ares

iTrader: (2)

well, ya see Im always just makin things way more complicated then I should.

first off I took the tail light I purchased and ripped it apart. anyone care to guess how many seperate peices are in a single tail light? 7. yup, I was suprised as well. theres the lens, the housing, 3 reflectors in the main area, and another reflector back at the top of the triangle. as well as a chrome peice that fits into the housing. the tail light is a bit rough lookin now, as opening it took about 5 hours with a dremel. its too large to fit atleast in my oven, so that was out. owell, now I can mess with it.

however, thats not what my title is talkin about. I came here to tell you all that above and decided to scoot over to clear corners.com and see what they had goin on. and low and behold, they have released the tail light. a disappointment to me to say the least.

they took a LED bulb and put it in the main bulb position, disabled the bottom bulb(huh??? couldnt find a premade LED bulb that fit or what?) and then put strips of LEDs into the top corner reflector portion.

and are now charging 700$ for it.

for those that wanna check it out http://www.clearcorners.com/products...350ZX3/R_full/

I like the upper portion work they did. but I fail to see the 700$ price tag of them.

personally I could buy the led cluster for about 7$ premade, just plug it in. and the top 3 strips... well, lets just say that would not cost 700$.

now that Ive got the tail apart, Im going to be... well lets just say customizing it. should be fun. but damn, whatever I do, Im gonna be sure I dont have to take the tail light apart to do it, unless I intend to buy a bigger oven.

franklinz

those taillights do look damn good, the only problem i see with makings some custom ones would be how straight you could drill those holes for the 3 strips of leds. id be willing to pay about 200 bucks, but still i want to know where the hell do they get 700 dollars from!???
franklinz

SkyMan

man 4-6 weeks without tails on ur car....hmm that kinda upsets me too, u thinkin of tackling the job the same way clearcorners.com did it Ares? like the same idea?

alphared

only reason I see 700 is cause they're the only one with it right how. And pretty soon someone with too much cash laying around gonna say, cool, that'll look good on my Z and bam. Its really funny to see how fast people shell out they cash for items that just came out AND then go and complains about it.

Uh, wait did I just describe a Z owner hehe

ares

iTrader: (2)

I can do it that way, but I just dont like it; its not what is in my mind... but I have a different plan. drilling a straight line isnt too hard, the top portion isnt so hard, tho room is a concern. I dont care for the way they did the bottom tho.

problem is, after taking it all apart I do not have a good way to open up the tail light(I hoped after I cracked one open I would see a better way). so while what I plan to do will be easy for a tail light thats been opened, it wont be so easy for a closed tail light.

but thats a story for another time, tomarrow work continues.

ares

iTrader: (2)

well guys, I cut the housing apart. got rid of the bulb, left the outer portion and the upper triangle. and have now fiberglassed the whole interior of it so that it is a solid peice with no recess. it needs some more sanding, but my lungs cant take any more. at this point I think this is all futile because, Ive spend way too much time doing this. all for a single light, the cost for me to customize other lights would be insane. but I continue on cause this one is almost done, just gotta, finish sanding, paint, and put in the LEDs. then of course its gotta be closed up, and pray it still takes the shape it needs to take.

owell, tomarrow should finish the sanding, paint it, and install LEDs the next day.

Alev

Good luck, man. All your hard work will pay off: you'll have a literal one-of-a-kind Z.

ares

iTrader: (2)

well its almost done... I put it on the car without LEDs or lens, just the housing with fiberglass insert. and the fit is perfect, so thats good.

now comes the tricky part. how do I offer this to you guys, without charging the cost of thus far 23hours of labor to get about 80% done with a SINGLE light? not to mention, NOT unseal the lens.

I will accomplish it. oh yes I will. and it will be SWEET! Ill take some pics tomarrow to show the progress if I can find a camera.

old_s13

iTrader: (1)

Ares> Its very interesting to see how you can talk bad about our company and our products without even seeing them in person. Apparently, you must find something appealing about our work, because you keep stumbling onto our site to get ideas for your own projects.

