Leon 1P Vag-Com Cable ** Canbus OBD Diagnostics**

[Nath.]

All of those cables contain pirated copies of our firmware. VCDS is not freeware. The interface cables from us contain the licensing for the software.

You can get the proper legal HEX+CAN here:

http://store.ross-tech.com/shop/VCHUC.html

You can also use the lower cost Micro-CAN option:

http://store.ross-tech.com/shop/VCuCAN.html

You're having a bubble bath.

ebay cable, job done. Your silly high prices are why the ebay cables exist.

If VCDS was say £49.99, you would sell to millions of people and nobody would bother with ripping your cables off. You lot are just greedy and IMO you're missing a trick.

Just think about all those millions of VAG cars out there with no warranty and a light on the dash. You could rake it in by selling VCDS to those people at £49.99 and take loads of money away from the main dealers.

A lot of profit from a few or a little profit from millions?

 

[LeonCR]

You're having a bubble bath.

ebay cable, job done. Your silly high prices are why the ebay cables exist.

If VCDS was say £49.99, you would sell to millions of people and nobody would bother with ripping your cables off. You lot are just greedy and IMO you're missing a trick.

Just think about all those millions of VAG cars out there with no warranty and a light on the dash. You could rake it in by selling VCDS to those people at £49.99 and take loads of money away from the main dealers.

A lot of profit from a few or a little profit from millions?

Gonna disagree with you there Nath

I would think there is a hell of a lot of R and D in products like this

 

[JP6]

Hi all you lovely people.

Please could someone send me the software that comes on the disk from dhgate as mine has come with a 219mb blank CD.

Thanks in advance,

I can upload this for you now, if you're still looking for it? It's the latest version, got my cable from DHgate a couple of days ago.

 

[Nath.]

Gonna disagree with you there Nath

I would think there is a hell of a lot of R and D in products like this

How much R and D goes into the latest £49.99 Xbox game?

How many people buy the latest Xbox game?

I'm no expert but I really fail to see why VCDS is so expensive and why so few people own it.

If it was a £49.99 product there would be as many people with VCDS as there are with FIFA. It may even make more people buy VAG cars if advertised well.

 

[densil]

If it was a £49.99 product there would be as many people with VCDS as there are with FIFA. It may even make more people buy VAG cars if advertised well.

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

 

[fcukcars]

Thank you JP6 just downloaded

 

[JP6]

No worries, have fun!

 

[BeartheBruce]

@Nath .... So, the factory tool sells for?? VCDS sells for 1/20th of that price and gives the user the ability to do 90% of what the factory tool does. Shouldn't we sell it for 0.9 of the factory tool price? Why do we sell it for 0.05 of the factory tool?

The VCDS hardware alone cannot be purchased and manufactured with quality components at the price the Chinese sell their illegal copies of our product ....

@Nath what will you do when your illegl cable bricks an ECU and it costs you 3x the VCDS price to get a replacement? (I promise you, it has happened.....) You have had good luck so far and I do hope you continue to have good luck. But how will you respond should that happen? Will you blame the Chinese? They gave you what you wanted: a super low priced tool. But to do so, they provided you with a inferior interface and stolen software. Are they to blame if something goes wrong?

I happen to agree with you: if we could offer the product at 1/4 or less of our present price (and stay in business...) more people would buy it. But, we do have R&D, we do have brick and mortar, we do have salaries and health benefits for which we must pay in order to have top quality people doing the required work, we do have equipment and tools to buy to allow those people to do the work. There does exist a chicken and egg situation. One must find a price at which one can justify the cost of setting up and doing business. Do we make a profit? Yes - or we would not by definition be a business.

Does the US artificially manipulate its currency so that all goods made in the US are cheap? No. The Chinese do. They artificially hold their currency down. Why? So they can offer the world the lowest costs.

Do US companies work to a moral code? Some do. Ross-Tech does. Is the Chinese moral code the same as the West's? No. Their moral code says that they do not have to do any work to make a product - just steal the design from another (including their own Chinese companies) and enable their copy to use the work others create. @Nath, if you produced a product and people stole your work, how would you feel? Would you really think it was ok?

I get the price issue but your perception of price is unfortunately off target and misinformed. You compare VCDS to an Xbox game. What do you think the target market size is for an xBox game? Tens of Millions is probably correct. How many VAG cars are sold worldwide every year? How many of those who purchase a VAG car are interested to buy a diagnostic tool for their car? (less than 1% of owners..... tested and known) How many of those who would consider buying a diagnostic tool have a clue how to use one? My point: if you were in my chair as the idiot Marketing schmuck for Ross-Tech who has no clue how to market any product let alone this product, you might learn that the grand total of interested users might be 1 million - might - I doubt it is that large. Certainly it is not the tens of millions possible with an xBox game. But then as said, I am clueless and an idiot... I don't spend any time looking at costs, markets, prices and so on. I am just a greedy ******* running to the bank with wheel barrows full of your cash!

Oh, wait, I forgot, you paid the Chinese to use our product....... the people who did little to no work to bring you this product..... they are the ones running wheel barrows full of your cash to their bank since there is very little cost involved in copying other's work.

No harm no foul right? Stealing from one does not harm another - does it? Who is harmed by enabling the Chinese to continue their pilferage of western technology and western innovation?

In the end @Nath, we all are harmed and some day, your work will be effected by it. Some day you will replace something on your car with a counterfeit product and some you love and care about may be harmed by the counterfeit. Oh, it will be cheap - it'll be the price you want to pay - but it will not be of the same quality as the OE part. I just hope we can all live with the flood of illegal copies.

(Have you read the story about the airbag modules that blast metal parts into passengers? You might want to Google that subject... it's real! and it's counterfeit Chinese product.)

