The Cal-look Lounge

Just got a price on the new super duper, just like stock, floor pans from Wolfsburg West. $195 each.  :o Yeah they are the same as stock but ouch. Now I have to decide if it is worth it.

--SC

not sure if you have done business with Tony and the guys @ WW but they are simply the best. I dealt with them for 8-9 years when I worked @ Buggy House, and I have to say their customer service set the standard that other vendors could never reach. I still order parts from them, and they always treat me right and the quality of their stuff is always impeccable.

I agree ya get what you pay for.

Trust me Louis, it's worth it.  I have seen them in person and I would have thought they would be even more than that.  If you get them you won't be disappointed.

I pretty much buy all my resto stuff from WW so I know the quality. Just a bit of sticker shock is all.

--louis

there stuff is as close to nos as you can get. now the price of sheetmetal , put that into the factor. try makeing those pan halfs. tony stepped up and made some nice parts. the last time I did pan halfs , which were on roger crawfords convertable i had to go through every single one at tony's before i could find a halfway good pair, these were the orange ones, at the time good ones. now that tony stepped-up you get the right part that fit's. everything else was shit compared to the new ones. my three cents

I've kind of resigned myself to just going to WW first and buying what I need. It's faster than buying elsewhere only to take it home, seeing it's wrong and doesn't fit, taking it back, etc.

Ron Bengry was the nicest vendor sales guy I ever dealt with and I've been doing this for almost 20yr in the business.

Not always, I was quite disappointed with the dashboard and body molding kits I got for my 'Vert and had to hunt for NOS ones. But those shouldn't be an issue for Cal Looker :D Window trim, sealings and their rubber parts in general has been fitting very good.

Customer service has been good, except some funny policies how they try to protect themselves with online shoppers. If I had stolen someone's wallet wouldn't there be a drivers license along with credit card  ???

Dude....its only $200.  If it fits and is of the same strength as original, why would you even flinch?

Like I said, just a bit of sticker shock is all. You know how cheap VW people are.  ;) I already plan to order a set next month.


Now I just need to hunt up a '67 Driver's rear quarter and I will have all the replacement metal I need to get started on the shell.

--louis

just did mine 5 months ago....well worth it...but ya getting up there in price

The new pan halfs , just came out.

What years are they doing? I can't find them in their online catalogue.

We stock the same red pans, real nice thickness. got the pre 70 ones on the shelf if you need them Mat ;D

http://www.wolfsburgwest.com/wolfsburg_new/body_sheet_metal/bug_sheet_metal/floor_pan.cfm

And they do look very nice.

--louis

call up and ask for rich or mark . and I have seen them they are the best .

That's the problem, I need a later one and no one in the UK has them, the guy on the case has an order in with yourselves and a couple of others and so far nothing after probably four or five months! It's getting to be an issue as the car in question is in for paint soon and will want to get back together with the pan shortly afterwards.

 :)


Thanks for the link, much appreciated, I don't know how I missed that!


I think I have a few calls to make, this may just have plugged a big gap in the projects progress... 

:)

Just a follow up. Someone posted some pics of the pans on thesamba:

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3208216#3208216

The fit looks real nice. Can't wait to get my hands on a set. Hopefully next month.

--louis

Just to follow up, my pans came in from WW last week and I have to say they are well worth the coin. Very nice stampings and they are very heavy. I wouldnt think twice about buying them now that I have seen them.

--louis

Its interesting you mention that. I have been wondering lately if the VW hobby is now mature enough to support vendors selling quality parts. Or if the cheap and disposable mindset still persists with most VW enthusiast. (Hoodrides not included.) We put up with some incredibly poor quality parts in this hobby. Is it because people wont buy quality or is it because no one makes quality?

