Vans price increase

[rdamazio]

In case anyone hasn't seen it:
http://www.vansaircraft.com/images/o...it-Pricing.pdf

From past experience, how much do the kit prices increase each year?
Wondering if I should order that next kit (even though I'm not ready to work on it yet).

[N546RV]

Here are the base prices shown on my first order form from mid-2012:

Empennage $1645
Wings $6855
Fuselage $7820
Finish $5635

And here are the prices from my fuse order form six weeks ago:

Empennage $1725
Wings $7130
Fuselage $8010
Finish $5935

So on average, a 4% price increase over two years.

[N941WR]

Now that Ford is using aluminum on the F150 truck bodies, I wonder if that will drive aluminum prices up for next year?

[dypen]

Has aluminum large variations in price from year to year, what was the price of the first QB kit that was sold from Van's Aircraft?

[grubbat]

If oil prices continue to slide do stay depressed, expect to see wholesale metal price fall 10 to 30% later this year as inventories turn over. However, I don't expect to see retail prices to fall quite as much as many businesses are looking for profit taking to help regain was has been lost over the past 6 years in general. As long as the customer buys, there is no incentive to lower prices.

[daveyator]

Don't worry too much, it happens every year. It's never as much as everyone worries about. If you can afford to OWN an aircraft, the price rise won't matter

[Driving '67]

For us Canadians, the price has gone up 25% in the last year and still rising. I figure my RV14 will be 30k more than I originally budgeted! Still building, just might take a year or two longer.

[WingsOnWheels]

I purchased my wing kit second hand. I have the invoice from the initial sale circa early '90s. I think it was a little over 3K...

[rvbuilder2002]

When I bought the first kit section for my first RV-6A in the late 80's a complete RV-6 kit was about $5800. By the time I completed it 4.5 years later the cost of the complete kit was about $7000.

Cost of products go up. It is a normal.
It happens because of increases in material and labor costs. It happens because of improvements being made to the kits.
Sometimes the improvements can have an influence in helping hold prices down. I remember times in the past when some of the early pre-punch kits (when only some portions of the kit were prepunched), got updated to being fully prepunched, the price nearly stayed the same when the yearly price increase came around because of the cost reduction to produce the kit (same amount of materials but lower labor cost).

[N941WR]

Originally Posted by rvbuilder2002

When I bought the first kit section for my first RV-6A in the late 80's a complete RV-6 kit was about $5800. By the time I completed it 4.5 years later the cost of the complete kit was about $7000.

Cost of products go up. It is a normal.
It happens because of increases in material and labor costs. It happens because of improvements being made to the kits.
Sometimes the improvements can have an influence in helping hold prices down. I remember times in the past when some of the early pre-punch kits (when only some portions of the kit were prepunched), got updated to being fully prepunched, the price nearly stayed the same when the yearly price increase came around because of the cost reduction to produce the kit (same amount of materials but lower labor cost).

Scott brings up a great point. When we buy a kit, we are not just paying for aluminum. Wrapped into that cost is the machine time (not cheap), engineering time (not cheap), and customer support and documentation (not cheap).

Being in the IT field, it surprised me that we get all this free phone support along with the kit. I suspect that Van's has been able to hold down the total support costs because of this forum since the total number of builders and kits has gone up over the years but their support staff has remained about the same. (Scott, correct me, if I'm wrong.)