Finishing kit up $90. wing kit up $225.. Empennage up $30.

I was running around today trying to get the specs finalized to order the finishing kit on time (I didn't make it). No great loss.

If the stock market stays at its current pace, I'll make more money by ordering now and holding off on the final payment until shipping time. But, sure wish I'd bought Google back when I was working on the wings. :D
 
yep, glad i got my order in to save the $225 on the wings. i couldn't remember the exact prices before they went up, but i thought the wings looked like they went up more than the other sub kits.
 
Ahh - you beat me to it! Quickbuild 8 went up about 3 grand, but didnt go up nearly as much as another kit I was considering (Sportsman 2+2) - they just priced themselves way over my limit (40k for airframe alone), so an RV it is for sure! Now the decision 7 or 8 - I need a ride in both before next summers purchase
 
The -8 SB fuselage went up a whole $200 for a 1.03% increase. That is incredibly low from what I have seen as far as the increase in the price of aluminum. Bravo to Van's for keeping the prices so low.

FWIW, I got my fuse ordered before the increase.
 
Bill, that is EIGHT bottles of rum!

:eek:

I am glad I ordered before the increase too!

More rum for me! It helps me think...

:D CJ
 
I got my tail order in on time, I don't know that the -7 tail went up at all though? Also, was the -4 wings always prepunched or is that new?
 
3 percent

For the RV-7, the price for the kit total increased by just shy of 3 percent. Still good prices though.

Joe
 
osxuser said:
I got my tail order in on time, I don't know that the -7 tail went up at all though? Also, was the -4 wings always prepunched or is that new?
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It went from $1465 to $1495. BTW, just have to say it is COMPLETELY lame of Van's not to announce the new prices until the first of the year. They obviously knew what they were weeks ago so why not just say what they're going to be.

Of course, their goal is to get an influx of cash at, presumably, a slow time and it's easier to do that if you get people all worked up about a mysterious price increase, rather than give them the actual numbers and let them decide if it's worth writing the check a week after Christmas or not.

I guess they're worried too many people will say the increase isn't any big deal and decide to hold onto their money for a couple more months to take advantage of higher interest rates or something.
 
Bob Collins said:
It went from $1465 to $1495. BTW, just have to say it is COMPLETELY lame of Van's not to announce the new prices until the first of the year. They obviously knew what they were weeks ago so why not just say what they're going to be.
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So now it's Van's that's lame? They really snuck this price increase up on us, huh? Those 30 bucks...that covers about an hour of flying on today's avgas prices. Huge deal?

We all know the price increase happens every year. We all know it's about 3%. Van's isn't scheming or trying to screw us or con us into spending money earlier or later. Van's is gonna sell the kits now or later. They'd stand to make more money by selling more kits later, after the price increase. They're not trying to screw anybody or withholding any information. They're doing business. This VAF forum may be a community, but Van's is a business. Complain all you want. Faster builders don't have to "suffer" as many price increases, and on the flip side, the slower builders can pretty well rest assured that the kit company will still be around when they finish!

Sorry, but I get a little defensive when people criticize the best kit airplane company in existence. The same company that is enabling you to change your life.

)_( Dan
RV-7 N714D (753 hours)
http://www.rvproject.com
 
As a comparison, Hartzell charges you the price as of delivery. Even if I ordered and paid for one yesterday, I wouldn't get the 2005 price.
 
dan said:
We all know the price increase happens every year. We all know it's about 3%. Van's isn't scheming or trying to screw us or con us..........Faster builders don't have to "suffer" as many price increases, and on the flip side, the slower builders can pretty well rest assured that the kit company will still be around when they finish!

)_( Dan
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Amen, Dan. I wish everybody would do business like this. Imagine how much extra money to buy avgas we would have if this were true. Van seems to be a pretty straight up guy. It's nice that he warns us every year of the impending increase and that it's not a big increase either. I anguished over whether to order my fuselage kit last Christmas and I was glad I waited because I had no room to store those parts. As far as people like me who are slow builders,the longer I wait, the better the kit parts have become.
 
dan said:
We all know the price increase happens every year. We all know it's about 3%. Van's isn't scheming or trying to screw us or con us into spending money earlier or later. Van's is gonna sell the kits now or later. They'd stand to make more money by selling more kits later, after the price increase. They're not trying to screw anybody or withholding any information.
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I didn't say they were trying to screw anybody so I can't really defend a point I didn't make. But, yeah, they WERE trying to withhold the information because they did. That doesn't make them bad people, it doesn't make their kits bad kits and I never said it did. What it does do, however, is deprive the customer of some information to make some decisions. That's simply a fact.

Is that good business? I guess it is for them. And that's fine. But the fact is, yes, they ARE trying to get the cash earlier in the order process. That IS good business and it doesn't equate to scheming or conning anyone as you suggest.

The period after Christmas is a low cash-flow business for many businesses for a number of reasons. And getting people to pay up front instead of at shipping IS good business.

//Sorry, but I get a little defensive when people criticize the best kit airplane company in existence.