 

[VAGUE]

@BeartheBruce, I agree with everything you said, however (and unfortunately), that doesn't change the fact your product is still expensive for most of us non-technical people who will only expect to get certain amount of information from our cars and make limited configuration changes to them (basically personal use only).

I believe your prices are terrific for car repair shops where their owners will actually make profit off of your products.

You should really consider creating a product focused on all the people who's actually making those chinese son-of-a-b*****s counterfeinters rich, us, the non-technical guys who will barely use it twice a year.

Just a piece of thought.

Cheers!

 

[Nath.]

@BeartheBruce. None of that effects me as I never own a car outside of it's manufactures warranty. I only want VCDS to do some adaptations myself, to change or enable things.

VCDS is good but it's too expensive.

If the Chinese didn't copy it and flood the market there would probably be 1 forum member per county with 1 communal (legal) copy of VCDS that we all chipped in for and could all use. So without the Chinese doing copies I doubt you would sell any more legal ones.

I hear what you're saying but I don't agree, your prices are just too high. There's a recession on you know.

Have a nice day.

 

[BeartheBruce]

And how does one do that? What do we leave out of the tool? What cost can we trim? I get your point and as I said to others then you need to buddy and jointly own the product and share it. That's how you lower the cost.....

There is nothing we can remove that would lower the cost....

Limit to 3 cars... really? how does that change what it costs to develop and support?

I get the price issue... The solution is to buddy up...

 

[Nath.]

Just an idea.

Lock VCDS down so that each copy can only be enabled to access one car (one chassis number)

I would be happy to pay £50-£100 for VCDS to use on my car and 3 years later when I buy another new car I would be happy to send you another £50-£100 so that it worked on that too.

There must be loads of ways to strip VCDS down.

One chassis number

One model

One engine type

One user

install VCDS onto one computer only

etc

 

[VAGUE]

And how does one do that? What do we leave out of the tool? What cost can we trim? I get your point and as I said to others then you need to buddy and jointly own the product and share it. That's how you lower the cost.....

There is nothing we can remove that would lower the cost....

Limit to 3 cars... really? how does that change what it costs to develop and support?

I get the price issue... The solution is to buddy up...

Probably you should try outsourcing your business' most expensive needs to reduce costs... hehe

It's a pitty there aren't many options to reduce your products' prices. But hey, that doesn't mean they're not worth it, in the end, one gets what one pays for.

 

[pazman2k]

So the VAG-Diagnostics.com cable is a fake as well? :/

 

[BeartheBruce]

Yep... they represent it as their original but is a complete rip off of our product.

 

[LeonCR]

Guys if you want what i consider the best system then your going to have to pay for it

I know its a lot of money and and it has put me off purchasing but I can see why it costs so much

 

[Nath.]

So the VAG-Diagnostics.com cable is a fake as well? :/

Yep but it works a treat.

 

[Jarre]

I'd buy VCDS if it wasn't so expensive. I see both points of view, however it makes me think.

Theres high initial costs in R & D and the rest of it, so once the product is complete, thats it. So why would you want the cost so high? I know for a fact it it was 1/4 of the price I'd buy one, and a lot of others would too. At 1/4 of the price it wouldn't be worth purchasing a chinese fake and they'll go out of business, so you'd gain sales from people like me (who don't own VCDS) and people like Nath (who own a fake).

Put simply, sell 1, or sell 8 at 1/4 of the price equaling 2x the revenue. Win, win for everyone!

Surely once the initial investment is spent all you want to do is sell as many as possible, and therefore you would look at your target market (I.E businesses) but then also look at individuals and how they wish to have them. By considering both of these a price can be compromised to allow both to purchase the cable.

 

[BeartheBruce]

I'd buy VCDS if it wasn't so expensive. I see both points of view, however it makes me think.

Theres high initial costs in R & D and the rest of it, so once the product is complete, thats it.

You did write "it makes me think" - didn't you? So, think about continuing development costs and the fact that all information is mined and reverse engineered. For 12 years this product has had continuous development with multiple people mining data to make it and keep it the product it is. That has no cost?

And once they mine that data, they have to find a way to make that data available to the users. That has no cost?

And once the program is updated and released, and people use it, they typically want support and help to apply that data to what they need to do to their rides. That has no cost?

I know for a fact if it was 1/4 of the price I'd buy one, and a lot of others would too. At 1/4 of the price it wouldn't be worth purchasing a chinese fake and they'll go out of business, so you'd gain sales from people like me (who don't own VCDS) and people like Nath (who own a fake).

Great - so since it is only the initial cost, here's the deal: go make a competitive product for 1/4 cost and sell it in true competition - do the work yourself though. Don't steal our work - do the work - all the work - yourself.

Do you know what will happen if you really try? You would find out what the true costs are! Ross-Tech says bring it on. For 12 years guys like you have said they could do it for less. We're still waiting for the first one to do so.

The fakes are theft of our work. Those behind the fakes did nothing so their cost is NOTHING! They add nothing because they develop nothing. They wait for Ross-Tech to release a new version with all the new bells and whistles, then they copy it and give you your 1/4 price product. That product would not exist without the work Ross-Tech does.

Put simply, sell 1, or sell 8 at 1/4 of the price equaling 2x the revenue. Win, win for everyone!

Your math works only if there is no continuing costs.....

Surely once the initial investment is spent all you want to do is sell as many as possible, and therefore you would look at your target market (I.E businesses) but then also look at individuals and how they wish to have them. By considering both of these a price can be compromised to allow both to purchase the cable.

Back to the thinking part - your thoughts are flawed and you know nothing of how to keep an automotive product current. You have no clue of the ongoing costs.

 

[Jarre]

Guess I'll just buy an 'identical' Chinese fake, then!