Great timing releasing the increased cost for racing gear, just what the sport needs in the economic mess the country's in :thumbsup:

The price increase is due to the country's economy relative to that of other major players (US $, Japan Jen, Euro etc.). If there was no price increase it would mean the distributors (or more likely the shops) would be running on reduced margins, not make any money, not pay their bills and disapear!

Then there would be no racing in this country!

Anyway, those price increases are not in line with the £ - $ exchange rate difference to this time last year .... it's actually well in favour of the UK driver.

You think they are steep increases, should see some of the price increases suppliers to my company have thrown at us ..... especially the Japanese stuff!!!

How many motors/cells of whatever description will now start costing more simply because the price threshold has been raised?

this I feel is potentially very bad news for our hobby, and will only encourage more improting of stuff from Hong Kong to save a bit of money...or to get those cells that are not commercially available in the UK...

but then they would not be on a list and not approved?

Mark, check the BRCA website, to get on the list they do not need to be available in the UK, just submitted. It's because importers will not buy before they know what is legal. :(

G

Another post as I can't save my edit for some reason.....

I can not see why and distributor would try and homologate something they are not going to import, but as we know, stuff can not be imported overnight. :cry:

G

Let's hope the rules are very clear re stickering etc, I can see people having to try to import in order to get in time for indoor finals, then finding the wrong stickers etc on the cells.

As for £100, it'd be a hell of a price rise to make some cells (trakpower) £100, but of course they don't fit the rules!!

Guys, any LIPO pack that comes out on "THE" list when it is finalised will have to have a recognised distributor for it - no distributor = not on the list.

The Vampire ones that we are doing were NOT "going" onto the BRCA lists until we stepped in and informed the BRCA (Paul) that we were now the appointed distributor for them (which he in turn still had to confirm with Vampire themselves to verify) Up until this point they were going to become EFRA legal only but now they are BRCA legal too (or will be when the list is published)....:thumbsup:

As far as stock goes most distributors have them on the shelf already or if not they are already on the way from suppliers. Our first shipment of our three different stick LIPO's are just a few days away and our LIPO saddles are being shipped in approx 10/14 days. Should not have a problem for all of the big meetings around the end of March onwards (Players, BRCA Indoor etc) IMHO

As far as price rises go, it is bad timimg (but fully due to the whole economic meltdown) but as has been said already if they stayed at around £80 we simply would not have them here at all.....

Darren

or do they????

dontforget if the cells were near the old price limit they will go up to the new, the cneaper cells may got up but not to the full £100, the guys who make them cheaper will sell more!!

i thought as darren says they had to have a uk distributor?

Ooohhh, that's a bit naughty Darren, saying stuff like that before the list is out :p:p:p:p:p

I know one person who won't be happy :woot:

G

In terms of supply issues, £100 may solve that, I can see more people staying on minh than originally planned.

Personally will probably only buy 1 battery at those prices, which will just mean losing rounds if it fails during a meeting!

You might want to check the current buying power of your trusty pound in Hong Kong ...

I have looked and found that to be fair buying from a decent UK shop (their pricing rather than RRP) you will actually be paying less than from Hong Kong for a lot of stuff ... even before you consider the fact you should be paying VAT and duty on top of the HK prices!!!

OK, I think we have a misunderstanding of the term 'commercially available' here. :D

They might have a uk distributor, but they might not have stock. They might also be cheaper from Hing Hong via Ting Tong..... :p:p

G

Top spec esc's are about $210 from HK plus $20 shipping. That's about £165. Import on that price (including parcelforce handling fee) would normally cost me about £25 ish, so maybe £190 total. So I guess maybe prices end up similar here to abroad!? If that's true across other products will be interesting to see how many people still go abroad!

I probably shouldnt fuel the argument but....

You can buy a LiPo saddle that fully complies with EFRA spec made by a big company (Intellect) for £55 delivered from HK, £63 if you include tax.

Lets see what the cheapest on the list is.

they must be commercially available, that means, either the distributor has stock, or has an order in for the minimum stock... thats how I understand it.

Your figures don't seem right to me. If you have to pay duty on the parcel the handling fee alone will be between £8 and £13.50.

I'm only going on what I end up paying, haven't checked how it calculated, but my last order (of about £150ish) from there was for some reason only £20 for duty/handling. Previously on big kit orders of about £300 I've paid up to £40 on duty/handling fee's. Maybe on the small order it wasn't all assessed for some reason?

And remember, I'm actually paying duty etc, lots of people may well not be from other hk places unless things have tightened up!

Check out the BRCA website ;)
G