Gee, ya think? Pointing out that a company could do things better does not at all mean it doesn't do things well, now.

You know, I was on your page today checking out the section on the canopy frame and you were waiting for some .063 to show up. You complained that Van's is too slow when it comes to shipping stuff.
( http://rvproject.com/20030122.html )

How come you get to complain about certain aspects of this fine company and the rest of us are undermining it if we do?:D

Take a deep breath now.
 
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By the way, in the run of testimonials, the original question was never answered. Why NOT announce the price increases before they take effect?

What would it hurt?

The original point has nothing to do with whether the price increases were justified or not. Of course they are. It wasn't about whether they were expected. Of course they were; they occur every year.

I was referring to my situation, previously posted, in which I'm about to order the finishing kit but don't have all the specs necessary yet. Now I could spend the last week of the year trying to get the specs finalized to get in on the price savings. Or I could wait a week miss the price break, but have better information.

That decision is a little bit easier to make if you know what the price break is, because then you get to decide the value of waiting a week or two (or a month or two) vs. sending the money in now.

How much would waiting cost? As it turned out, about $90. Would $200 have made a difference. Well....yeah...I think I would've considered hustling up the last week to save $200. Anything more than that and I'd be just plain kicking myself.

In the end, I didn't order (I will next week or the week after) because I decided the cash flow now is going to go for those nice new Oregon Aero seats and the resulting upholstery....and the high performance fuel pump.... and by the time the finishing kit is ready to ship, the cash flow over the next 11 weeks should be sufficient to pay that. (Keep in mind, of course, we're talking about sending money now vs. sending it later, not necessarily ordering now or ordering later)

Just as well, I could've gambled that sending $5500 out the door yesterday was going to be worth saving $200, and there would've been an impact on orders pending with other suppliers in the project.

You see, some of us are little more into project management (money flow) than others. Some of us are pay-as-we-go. Others have already grabbed the big loan and are paying the interest already whether they spend the face amount or not. The decisions are different depending on what method you use.

For those of us engaged in the balancing act of pay-as-you-go -- especially at THIS stage of the project -- information is important.

That doesn't mean it has to be important for you. But the fact it's not doesn't logically mean it shouldn't be important to me.
 
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Bob Collins said:
You know, I was on your page today checking out the section on the canopy frame and you were waiting for some .063 to show up. You complained that Van's is too slow when it comes to shipping stuff?
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Good point. It just seems like you in particular do a LOT of complaining. I figure as long as we keep our complaint to contribution ratio <1, then we're doing a service. :rolleyes:

)_( Dan
 
historical prices

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/kitprice.htm

Check that link out. You can see a history of Van's kit prices back to like 2000. I suggest to anybody who can't just see the numbers coming each year (seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe I'm a rocket scientist), plot the darn prices in excel and draw a line through the points. Should help you plan your future expenses if you really want to track this.

I'd do the plots myself but I have better things to do...like fly my RV-7. :eek:

)_( Dan
RV-7 N714D
http://www.rvproject.com
 
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dan said:
It just seems like you in particular do a LOT of complaining.

)_( Dan
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I'm not aware of that. What in particular are you referring to? Most of my criticisms are self-criticisms. I'm not aware of times I've taken Van's to task (other than wishing they'd use RVAtor again to issue corrections to the plans where they have acknowledge mistakes so that we don't have to make unneccessary mistakes. I guess I can see where folks who've already made the mistakes wouldn't see that as a valid point, however. ) But I don't have a Web site to document the occasional frustration either. so... maybe when I post a thought on the board it seems excessive to you, but I'll bet if I counted 'em up on rvproject.com, I'd have a long way to go to match the number there. ;). It's a great site, and it's how you talked to everyone during your building process. This board is how a lot of us who don't run Web sites talk.
 
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dan said:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/kitprice.htm

Check that link out. You can see a history of Van's kit prices back to like 2000. I suggest to anybody who can't just see the numbers coming each year (seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe I'm a rocket scientist), plot the darn prices in excel and draw a line through the points. Should help you plan your future expenses if you really want to track this.
I'd do the plots myself but I have better things to do...like fly my RV-7. :eek:
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Boy I wish it were that easy but figuring out the economy, inflation etc based on the last few years is a bit of a crapshoot. The two big bugaboos in business right now are (a) health care costs and (b) energy and I have no clue what Van's experience is with either other than I'd bet he's getting hammered by both.

The turn of the century was a time of deflation and declining interest rates. Now, energy costs are through the roof, health care is a double-digit cost for an employer year-over-year, interest rates are on the rise (Van's has some nice new equipment that I assume involves loans).

Frankly, I'm shocked the increases were as low as they were; which makes me all the happier I waited.
 
