freeflowing

your talking about an audi for crying out loud even the tuneups are expensive??? i dont think for a split second audi parts are cheap 500 bucks for an audi part is probably a dealer discount. you mean to tell me audi parts are cheaper than acura parts???. 1000 dollars is not a huge price to for something thats custom tailered to you

iowagary

What I said is if you are buying a NEW Audi A3 and you go to the customization page (just like Scion), the HID is a $4xx (can't remember the exact amount, but less than $500) option. I know it's cheaper when you buy it up front that way, but like you said, it's an AUDI! Everything is expensive! So when people tell me a grand is not too much, I say that's because it's a retrofit, which are by very definition too expensive. You're buying a replacement part (very expensive) for a BMW (very expensive) and then having someone do additional mods to it (expensive) and do it in a one-off (expensive) fashion. If some 3rd party non-manufacturer (cheaper) was making a mass produced (cheaper) HID housing for the tC specifically (cheaper), it would cost a lot less. I'd buy it. And I bet you would too.

freeflowing

loosen up. hid arent really suposed to be cheap by it's very nature.whats funny hid for my mazda 3 costs more than an audi's . bulbs that cost 150 is what i call epensive but if you got cake for hid then you shouldnt complain. you cant put a price on something that helps see better and possibly help avoid accidents at night. plus its custom so custom= cost. simply math. plus you have to take in to account the amount of engineering. a 1grand by the way is not a lot of money if it is then i live in the wrong state because a grand in maryland goes no where fast.

audi must be a low grade hid for it to cost 500 bucks seriously!!! anybody who owns hid knows that 1 ballast plus 1 ignitor can run you 500 bucks!!!

iowagary

Well everything Audi costs money, but when you talk prices, you're talking aftermarket again! Manufacturers don't pay retail, you know? If you took our 18k tCs and bought all the parts to rebuild them aftermarket, they'd cost like 200k. So that really isn't a good comparison. HID housings, bulbs, ballasts and ignitors probably cost a manufacturer maybe $250 MAX. Plus if you buy it new, they don't have to give you the reflector housings and the halogen bulbs.

freeflowing

come on how are they manufactor gonna recoup the cost to make they still have to pay employees!! once again its a custom made part thats not mass produced so there's a cost involved with a custom made product just like custom made suits and shoes.

if really want that hid headlights for cheap fly or call a buudy over in south korea and pretty sure you could buy it for less than 500 bucks.EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF IS CHEAPER OVER THERE INCLUDING PLASMA SCREEN TV's. IF your korean and reading this dont be offended

iowagary

Like I was saying, if the MANUFACTURER decided to offer HID, it wouldn't be anything special - it woudl be a mass produced part! Just like you can opt for the 6 disk changer in the 05 model, you could opt to pay a bit more and get HID - why is this so hard to understand. Therefore, the manufacturer would sell a bunch and could recoup development costs over the product by selling a bunch.

Honestly, my best guess is the reason you can't get HID or leather or another engine or a 6 speed or nav or something from Scion is that they know if they don't keep a few high end options out of the tC, nobody would buy the much more expensive Toyotas. I think that no matter how many times people ask, there are a few options they are going to try really hard to keep out of the Scion line.

freeflowing

so your saying mazda is a higher end car than a toyota??? why is it an option for mazda not toyota? ??I owned a mazda millena, acura tl, scion tc, mazda 3. mazda really is not above toyota in any way shape or form in my opinon


the answer is easy its not just the cost its the research that toyota did for its youth targeted market is off. just like the steering wheel buttons. its a direct response to what mazda did for the 3. next the 07 model will have hid as an option just watch???

EVEN IF A MANUFACTORED PART IS MASS PRODUCED IT WOULD'nt BE AS A SIMPLE 500bucks upgrade for hid !!!! your gonna have to pay for HID either way you look at whether its MASS PRODUCED OR CUSTOM.

iowagary

Toyota has a "cheap" line of cars - it's called Scion. Mazda does not. Just like I would say that Kia is a very cheap brand (but you can get HID on some of their cars). The logic is still valid - if you don't want to completely cannibalize your existing higher-end line, you have to somehow make it special.

If you're talking youth research, you're not thinking again! Look at this board! How many HID threads have you seen? How many steering wheel controls threads did you see? Obviously it's not just that. I agree that the stereo changes were asked for (*****, not buttons) and pretty cheap. That was a good reason to get them done. I also think there is a chance Scion will put HID in the 07 or something - eventually everyone will have it and this car has a reputation of having lots of high end features for a low price.

