Exhaust Brake Price Increase

[Casey Balvert]

My parts guy informed me that he received a letter from

DC indicating that the exhaust brake was given a new part number and a 75% price increase. Went form $1300 Canadian to $2300 Canadian. Anyone else heard this? The increase was because of change in design to make it more reliable. What a crock. First they jerk me around on a hitch and now the exhaust brake.



Casey

 

[Dean Upson]

It's true.



Dean

 

[crebelein]

that sucks! what is the improvement? what are they going to do w/all the "old" brakes?

 

[Dean Upson]

I doubt that there were any old brakes, I talked to Jacobs last week and they told me that they sent 300 or so to Cummins on the 3rd to have the vacuum pumps added to the kit and that there was a new part number then, they expected that Cummins was going to release the brake to D/C somewhere around the 13th. Something pretty significant must have come up for such a price increase. The list is somewhere around $1400 (US dollars).



Dean

 

[Fireman]

Oh my blood pressure !

OK Casey I,m POed now ! Oo. :{ #@$%! #@$%! #@$%!

Fireman

 

[krabman]

What does this do to the e brake for $299, thats what I want to know.

 

[crebelein]

Originally posted by krabman

What does this do to the e brake for $299, thats what I want to know.

that was a final price of $299 for the "on the job" incentive. it was clearly listed as $799 - $500 = $299. i'm guessing that it will soon be listed as $1399 - $500 = $899.

 

[Dean Upson]

Nobody ever said our toys were cheap . I don't like to pay more money, but I didn't cancel my order, either. They sure make towing safer.



Dean

 

[Mopar_Mudder]

After reading this I called my dealer right away to see what is up with this, I go to pick up my truck today. Originally I was going to out right buy my own brake, but I changed my mind. He said the cost of the brake was 840. 00 and that did not include install, so I put my $500 business credit toward that and I will install it myself, they wanted like $200 more to install it.

 

[Mopar_Mudder]

Originally posted by bgreener

After reading this I called my dealer right away to see what is up with this, I go to pick up my truck today. Originally I was going to out right buy my own brake, but I changed my mind. He said the cost of the brake was 840. 00 and that did not include install, so I put my $500 business credit toward that and I will install it myself, they wanted like $200 more to install it.

Ok so I lied!!!!! My dealer just called me back after I hit the post button and said he punched it into his computer to order it and it is now $1325. 00, wow :--) Just I sould have put it in writing back when I ordered the truck and it was only $799, still have that literature at home stating it, oh well... ...

 

[crebelein]

yeah, and on the very bottom in tiny print it probably says "prices subject to change without notice"

 

[Dean Upson]

For what it's worth, I told my dealer back in October when I ordered the truck that I wanted an ebrake. He told me at that time the only price he had was on the old one and it was around $840. I told him about the increase when I saw Casey's post yesterday and he confirmed it and he was not very happy about the situation either. I, for one, wouldn't hold him to a price if it went up that much. His price would have gone up proportionatly as well. I do think that a lot of folks are justified in being put out by this and shopping around for another brand. There must have been a reason for the "quality concerns" for the price to have gone up so dramatically, or they had a bunch of the units going out for the $299 price to the commercial customers to promote this thing that they were going to lose too much money. At any rate, this was either Jacobs, DC or Cummins call and had nothing to do with the local dealer and I can't take it out on him. Just my opinion, everyone has one, etc. I'd love to know the exact reason why the price went up so much.



Dean

 

[jdiebold]

I'm suprised we didn't see it coming when DC made it a requirement to have an exahust brake for trailers over 12k lbs.



I'll just have to bite the bullet, because like most of you I won't tow without an exahust brake.



JD

 

[Dean Upson]

JD



I agree with you as per the towing. Having had one on my other truck, I won't tow without it and will pay thru the nose as many of us will. I cannot see, however, what kind of business sense it makes just to inflate the price for no valid reason. How much money are we actually talking about here? The vast majority of the folks with our trucks will not be buying the Jacobs brake either because they don't need one, don't want one, can't afford one or will buy another brand. The market is pretty small. It makes more sense to start out with a lower price and after they catch on come out with some BS story and jack the price up. If it was a quality concern, they may have had to get something corrected in a hurry and had to pay throught the nose and we get the benefit of that increase as consumers. There might have been concerns about the vacuum pump because I know that Cummins was supplying those. The other mystery to me is the late change in Part Number.

My main concern in a product such as this is quality. I respect the Cummins name but you can bet that I will be carrying the old belt and other parts with me in the tool box just in case.



Dean

 

[Mopar_Mudder]

I don't blame the dealer at all and don't expect him to eat anything either. I still told him to go ahead and get it at the $1325 minus the $500 rebate. I too am in business myself and know how these thing work, and how much of a pain it can be. To often we are taking the loss for something done by a supplier that never has to see the end customer and keep them happy.

 

[Carlton Bale]

Six months ago, I took over the exhaust brake project at Cummins and it has been a lot of work getting this product released to the field. I'm glad to report that the first 200 exhaust brake kits have been packaged at our distribution center and will ship out to Dodge dealers and Cummins distributors next week. My guess is that these 200 kits will reach field locations sometime on or after 20-Dec-2002.



As you probably know, the 2003 Rams do not have a vacuum system capable of driving the exhaust brake. A heavy duty vacuum system was designed and added to the exhaust brake kit for ‘03. This vacuum system is virtually the sole cause of the price increase versus 2002 and earlier brakes. I'm disappointed that the price increased, but the heavy duty vacuum pump was required to match the durability of the engine.



FYI, in the past few weeks, the Cummins part number for the exhaust brake kit was changed from 4025269 to 4089427 and the Mopar kit number was changed from 82207410 to 82208277. The older part numbers were "placeholders" -- the production pricing was not known at that time and someone assumed it would similar to the 2002 brake. When the part number changed to the production number is when the dealers saw the price increase. We wanted to update the part number/pricing sooner but couldn't until the production design was ready. The kits can be ordered from either your Dodge dealer or a Cummins distributor. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[krabman]

First I would like to say thanks for posting. It hurts to think we are going to be paying alot more than we thought but if thats the deal then thats the deal. Now if i can just get one.

 

[Dean Upson]

Thanks from me as well, I felt all along that there was a good explanation for the price increase. You have to pay for quality.





Dean

 

[Prairie Dog]

So Carlton, can you tell me why an E-brake on a brand new Kenworth w/8. 3 cummins is only $600. 00?

 

[nickleinonen]

Originally posted by Prairie Dog

So Carlton, can you tell me why an E-brake on a brand new Kenworth w/8. 3 cummins is only $600. 00?

and why didn't they make it compressed air operated? if it was a HD air compressor included in that exhaust brake kit, it would be a good deal [put in a 5 gal tank and you have a multi use compressor. ] but vacuum...