Bob Collins said:
.............. two big bugaboos in business right now are (a) health care costs and (b) energy .............. Now, energy costs are through the roof, health care is a double-digit cost for an employer year-over-year, interest rates are on the rise .............
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Way too many people are just plain overextended. Just wait until the average credit card user finds out the minimum payment on most cards is going to double shortly! :eek:

Rick Galati RV-6A "Darla"
 
Another thing I have to commend Van's on is the fact that they allow you to lock into the price the kit is on the day you order it. Before, you paid whatever the price was at time of delivery. Van's announced (and it was all over the VAF website) that there would be a price increase for 2006 and I made sure my fuse was ordered before it happened. The company and the employees rock.
 
Again, nobody is saying anything about not knowing the prices were going to go up. Let's not get carried away here. Of course we knew they were going to go up. Van's said they were going to go up. The original point was merely that in saying they were going to go up, it would be helpful in project planning to know what the price increase was going to be. That's all. If other people don't find that information helpful in the planning process, that's fine too.

And, yes, it is very good of Van's to allow you to lock in a price. Van's is well known for his Dutch ways. I assume he's going to make a big deposit in an interest bearing account on Tuesday.

If he takes the $5500 I would have sent him yesterday, and got 5% return for it, by the time the finishing kit was ready to ship, he would have about $68.75 in interest....about $22 less than the $90 price increase would've netted him. Plus he got the business at a slow time to keep the machines cranking and the people working (I'll bet there's not a large profit margin on a kit).

Van's is a heck of a good guy, a heck of a kit builder, and a great businessman.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the biggest price jump this year isn't the kit at all, it's the cost of getting the thing delivered.
 
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Rv8

Do not know what I saved??? but I ordered a RV8 QB [complete kit] Dec 23 and paid in full. - some parts I have on hand.
This thing will fly in late 2006 or early 2007.
Lets meet in Marsh Harbor/ George Town, Bahamas, and dive/sail, and tell RV stories.
 
Bob Collins said:
The original point was merely that in saying they were going to go up, it would be helpful in project planning to know what the price increase was going to be. That's all. If other people don't find that information helpful in the planning process, that's fine too..
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Your point is well taken. It would absolutely help to know the exact increase for decision making purposes. An extra 200 bucks for a kit is still money for something else. The questions then become:

One-How exactly are the increases calculated? If every part and supplier has to be analyzed then that's going to be a time consuming project. I suppose all the aluminum parts could be decided by the cost of raw aluminum but what about other things like fuel pumps, AN bolts and radios? Plus overhead and personnel. It must be a daunting task unless a blanket percentage is declared.


Two-At what point in time have they figured this all out? And would/could they advise the customers? I suppose if the increase was substantial more effort to publish the numbers would be undertaken.


Personally, I have not kept that close of an accounting type spreadsheet or statement for every incidental purchase. I am not too sure I want to know. I tell all my friends that this is my version of a little red Corvette :)



Bob Collins said:
It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the biggest price jump this year isn't the kit at all, it's the cost of getting the thing delivered.
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Along with the cost of avgas, you're probably right on with that.
 
Im in

Jay,

Your idea of meeting in the Bahamas for some sailing is excellent. I hope my 8A will be finished by then. Those of us with a "dual diagnosis" of sailing and flying should have an outlet for our addictions. If we could line up some hunnies for that expedition, it would be complete.

Have you chosen a name yet for your 8?
 
//Personally, I have not kept that close of an accounting type spreadsheet or statement for every incidental purchase. I am not too sure I want to know. I tell all my friends that this is my version of a little red Corvette

Hehehe... yeah. I think that's cool. But the way I've approached this project is jamming it in with the rest of life. As big a challenge in building it -- and as rewarding too, at least so far -- is my original intent that I would (a) not use family money for it (b) would not owe a dime on the day it's done and (c) would still be happily married at its conclusion. So far so good although it helped to have had an interest in a couple of radio stations that my wife's family sold last year (but not enough of an interest to pay for the project. ) I've actually enjoyed the "project management" aspect of it. It's like building an airplane while juggling tennis balls.

Getting close to ordering the engine, though, and that is going to be a challenge. (Wish I hadn't sunk the original money for the wing kit into Yahoo at $450 a share while I was working on the empennage).

I wonder if Van is the business manager of the operation or Tom Green is. Whoever it is is doing awesome job. To have only a 1-3% price increase in these difficult times is really something. I know Ken Scott told me once about how Van just HATED the scrap metal that the CNC machines waste compared to the previous method (cutting by hand, perhaps?) and that he'd walk the floor and find something in the trash and get all upset because it was a perfectly good piece that could be used for XYZ. And every time I use riveting tape, I think of Van using a single piece for the entire part.

Clearly that Dutch upbringing is serving the man -- and his customers -- quite well. There's clearly very little waste and he must be a heck of a negotiator with his suppliers..

For all the credit he gets for designing a terrific airplane, I don't think his business acumen gets enough attention.
 
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Jaypratt said:
Lets meet in Marsh Harbor/ George Town, Bahamas, and dive/sail, and tell RV stories.
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Jay, you are a man after my own dreams. I plan on moving to Marsh Harbor when I hit it big. I already have my house over looking the harbor picked out. Happy New Year.
 
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