Your last paragraph is completely besides the point. It is possible that HID would have to be one of the few original options or possibly something they up the price and make standard, but it's easier to install a purpose-built HID kit than it is to install an alarm and that is an option. I wasn't arguing exactly how much it would cost (although I doubt it would be that much - Toyota could EASILY replace halogen with HID for $500 - it's just a question of what markup they would want. Install would be simple too. You don't have to do anything distructive to mount a part, snap something onto a wire and replace a headlight housing. But back to what I was saying - if they offered it as an option, I would be willing to pay for it. They don't even offer it. I don't want a retro.

freeflowing

i think you got confused somewhere down the line cheap relates to quality in that term and not just price so be careful how you relate the two.SCION was formed to find a niche market for toyota...so i must say mazda is is cheap their products are unreliable and are over pricedand lets not even talk about parts .i can say this because i own all the cars i stated and i pretty sure otheres mazda owners agree. Im sorry but any car costing 18k or more is not what i consider cheap. no offense to xa or xb ownerz. just because the blue book value shows a low price for scions doesnt mean a thing because look at lexus when it first came out and how it was rated and look at lexus now!!!

are you sure you know cars and prices
By the way didnt mazda at one time have the protege which you could get for sub 13k and by the way you can buy a mazda 6 for 15-25k and you can also buy a mazda three between 13-21k where i live so please redefine your definition of cheap.oh yeah lets not forget the 626 and 323. so i think you might want to recant what you said.


I guess you didnt read what i wrote the first time heres a recap

just like i said toyota FAILED in THE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT. THAT WHY YOU SEE SO MANY THREADS..How come mazda nailed right the first huh because they did the research. toyota is lowly becoming like GM if really paying attention.they are pretty reactive when they should be proactive... When i go to mazda forums their arent as many questions about simple stuff as you see here. any tunerhead will tell you toyota didnt do enough research thATS why they are currently looking for small companies who come up with these popular mods for their scion's it also gives a way to feel the pulse of the tuner community and play catchup.


here where you didnt think
even if you could buy your hid for 500 bucks as an option how much would it cost you to replace the ballast or the ignitor at the dealer huh..ask around... ownerz of hid will tell you exactly the same thing im telling you it it costs. so you'll be closer to that 1grand faster than you think whether retro fit or oem because no hid system is perfect


.you cant just throw hid on a car their some engineering and adjustments involved whether small or largeany body whose done retro fitting will know what i'm talking about. hid bulbs are suposed to have 10khr life span but thats a best case scenario

iowagary

Funny how Scion failed so badly on their research - did you see the news stories that they revised the number of cars they're going to sell up from 100k to 130k? The only reason they're not selling 150k is capacity to build them. Maybe they did fail in the research department, but it sure doesn't seem to be slowing down sales.

I don't want to discuss what is cheap (ie. built poorly) vs. cheap (cost). I don't want to talk about who's cars are made poorly as reliability even in the Korean cars is WAY better than it used to be... these are all subjective debates. I was originally just talking about wanting manufacturer-built HID.

I agree that HID is much more expensive than halogen. You've got more complicated parts. You've got more parts. You've got higher quality optics. But if you think a Japanese manufacturer can't figure out how to build HID headlights for less than $500 ADDITIONAL dollars on a car that starts at $16,100, I guess we're going to keep disagreeing. Since neither of us can prove our points, it hardly matters. I still don't have my Scion built HID and you still can't prove to me that they couldn't make it for that much

freeflowing

finally we're at the meeting point.


mazda is cheap that i know first hand the only reason i bought the mazda 3 is because i needed a car asap after my millenia crap out. the general press guys who write about mazda will tell you mazda are great cars to wn when they are running but when they break expect sticker shock to fix ( i have mazda3 2.3 liter the oil filter cost 85 bucks!no aftermarkets where available!!) and they have a reliabilty issues.

iowagary

- it's all coming together. I think we agree that if more people made more things for the tC, we'd both be happier. I know it's not practical to have everyone making hundreds of parts for one car, but I wouldn't be too upset if they did...

freeflowing

i know i would love more options 4 my tc

iowagary

Yeah... especially if I could have financed them. HID, Nav... maybe the options for a 6 speed or a limited slip differential. I know it all costs money and kinda defeats the purpose of th tC, but they woulda made me even happier.