My buddy stuffed his X3 in a witches eye the FIRST TIME he drove it in Glamis.. the frame IS bent and he just replaced the front arms,.. he DIDN'T insure it,.. which I think is CRAZY.
Why does weddle need to get involved in rebuilding a Speed front diff? Yes, I understand they helped design the diff, but re-assembling a front diff isn't rocket science. A front bulkhead case half probably $400-500. Beyond that all you're out is labor and sealant.
Someone with the tooling has to set pinion depth, backlash, preload, etc. Generally not a Joe Schmoe type job, but doable. No clue if there’s special fixturing needed here.
I'm a preorder. I defend Speed objectively in terms of design. In terms of execution and tact, not so much, historically.
Hmm. I just exploded a rzr transmission. Other than adjusting backlash for the 'transfer case' output shaft(which was stupid easy), rebuild was a no brainer. What makes the Speed front diff more complicated to the point anyone with a clue couldn't rebuild?
Setting gears in any diff isn't usually a job the normal person can do. If spacing isn't perfect it can kill a set of gears really fast. Much harder than a trans rebuild.
You must be forgetting the sign and drive world we live in. I would say that most people buying a SXS these days come from a generation of not knowing how to turn a wrench! Hell my son just told me they are taking his girlfriends truck to a shop to have a compression test done! His whole life has been around mechanics but is scared to try new things. In a world he grew up in with smart phones since he was a young kid, spent most of his days watching YouTube idiots, still forgets he can Google anything and some video of a redneck will pop up on YouTube and show you how to fix it! I patiently told him he could borrow my Snap-On compression test kit and do it himself!
Anything with a ring and pinion has a lot more setup in it than your regular transmission as I said in my other post: pinion depth/centering, backlash, preload. Some of these will affect other parts of the setup, so it either takes good tools and lots of experience, or 57 iterations of install, check, move a shim, repeat. You're shimming to the thousandths on most R&P setups, so setup is critical. Check preload on the pinion gear. Good? Check backlash. Good? Check pattern on the drive and coast side. Centered, but too deep? Pull it apart and re-shim. Screw it up and you'll be doing it again fairly quickly, and with the straight cut gears in the front diff, you probably won't hear your screwup until it cooks off on you. :biggrin:
Sure I will sign it but if I say anything what are they ( Speed ) going to do? Not sell me another one? Come take it back from me? Take me to court for giving my opinion?
I think the reason he is doing a slow rollout of cars to customers is avoid any major issue and get anything corrected before the 500 cars get produced.
I was thinking the slow roll out is due to not having enough space and people to manage it all.............
You can only hand build 6, 12, 24 at best in China, then the 50 my guess will be the Production run testing in Vietnam and then ramp up to full 500 if nothing major goes wrong.
Sign and Drive Idiots are going to be weeded out by the close to $60K out the door price tag and there are not going to be "sign and drive" deals or "special " financing available. These are a boutique item, built for avid Off-Roaders not your average Joe Schmo. Doesn't mean they are not going to be driven irresponsibly or not crashed.
What makes you think they can't get similar financing? These sign and drive folks spend close to that by rolling all the extras accessories into the loan. Let's not forget to mention the big selling point on these is you don't or supposedly don't need to do any kind of upgrades
What makes you think they can sit down with the big financial players that the big guns deal with and walk away with the same deal ? Nobody is going to be going to Robbie saying what can we do to get you to finance 10,000 units with us this year? Sure they might have a lender or two who they can go with but for the zero down zero interest drive and sign loans you need to move more units then Speed ever will and if Speed goes bust after the first batch or two come out and spare parts and dealer support dries up that financial institution is going to have a bunch of very expensive paperweights.
You are absolutely correct. You should see what dealers go through to get retail financing.
If he is moving units at the dealers the financing will be there. Lucky for RG he has partner Todd who knows how to get that done.
ump truck loads of marketing dollars.