What is even more interesting, is that at the end of this thread you say:

"now comes the tricky part. how do I offer this to you guys, without charging the cost of thus far 23hours of labor to get about 80% done with a SINGLE light? not to mention, NOT unseal the lens."

I dont mind seeing people create their own do-it-yourself projects when their goal is to challenge themselves and create a unique product for their own car. I too am a car enthusiast, I enjoy custom-fabricating parts for my own vehicle.. so I can understand that mentality. But why talk bad about my company and our products, when you havent even seen them in person? In fact, you just end up making yourself look like a hypocrite because at the end of your post you ATTEMPTED to replicate a product similar to ours, and after 20+ hours you are not done and are still wondering how you can sell such an item at a reasonable cost.

For those of you who have ANY doubts about our products or even our customer service, please check out our web site or get in contact with me. Our site has many high-res images which show the absolute attention to detail that goes into each and every product we sell.

For those of you wondering why e-mails dont get instantly answered, its because we spend a lot of time and effort assisting each of our customers. We are not about mass-sales, we are about good customer service and selling an excellent product.

ps: If a picture is worth a thousand words, tell me.. where do you see "a $7 dollar plug-in LED replacement" in this picture? Last I checked, plug in replacements didnt make an entire room glow red.

Mike Mamos / ClearCorners.Com

ares

iTrader: (2)

sorry man, didnt mean to say your stuff didnt look good. it does, but the prices just seem way too high, but thats all reletive some people have the money and some dont(Im the latter). for your own knowledge, I bet youd get alot more orders if you didnt require that people send off peices that are required to use there car for weeks.

and dont worry, I am not at all copying your tail light design at all. and what I am doing to them will likely never be offered to anyone but myself.

good luck with your projects. they all do look good, whether that was apparent or not. we all like to hate on what we cant afford.

old_s13

iTrader: (1)

Ares, thank you for seeing my perspective. I feel its very important that people understand a bit of what goes into each and every product we sell. We are a low volume company and reputation means a lot to me. As the owner of this business, I do my best to create very unique products that are extremely detailed. Each and every product should perform just as good as they look.

As a car enthusiast myself, I am well-aware that good quality components cost money. I own a NISSAN S13 240SX, and have owned and customized it for over 7 years now. I learned real quick that getting parts for this car would be very difficult, as our upgrades AND the COST of our upgrades are on a different level than that of what the average Honda driver would pay.

Anyone who knows about the automotive industry, knows the saying "you get what you pay for." If I need to replace a part on my car, I chose to go with the (typically) more expensive OEM part. We all know aftermarket fenders never fit as good as OEM, same goes for lights. Why is it aftermarket lights which are mass-produced over-seas NEVER look OR fit as good as stock? Thats just the way the ball bounces.

I know most people dont want to send us their lights, that is why we stock most of the lights. We have access to every light on the Z *except* for the headlights. We will not be stocking those because they vary too much. A customer who's Z has very low mileage will NOT be content with a headlight from a Z which has higher mileage, as it will have more wear (rock chips and scratches). SO, yes.. you have to send in your headlights. As for the tails, lower signals, and side-markers.. we stock those and can use them for core-exchanges, in exchange for your OEM lamps. Leave a deposit, we send you ours.. you send us yours, we refund the deposit -- its as simple as that.

Should any of you ever have any questions about our products, feel free to contact me at mike@clearcorners.com -- I will do my best to assist and answer any questions you may have.

Ares, thanks again for understanding.

ps: Does anyone have access to editing my account? I'de like to use my own Avatar and am not sure when I will get to 50 posts. I just dont feel at home without my avatar...

ares

iTrader: (2)

no one can currently bypass the avatar counter, only admins if anyone of which we are a bit short.

good that you cleared up that you have a core set of the lights, I dont think you had that on the site. you said that explicitly with the sidemarkers, but none of the others. should make that clear, Im sure that was holding a few people up from doing it.