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I need two of each of these for my pedals. Seems igus.co.uk is the only place that sells them, and they want over £5 each plus £8.50 delivery. That makes them £7.50 each.
The prices drop to £3 each by quantity 10, £1 by 100, and 40p by 1000. I might get through 20 (5 sets) in 5 years, but I'm looking at a checkout page showing £72 for 20 (£3.60 each) small pieces of plastic.
https://www.igus.co.uk/articlerouter?artnr=JVSM-1012-10
https://www.igus.co.uk/articlerouter?artnr=JVSM-1214-12
Igus are a trade supplier really so very much aimed at '000s
What pedals are they? Are they not available as spares for your pedals?
I take it you have the right sizes and type of bushing from Igus too? There can be a big variation in price from one item to a near identical one.
If it has to be Igus direct, buy 100 and ebay the rest in 4s at £8 a set delivered or something.
Igus are pretty good at giving out samples. Have you asked?
If it's for Crank brothers pedals, this guy on eBay does 2 for £5.60 and postage is normally very quick. If it's not, are the bushings in crank brothers pedals the same size?
Igus are pretty good at giving out samples. Have you asked?
That's what I did - there's a sample request form on their website. I was expecting a flurry of marketing follow ups but I was pleasantly surprised
Unite Instinct. Different from the Crank Brothers ones.
Yes there is a service kit available for £20 delivered which includes bearings and seals too, but the inboard-side bushings wear out a lot quicker than everything else.
Yes I have the sizes and types off the exploded diagram in the pedal manual.
I found someone selling sets of 4 on eBay now for £10 delivered.
I did see the samples link. Given the marketing blurb says they're ideal for pedal bearings, I wasn't expecting to get anywhere if I asked for two of each as "samples".
It doesn't seem ideal that there isn't a low-volume distributor for retail and business that are repairing and maintaining stuff, rather than manufacturing/assembling hundreds of things.
there is a service kit available for £20 delivered which includes bearings and seals too, but the inboard-side bushings wear out a lot quicker than everything else.
I found someone selling sets of 4 on eBay now for £10 delivered.
It doesn’t seem ideal that there isn’t a low-volume distributor for retail and business
Erm, there are? You can buy them from unite [dealers?] (4*3.60+post being more than the whole service kit that's not a bad option) in kits or parts only from ebay etc.
As a business 1000 of them is not a lot in either cost or numbers, and they're then rather inexpensive.
Or you can buy them direct in small quantities you just need to accept the costs.
There isn't a low-volume distributor for just these bushings, at least that I can find. I'm not counting random eBay guy with 8 for sale. The service kit is a decent price only relatively, and the bushings wear much quicker than the rest.
The bit I see as not ideal is that we just have to accept the costs. We don't have to accept inflated costs like this for low quantities of bearings, bolts, clips, connectors, etc. (not talking bike-specific here).
I also noticed the prices I gave were plus VAT, so £36 for a set of 4 little bushings (£9 ea), or £86 for 20 (£4.30 ea).
How do you know it's an inflated cost?
Every order, whether for 1 or 1000, has fixed costs, like the time it takes to produce the invoice. Clearly, this cost is less, per item, the more items you buy.
I don't think you can blame Igus (who, based on my experience for my job, are a pretty good company to work with) for running a business.
I'd be talking to the pedal manufacturer and ask why the bearings are failing, and why they don't supply them on their own.
Is it possible to use standard DU bushings instead?
My Superstar pedals were pretty bad for eating bushings, and experience taught me that the Igus ones would go quicker than the DU ones.
There isn’t a low-volume distributor for just these bushings, at least that I can find. I’m not counting random eBay guy with 8 for sale. The service kit is a decent price only relatively, and the bushings wear much quicker than the rest.
Yep... which continues to surprise me when other bushings and bearings are so easy.
Most Igus stuff ships from Germany, so their prices reflect the amount of effort involved in their supply chain, and their support is excellent, which costs money.
Low volume orders are more something they do because they have to, rather than because they want to, so they price them at a point where they still make a reasonable profit.
I'm sure that if they thought they could get away with it, they would set minimum order quantities, but even businesses buying 000's at a time, won't always buy 000's so setting minimum order quantities will even deter their large customers, as nobody wants to make something uneconomically repairable because they'd need to buy 000's just to get a couple simple bushings. And no third party is going to try stocking their entire range, just to sell a few bushings at a time.
They're not really comparable to generic bearing suppliers, as they're not simply reselling somebody else's product with whatever they deem to be a profitable mark-up.
I could add a couple hundred each of those bushings to my next order, which would mean they'd cost me around 75p each. But I probably wouldn't sell them for less than a couple pounds a bushing, as any less and it wouldn't be worth my while selling them. So realistically it would cost £8 for the four bushings, at which point as a buyer, unless I was being very cost conscious, I'd simply buy the full rebuild kit.
It would also probably take me years to sell them, as Instinct pedals aren't exactly a common pedal, and very few people replace individual pedal bushings.
(for context, I wrote this post before I saw mc's above)
How do you know it’s an inflated cost?
Every order, whether for 1 or 1000, has fixed costs, like the time it takes to produce the invoice. Clearly, this cost is less, per item, the more items you buy.
Because the additional cost loading for low quantities is out of line compared to suppliers of e.g. ball bearings.
Comparing the cost of a 14mm igus bushing vs a major brand 14mm ball bearing at different quantities:
1 1387% 143%
10 833% 127%
25 510% 120%
50 362% 116%
100 279% 107%
200 156% 106%
500 156% 103%
1000 100% 100%
I don’t think you can blame Igus (who, based on my experience for my job, are a pretty good company to work with) for running a business.
I don't doubt they're a good company, it's perhaps that as a single company doing manufacture and distribution, they're just not interested in low-volume sales.
I’d be talking to the pedal manufacturer and ask why the bearings are failing, and why they don’t supply them on their own.
I believe it's a common tendency in pedals that the inboard bushing will wear first, because unlike the outboard side there isn't a bearing there to share the load as the axle is too thick at that end. Also it's right at the open end for mud/water getting past the seal. I haven't seen any pedal manufacturer (save for Superstar) sell individual parts of service kits.