DC licensing ATF+4 for aftermarket

Press release posted here:

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Will this mean it will cost less? (I assume 'yes'.)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney
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Thanks for posting. I do hope the price comes down. Also note that ATF+3 is being phased out and that all vehicles, even older ones that were designed for ATF+3, will use the +4 formulation. I've already been doing that and have not seen any problems, even in our 1999 T&C minivan.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Shuman

I recently purchases some +4 at the dealer and the price there has already come down a bit from last year.

Richard.

Reply to
Richard

Geeze Bill, that server they are using is slow as a dog. Until they can get it together why don't you use URL's that have some reasonable speed like:

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Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

I doubt the ATF+4 price slide will accelerate much anytime soon. Remember D-C is doing this amist anti-trust pressure to the federal government. (See ILMA's letter to the FTC

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D-C also has legitimatereasons to be really careful with the quality and formulation of ATF+4in addition to wanting to be the supplier. Their newer transmissionsare very sensitive to ATF properties so quality control has to be verygood. So you can bet that the costs of manufacturing ATF+4 should behigher for the new producers (licensing, quality control checks,periodic D-C inspections) than it would be for generic ATF fluids.

Reply to
Greg Houston

It's not the cost of manufacture that is the problem. Raw crude is selling at about $1.20 a gallon. I would guess after refining and blending with the additives, the trans fluid is probably selling at under $8 a gallon.

Now, how do you get from $2 a quart to the $8 quart that it seems to be selling through the dealer network?

That is the real problem. Standard retail markup is 400% and ATF+4 isn't available outside of a dealership, so a trans shop that uses a lot of it in customer transmissions has to buy it by the case from the chrysler dealer. They can't go to whoever they buy bulk motor oil from and get it from them. Nor can you or I go to a discount auto parts place that has a lower markup, and buy it from them. Nor can you or I wait until a regional or national auto parts place puts it on sale.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

A couple of points:

(1) It is not selling for $8 a quart. I just called my local dealer, who is not known for discounting and in fact typically charges full list, and they told me they are presently charging $4.40/qt. That's cheaper than the around $5.20/qt. they were charging 2 years ago (I had read on the forums that the price had dropped a little over the last year or two, so that is consistent with my local dealer). As a point of reference, whenever we have discussed (on R.A.M.C.) the wide variation of dealer pricing of ATF+4 a year or two ago, the worst price I ever remember seeing posted was $7 - maybe $8 - but that doesn't reflect the current non-competitive (i.e., non-aftermarket available) pricing. If everything is linearly scalable, I would say worst-case gouge-me-'til-it-hurts dealer pricing should be around $6.35/qt now.

(2) ATF+4 is supposedly a semi-synthetic. I'm not sure I know much about what that means, but since synthetic motor oil costs a bit more than non-synth, I assume there are some real additional processing costs to "create" a synthetic or semi-synthetic (again - whatever that means). Point being that synth motor oil being 4 to 6 times the price of non-synth, I would think you have to scale your pricing of semi-synth ATF+4 a bit higher relative to the price of raw crude (to refelct the retail price of semi-synth relative to non-synth).

With it going aftermarket, the price should drop - which maybe was your main point (which wasn't clear to me after I had finished reading your post).

Reply to
Bill Putney

The main point I was trying to make is that the bulk of the cost of each quart is added to the quart by the distribution chain. The dealer parts department is about the most expensive auto parts distribution chain there is - and for good reason, the dealer parts distribution chain must warehouse the most obscure and little-used part in the car - and as such it's generally a terrible place to buy a commodity item like a fluid.

Compare Walmart's distribution chain with Mopar. What the consumer benefits the most by - which is the entire point of the anti-trust laws by the way - is to have consumable commodities like gasoline, motor oil, grease and transmission fluid that everyone needs to buy, to be available for sale through the Walmart's of the world and their distribution chains. (while trans fluid isn't normally consumed, since it has to be changed periodically, you do consume it over the life of the vehicle)

When that happens, those places represent sufficient threat of competition that the expensive distribution chains either have to lower their prices to keep the same volume, or just accept the loss of revenue.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

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