A good idea of what it costs to produce it looking at the hk online shops. Pair of foams for $8, and that's with the shop making a profit. I looked at making my own tires a while ago, actually I have two cans of tire glue and a few sets of ofna rims sitting in my pit box. But it's not cost effective unless like you said, there is a way to buy foam donuts cheaply. As for trueing it's not a problem, I'll bet there is at least one person at every track that runs foams, that has a truer. Actually if your car has a front oneway you can stick in an old motor, charge a pack and take out your sandpaper. If a company comes out that produces cheap donuts($10 a set of 4) in purple and plaid I'll buy them, provided they offer the same traction as the trc and jaco's.
12 or 13 years ago I was actually making my own foams. I found a fairly local gasket manufacturer that could get foam that would perform fairly well. My cost for a 1" thick cutout (donut) for either 1/12 or 1/10 scale size was about 57 cents and a 36 X 40 sheet of rubber yielded about 190 cutouts or 32 pairs of front or rear tires. I had to order a full sheet at a time and the order took about a week to process. They liked me because I paid on time too.
The only problem was consistency in the rubber. One time it would be soft and the next it would be hard. When you needed some hard it would be soft and when you needed soft it would be hard. I never got to the stage that I would order 10 - 15 sheets at a time to get a variety.
As fatdoggy said, HK is a very good indication of how much they should really cost.
Consider also that those tires have been shipped from Europe to HK which is even farther away than the US, so the import/tax/shipping bullshit does not fly.
I know that I buy my tires from my sponsor for 8.99 a pair and that's pretty much dealer pricing, so if you shop sells foam for 17-19 Dollars, like most do, he IS really raping you.
Especially a consumable like tires should not have a profit margin of 100%
If you look at places like www.westcoasthobbies.com , they are selling foams MUCH cheaper and still make profit off them.....
thanks god i live in hk! haha..i just go back every once in a while during breaks and friends and ppl tell me to bring back loads of tires! mostly to make profit outta them!
but since hk dont have grey rears for 12th, i just reuse the rims and order donuts! its still very expensive, but its worth it...college student gotta save every penny possible!
I have heard of using 1/10 th pan car rear tire (donuts) and cutting them in half and each half can be used as touring tires. So, you can get four tires for like $16.00. Doing it this way, I don't think you can get plaids or new exotic compounds, but any others I think can be made.
OMG where do you guys get tires for 10 a set?!
right now i am paying like $24 for 2 trc 28mm foams
any links to better prices w/ shipping???
thanks!
manny
foam tire prices, is this rape?
If a company comes out that produces cheap donuts($10 a set of 4) in purple and plaid I'll buy them, provided they offer the same traction as the trc and jaco's.
Pitty they don't have plaid though...
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