Door / windscreen seal CFE 00981

Does anyone know if there is any plan / hope to remanufacture this seal? It has been NLA for quite some time. Most cars could benefit from a new replacement. I had read that there was an attempt to remanufacture it about 13-14 years ago but the seal was too short by 20mm. It was discontinued and nothing further happened after that. 

Hi, Earlier this year, I went through the process of getting a quote for the remanufacturing of the door seals, from a company that makes similar parts for other classic cars. 

One of the seal profiles is no longer available, so a new tool is required to extrude those.
Then tooling is required for the rubber moulding at the bottom of the windscreen and again at the top for both sides, so that is four bespoke tools, all consisting of a male and female half.

Tooling is also required for the top of the door shut on both sides, which will be another two sets of male/female tooling.

On top of this, there are the actual production costs, which in itself is not too bad, but in order to break even on the tooling and production investment, I would have to sell approx 250  sets at around £260 per set. A set consisting of  front and rear seals.

My business partner is not willing to invest that amount  without a firm commitment from a customer, as it is quite a speculative exercise, 

I did, however, email the MGOC to see if they had any interest, but i had no response.

So if we can get enough people to commit, i would be glad to revisit this.



 

Your pricing for set is less (or about the same) as what Rimmers was charging 13 years ago for their remanufactured seal (based on what I read in old posts). Crappy old used front seals alone sell for 70 GBP on ebay.

I think the original tooling was discarded when the cars went out of production.

I think the issue you will find is there will be demand for the front, not so much the rear. But if they are sold be the set, less of an issue.

Personally, given what new seals cost for any car, I think the pricing is reasonable. The issue is that these cars have low value, so many people may be reluctant to invest in them. Have you also contacted Moss / Rimmers? Xpart?

For what it is worth, I would be interested.

I could split the front and rear and sell them seperate, as I agree the front is the most important one. I would still need about 200 to break even, and they would be about £170 (ish)

I haven't contacted Rimmers, partly because the production costs won't go down, and they will want a stocking and selling fee, which would only push the prices up. I appreciate that they have access to a wider market, just like the MGOC.

There must be quite a few thousand of these cars left on the road in the UK, and all of them are over 20 years old, but as you say the cars are so cheap, i bought mine for £250, admittedly i have spent four times that to get it to where it is, but even so they are quite the bargain.

I guess the responses (or lack of them) to this post highlight how much in demand they really are.







 

I was thinking about this when you posted and I think it may be hard to market.
My car is 24 yrs old with 39k on it and the seals are perfect. I am sure many other forum members are in the same boat.

I know there are far more owners of these cars that are not on a forum or in marque group.
I suspect if they need anything they would go to the recognised MG stockists and if you can't get it in to those outlets you really have only Ebay or costly adverts on sites.
I am not poo pooing it at all. Just worried you could be severly out of pocket.
I have seen Group Buys on other car forums where 80 people pledge and 15 follow it through.
Good luck.

Id probably buy a set if they were available