Quote:
Originally Posted by GMCPaul
The 3.5'-4' long boxes the brake line sets ship in are oversized. Fed-Ex & UPS use dimensional sizing to price shipments. They take length, + width X 2+ height X2 to determine a boxes dimensional size, they then base the shipping charges on the size of box rather than weight. Inline Tube gets charged this dimensional rate and they pass this charge on to the vendor who then passes the oversized shipping cost onto the customer. If Inline Tube, The Right Stuff, and other brake line suppliers did not do the shipping bends then the box required would be outside allowable shipping dimensions and you would have to pay truck freight rates to get your brake lines without a shipping bend in them.
Most vendors like myself also place a statement on their brake line page explaining the shipping bends and honestly I've straightened a dozen or so sets myself and its rather easy to straighten them properly. For those that want to say putting a shipping bend in a straight line weakens the metal by distorting it every set of brake lines made is made from a coil of brake line tubing that's straightened then bent to pattern so claiming a gradual curve in the line weakens it means EVERY brake line made is weak since they all were originally in a coil before being formed.
We use Inline tube and 99% of the time things work great. Sometimes though there are problems. Some of these problems are Inline Tube sending the wrong product, other times the trucks been altered from original and other times its due to a optional rear-end being optioned onto the truck making it a different pattern than the other 99% of trucks without a optioned in rear end.
Paul @ GMCPauls
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I just recently purchased new wood, stainless strips and hardware for my '69 long bed. Both the wood and strips are 97" long. The wood and strips came in separate packages, neither of which required "shipping bends". The wood came in a box and the strips came in a tube, both came UPS. It did cost a lot to ship from Kentucky to California where I live ($189 total) but the wood weighed 112 pounds and the strips weighed 25 pounds (I'm not sure what the hardware weighed). Everything was straight when I received it.
Because of my experience with a vendor here on the board and the Inline Tube brake lines he sold me, I decided to bend the rest of the hard lines myself. I was able to purchase all of the stainless steel tube I needed, in straight lenghts up to 20', so the statement that "every" brake line has come from a coiled piece of tube is not completely accurate. Every time you bend a piece of metal it work hardens and becomes more and more brittle. So if you only bend it once you are better off.
I am sorry I've gotten a bit side tracked from the original topic. My point here is: it is not necessary to put "shipping bends" in the brake lines, the customer pays for the shipping anyway. Vendors need to pay more attention to what the customer wants and less attention on how to squeeze every last penny of profit from each transaction. If you treat you customers right, with respect, they will continue to do business with you or like me, they will go out of their way to never do business with you again.
Real sorry for the rant.