--louis

I guess its' a matter of perspective.  As a guy that has little to zero funds, I understand very well the whole sticker shock thing all too well.  Money ain't a thang when you gots it to spend, I reckon.  ;)

That having been said, I'm also all for paying more to get quality parts after having suffered the incompetency of such shitty vendors as  EMPI/Mr. Bug all too many times.  So I'll save my funds until I can afford what I need; I bought my pan halves from WW for my '70, and they were 80 or 90 per side, I believe, this was long before the new thicker stuff came out.  So far so good, but I'll be the first to admit that my '70 is by no means a concours quality or even show-n-shine quality restoration project.

It's a good question because there's a huge amount of poor quality parts for sale. I think the fact that the mojority don't want to pay reasonable money for anything has kept quality down. When we were looking into the channel bottoms on my girlfriends car we could only get a single Mexican one or a pair of repros so I bought a pair of the repros on the basis that one wasn't going to be af any use. As soon as they arrived my friend Cris who's been doing the bodywork rang me to let me know they were junk and when I got to the shop it wasn't hard to see what he meant. For one the pressings looked like they had 'eroded' compared to the sharp defined lines of the original but a far bigger problem than the asthetic was the tin they were made out of. Given the intended use for the panels you'd think someone would have figured out that they're a waste of welding time?

Around the same time we'd bought some a-pillar bottoms and a couple of other bits from Hookys Panel Shop (http://www.hookyspanelshop.com/)which were just as VW intended and figured it'd be worth asking him about getting a pair made. Fortunately for us after a couple of calls he agreed as he could see there was a market for them so we packed up what we could rescue of the original sections from the car as well as the repros ones for reference. Interestingly 12" of original section weighed about the same as one whole repro one but on the plus side the repros could be be folded easily to put in an envelope. Anyway it took a year to get them made but it was well worth it though even Hooky said that he'd have to compromise on the production ones as people want to pay more than the alternative panels available which is a real shame. Basically on ours the thread blocks are as on the originals whereas for the production ones he was going to use circular ones to reduce the cost. When we ordered them we never discussed the money and just asked that the panels were as close to original as possible and the long and the short is we'd have happily paid over double what he charged us for these and in my opinion we'd have still have got a bargain. It's the same with the Wolfsburg West pans, if they're as good as they look then I think that's a fair price.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/SanchoPancho/Restoration/81fc1fce.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/SanchoPancho/Restoration/a975844f.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/SanchoPancho/Restoration/f48dbb6f.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/SanchoPancho/Restoration/2bb3ec6e.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/SanchoPancho/Restoration/2bb3ec6e.jpg)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/SanchoPancho/Restoration/a982de41.jpg)

I hope the hobby can support quality moving forward as it's increasingly difficult to find good stuff. The weird thing is that relatively speaking it's not a lot more expensive to buy good parts especially when you cost in time and / or money.

:)

I spend a lot of time on the phone explaining the 'false economy' of buying repro panels when genuine is still available. I think that's why I like 67's so much as you can't buy repro for a lot of the parts so it has to be original german. even the genuine heater channel bottom plates overhang the channels in places ::)

Mr brother has a vw resto shop and he pretty much point blank refuses to use the cheap parts nowadays as he advises the customers that the cost of panel A (cheap part, supply and fit) will be the same as if not more than panel b (quality - normally hooky's part, supply and fit) because of the added labour involved with making the cheapo ones fit.

I've had problems with repro heater channels - the dimensions are so far out that the plastic vent trims just don't fit, let alone open properly. These were already in the car when I bought it and are the only repair panel I didn't replace. Next car I put channels in I'll be using genuine ones... Door post bottoms are another pet hate - I cut out one repair already done, replaced it with another, wasn't happy with it so cut it out and did it again! Hookys for me from now on. ;)

I have heard that Hookeys makes some nice panels. Too bad no one in the states carries his stuff. The amount of tme and effort to make a poor quality part fit far exceeds a few extra bucks a good panel costs. But I think most in the VW hobby still go for the cheapest. The people on this board are probably in the minority I think since we all strive to make our car the best it can be.

--louis