Guess the Price

With all the complaints, and rightfully so, about the price of Slingshot parts, I thought I'd share the price of parts for another piece of equipment I own, a Takeuchi mini excavator. Pictured below is a safety relay from the ignition system. My troubleshooting yesterday determined that this part is bad and I am heading to the Big City (Portland, OR) this morning for a replacement. I'll take it 30 miles north to my tree farm in Woodland, WA (much more desirable location) to install.

So, for an all-expenses-paid trip to your refrigerator for a cold beer, guess the price of this simple relay (OK, it's a sophisticated relay, but it is just a relay). I'll be offline for the day and will announce a 'wiener' when I get home this evening.

Hint: They import these from Japan. Good luck!

chavey2 you were only off by $14 - on the front end. You're off by $220 on the back end. In this case, the Takeuchi dealer charged me $381 for that part so I guess it cost $24 to make, not $10. Or maybe they're just squeezing a little extra blood from the supply line. Congratulations to Funinthesun who was closest guess, and only low by $105! I owe you a Sonic dog or five. Orangeman you were definitely in the running and MACAWS should have been right! I buy Japanese import parts for my Kubota, Honda engines, an Infiniti and Mom's ol' Subaru. I was particularly incensed at this price and worked hard to source it elsewhere. When I replaced the solenoid on the Hitachi starter, the dealer wanted over $150 and I found it a mile up the road at an electronics distributor for $43. But this is a Hitachi part made exclusively for Yanmar, the engine manufacturer, and I could not find it anywhere. Takeuchi, like so many manufacturer/distributors, keeps their supply line locked up and uses many proprietary parts (sound familiar). Their dealers are evenly spaced throughout the country based on population and they all have sales, parts and service. I called the next nearest dealer under different ownership and they were $347 for the same part. When I told the parts guy that Kubota would have charged me $180 for the relay and made plenty of money, and that Takeuchi was really putting the screws to it's customers, his response was, 'Kobelco's worse'.

The good news is the gold plated little bastard fixed my problem and I'm back to digging. Fortunately, in my 15 years of ownership, this has been a very reliable and productive machine and repairs have mostly been bolting stuff back on that I broke off.

Thanks for playing! SlingLow out!

Quote from Boomer

Wait , what was the prize, just a corn dog? Wow what a wonderful prize!!!!

JUST SAYIN

Well the original offer was an all-expenses-paid trip to your own fridge for a cold beer, so this is an upgrade based on the winner's known propensity for Sonic dogs. Plus I hear they're really cheap!

Quote from MACAWS

But just think what that corn dog could be worth if we sell it a few times.

We need an export business. Don't you have connections in China? How many dogs in a container? We'll rename it the Wuhan Vaccine Dog. Man, we're gonna be rich!

Quote from MACAWS

Great thinking and if we park that container somewhere in the sunshine we can cook them for free!

Even more profit $$$$$$$$$$$$$

OK we're on a roll. Another new product idea: the Solar Cooking Container. Put 'em in raw and take 'em out done! Your not going to want to use this for smuggling illegals though...

Quote from MACAWS

We should incorporate and file for a patent before someone steals our idea

I'll cover the incorporation. Can you handle the patent thing?

Quote from Funinthesun

That's GREAT news. If I add it to today's special (99 cents for chill cheese tator tots) I'll be having a fantastic dinner tonight

Now, all we have to do is get you to come out to either Maggie Valley or Eureka Springs this year and we can all enough a few corn dogs

Do they have firm dates yet?