't...Well I guess neither did porsche thus their huuuge debt load, but still.

I sell a ton of parts at my job, and the going retail price for most parts are twice that of our cost. Our cost is twice what the distributor pays, and so on down the line.

I have sold a bolt for $34 for a pedal bike. Damn near gave me a heartattack when I ordered it in. But is a specific bolt, that is specific to one frame, from one manufacturer, and there is no 3rd party. So they are going to charge whatever the hell they want, and you hope you never need to replace it.

Not really surprised there aren't any non-OEM suppliers. As most of the time non-OEM things in the high performance market are upgrades from stock, therefor they would more than likely charge more than OEM, which well, as you can see would be a pile of cash.

 

if the ZR1 brakes are bigger and better, hmmm... they are Brembos, I wonder if it'd be possible to make the ZR1 brakes work on the 996/997 cars if you have some custom hats made. Sounds like a cheaper alternative.

 

Mikymu, got to say I love your threads mate. Cheers, Tom

 

This assumption that CC rotors should be cheaper across the board for all makes and models suffers from the fallacy of entitlement mentality that seems prevalent among people who don't appreciate patent protection of intellectual property. Porsche and SGL spent lots of time to develop the use and manufacture of silicon carbide/carbon fiber technology for brake and clutch applications. Are they not entitled to earning a return on investment? I'm sure the people willing to own the first music CD player, flat screen TV, fly to the moon on a Space Shuttle, etc are willing to front the initial costs of making these things possible. Just like the drug companies who develop new treatments and drugs should get to charge a reasonable price for their research and development, Porsche should be entitled to profit from their efforts. People should just wait for the initial period for production to ramp up and the process to be refined and streamlined for prices to drop before complaining . We all have the choice to vote with our money what we like to purchase. It's unreasonable to expect to be able to buy cutting edge technology at generic pricing. Below is a link to plans to increase production volumes to 250,000 units:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-89942554.html

That was suppose to happen in 2008 but the economic crisis probably delayed that till now.

 

Also I believe the price of a PCCB rotor has come down to about $2000 each from Suncoast or your local cost+15% dealer.

 

one other item to consider is that porsche has to fund its racing programs somehow. the money only comes from buyers and a portion of every car and part goes to r/d and racing programs which keeps us p-car folks on the edge of our seats watching the annual battles with the f-cars, bmw's and vettes etc. i swallow this as i have been watching porsche lead the world in road racing since the late 60's. i guess that is why i have only driven p-cars since 1972. there is a price to be paid, and we all pay for it.

 

Holy Thread Revival Batman! That linked article was printed in 2002! PFan, while you were napping a new word was added to the composite rotor dictionary: "MovIt".

That is all...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Sayboy,
LOL I wasn't napping for 8 years. What's the revolutionary step from Movit that's equivalent to the PCCB's from SGL+Porsche? It's always easier to evolve a new product than it is to invent a revolutionary newer product (Cialis versus Viagra, Lipitor versus Mevacor). Porsche showed the way for the later tuners to push the limits of their products. Porsche has limitations as to what they can offer whereas the tuners who mod their cars don't have much constraints.

 

Porsche put it out there and then they fell asleep PCCB is full of problems and compromises, especially once you begin tracking the car. Ask me how I know. If one wants to keep the low-weight benefits, then MovIt is the only current alternative to PCCB. And it fixes all the problems as well. For example, greatly improved rotor technology:

MOV´IT-CER™ Friction rings


Producing ceramic brake rotors is usually done in a cost-effective way. Friction layers of approx. 0,5 mm thickness are bonded to a silicon carbide core which is reinforced by short carbon fibers. This way to design a ceramic brake rotor entails some disadvantages, e.g. low thermal conductivity, little thermal capacity and poor material integrity. The result is a poor fading stability, high temperatures, excessive wear and high mechanical damage sensitivity.



In years of intensive research MOV´IT® succeeded in developing the highly sophisticated production technique CCF™ (Crossed Continuous Fibre) that allows overcoming those disadvantages ceramic brakes show in comparison to brakes made of cast iron and – at the same time – combines the advantages of both materials. Polyacrylonitrile fiber sheets are needeled together and generate a perform. The future rotors are then cut out of this perform and experience various treatments. After the final treatment, a complex high rate silicon infiltration, the MOV´IT®-CER rotor is finished. The CCF™ system guarantees high thermal conductivity, superior thermal capacity and a homogeneous material structure combined with the low weight of the carbon-silicon-carbid material.

• High thermal conductivity
• Superior thermal capacity
• Homogeneous material structure
• Reduced system temperature
• Highest fading resistance

The whole enchilada is on their site: http://www.movitbrakes.com/en/produkte/keramik/

 

So what is the costs of conversion over to the MoVit system? And what does it entail? I still don't see any superiority in this Movit system over the latest generation PCCB's (with the exception of possible lower costs with the promise of best friction, less fade, lower temperature? ) . When it comes to promises made in marketing propaganda it remains to be proven. Porsche once made the claim that the newly produced PCCB's would last forever, etc. and then weaknesses of the original design came to light after people started to push their limits on the track. So Porsche had to rein in their marketing department and limit their warranty claims. Feathers were ruffled and image was tarnished. However, Porsche has always been a development driven company that uses racing to validate their products and lead the sports car market. The Ferrari /F1 experience has also been a parallel type of development and application type of marketing but they were using carbon fiber rotors that were worn out after each race and costs were astronomical in comparison to other (endurance) racing. So the carbon ceramic rotor technology developed by Porsche and SGL is truly REVOLUTIONARY and others that developed afterwards are merely evolutionary advances/improvements if any. So the credit for making the quantum leap in improvements over the traditional iron rotors belong fully to Porsche and SGL and Brembo. And that is what gives them the right to charge what they want for patenting this advancement. I'm sure Porsche Engineering Group and SGL gets royalties from other companies (GM-Chevy, VW-Buggatti, Fiat/Ferrari, etc) that uses the same furnace to produce the applicable size carbon ceramic rotors.

Its like the Japanese auto industry becoming better than the others by initially copying and then improving on what others have started. Ford started mass assembly lines for building the Model T....now Japan and Korea and German companies have been forced to overtake Ford in the way cars are assembled.

I for one am grateful that there are choices out there for how one would spend their money for the wide range of products developed for sports cars. We are only differing on perceived value for these choices.