Will Chinese Firms Start Making Bonneville Exterior Parts?

[Jazzy]

I think they will.

While the Bonneviile's mechanical parts are easily available and relatively cheap, the exterior parts like the tail light assemblies and the rear center reflector are tough or hard or impossible to find as aftermarket parts, but that could change.

For example, I recently bought a new right tail light assembly for my 2003 Lincoln Town Car for $35 from RockAuto, made by a Chinese firm; really nice quality. I had thought the price would be more like $100-150.

The total production run of the 2003-2011 LTC body style was about 270,000, close enough to the 200,000 Bonnevilles produced in the 2000-2005 body style. So there are enough of these old Bonnevilles around that some Chinese plastic parts molding company should see that there would be enough sales of these Bonneville parts to be profitable for them.

I'd gladly pay, say, $100 for an aftermarket Chinese made rear center reflector for the Bonneville; it's just a simple piece of molded plastic and should be easy for a Chinese firm to replicate it and sell it through RockAuto or Amazon.

If these types of aftermarket parts become available for the Bonnevilles, it will be much cheaper to keep the cars looking good for the next ten years. Cheaper than buying a new $100,000 German sedan that looks very similar to the Bonneville, anyway

[nos4blood70]

Personally, I doubt it. There is so few of these cars and very little demand for body parts versus something like a town car.

[Jazzy]

The production runs are similar. The total production run of the 2003-2011 LTC body style was about 270,000, close enough to the 200,000 Bonnevilles produced in the 2000-2005 body style. The 2003-2011 LTCs have different Tail Light Assemblies and other exterior parts than the similar 1998-2002 LTCs.

The Chinese makers of molded plastic parts like taillight assemblies have top of the line molding machinery and quick turn-around time and a lot of competition. I think they will make a mold and manufacture anything if they can sell 1,000 units.

At any rate, I have contacted a few Chinese aftermarket car parts makers to ask them to make these parts and have received interested replies. I'll post here with any results.

[Erinyes]

You could be right. Western firms would have no interest in such a limited run, but the profit calculus is different when you're talking about this particular situation. There's no reason at all why Chinese companies should be aware of the interest level in these particular cars, but having been made aware of such interest, there may well be at least a short run produced. If so, I hope the quality level is high.

[haro1225]

One thing missing here is that the Chinese like space and they get long wheelbase versions of cars. They sold the long wheelbase version of the Town Car in China. Which is probably why they make them since there is a good deal of them floating around over there.