okay - i know this pulley was reviewed last year - it's on ebay for $50 and $10 s/h which is phenomenal. Just wondering if i can get comments from anyone who's had it for a while - problems, satisfaction, installation, etc.

and, danny (minicorsa) if you happen by this thread - have you installed any of these pulleys?

 

Let me just say this. I bought a pulley for my Mini on Ebay and have had noting but problems out of it. Its not self centering and tends to walk even after it been re tightened. This makes for bad belt alignment and squeeks!

I went to Way for a solution.

 

Check out
http://www.mini2.com/forum/engine-dr...on-pulley.html

There are a lot of European guys with these pulleys on their cars with no problems.

Also Fisher on minitorque has all the KMT products on his car and it is quick...
http://www.minitorque.com/forum/f249...107-07-a-1633/

Hope this helps

 

No problem has been report to date. Also I use one of it (11%) and works fine without fiting problems.

 

Remember the old saying, You get what you pay for.

I carry several brands of quality pullies and the prices aren't bad.

 

totally know that - but again, if he's making a stainless steel (presuming that's what it is) pulley much like m7 and he's not inflating the costs because he doesn't have a big website and image/ advertising etc to maintain, then what i'm paying for is the same quality at a lower price - which ultimately means more $ for other parts/ugrades.

however, the fact that not many ppl on nam or mu are using this pulley (or at least giving reports) may be enough to warrant paying the extra for an alta, m7, mini-madness, way, helix, etc..... b/c the last thing i'd wanna do is kill my engine for saving 50 bucks!

definitely on ebay you have the things to avoid - the dinky little $25 upper strut bars (cheap worthless crap). but, then there are the b&m knock off ssk's that seem to be just as good as the b&m. like farley said in tommy boy you could sh$t in a box and write guaranteed on it and all you have is a guaranteed POS.

just trying to research all angles before pulling the trigger seeing if the opportunity to save $ is a good one.

can you pm me with prices of what you have in stock?

 

It's a block of metal with clamp. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to make one just a competent machinist.

Here is a fairly large review of it.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...mt-pulley.html

 

yup read that thread several months ago and again just before i started this thread. was hoping there was some new insight, additional feedback to add to that previous thread.

i just want to establish that this has been designed by a competent machinist - mini2 forum had a fairly large thread about - one guy salt tested it against the alta - 96 hrs vs 240 hrs. not entirely sure tho how that translates to real world application. and, from what i've read on that forum, it has some kind of gold plating (and some1 on mu speculated it's not stainless steel - i'm waiting for a response from kavs re: the material of the pulley and the bolts).

 

My $0.02 - Go for a name brand, from a relatively local company. At a pulley party (obviously a while ago) Randy Webb showed me an ebay pulley. It wasn't pretty. (No, I didn't buy a pulley from Randy.) Perhaps the one you get will be perfect. But as you say, are you willing to take the risk? If it causes you to jack up your engine one more time to adjust the alignment, or cuts a belt, would it be worth it? Even if it DOESN'T, are you going to be thinking about it? If there's an issue can you call the ebay guy?

There are lots of places to save $50. A pulley on a vital component of the most vital component of a $20K car is not that place, IMO. Want to save $50? Get an HAI instead of a CAI, or a cheaper version of a CAI.

I'm cheap as anyone, but that's one place I didn't cheap out on. (Ok, I lied - I got one at AMVIV for $165, including installation. Screamin' deal.)

 

Do you really believe the making pulley cost 100+ USD? Please guys.

 

i don't. i don't imagine it cost much more than $20-30/item (and that may even be high). as i posted on mu - i worked in r&d in the sunglass biz back in the 90's. $180 oakley's cost sunglass hut $90/ea to buy - for oakley maybe they cost $45 (and that's after you've factored in r&d, advertising, marketing, etc). the sport glasses i was designing utilized both complex optics and mechanical tech but at the end of the day, per piece we could manufacture the glasses, packaging, warranty insert, cleaning cloth and a cool little sticker for under $30. but, since we wanted the the glasses to purchased by serious sports enthusiasts (in other words, the snowboarder, mtn biker, skier, etc who spent at least, if not more than $500 per year on new sports equipment - vs the occassional enthusiast who might spend $100-200 total on equipment over the life of the time they play the sport) - we were shooting for a retail price of $150/pair. that meant, specific product placement (sunglass hut, high end sporting goods stores - rather than discount retailers, etc) and brand identity. sure we could have sold the glasses for $70 or even $50 retail and made money (again, the way manufacturing worked - once we paid off initial dye molds and then shifted manufacturing to a high volume plant - price per item could get as low as $10) but when people are paying >$120 for oakley, revo, gargoyle - they believe that price equates to quality and to some degree the new player on the block has to subscribe to that consumers mentality in order to secure their purchase.

so far we have a lot of ppl's opinion based largely on where kmt is primarily sold (ebay) and that it's half the cost of the known US vendors. still hoping for some nam or mu users who can report on experience with the product.

 

so from kavs - the pulley is from steel with a galvanic coat and the bolts are 12.8

 

KMT is direct supplier, not the vendor who get the pulleys elswhere and then he just selling them.
From here is the lower price.

 

I have a KMT pully fitted to my car.
I bought it direct from KMT, excellent order process (paypal) and fast shipping to UK.
My fitter has much MINI experience and they fitted it AOK and commented that it looked and felt as good as any other one that they have fitted.
NO problems with this.
So far have only done about 1000 miles on it.
To me the KMT pulley is excellent value for money.

 

cool - thanks for the input. please give us regular updates here on NAM - i think if the products like KMT's pulley turn out to be a good value they'll drive some new competition for our existing vendors. competition is good for everyone!

 

I bought a KMT pulley from Fisher, real name Ambroz, who is the individual who makes them in the family's pulley factory in Slovenia. I've spoken with him personally via email about his pulley, and other products he has made. Some friends and I purchased three pulleys at once from him for $67 a piece after shipping. The material is aluminized steel. I've had mine on for a year and a half now.

I installed the pulley myself, so my experience is to be taken with a grain of salt... I experienced some slipping with a JCW belt. I changed to a gatorback, and solved the issue. I also had some shaft slippage the winter after I installed it, but that was cured by adding red loctite to the shaft, and have had no issues. The other two cars involved in the install have had neither of the issues I've described. The design of the pulley seems identical to other two-peice, 4-bolt pulleys on the market. And for those of you that think it's bad for not being mad eout of fancy aluminum or stainless, or hell even titanium, I acn say that the pulley looks and operates just fine.

If you like bling, fancy tuner name brands, and the thought of having stainless or aluminim under the hood comforts you for some reason, this is not the pulley for you.

 

A extra $50 bucks for insurance and ease of mind is something I'd be willing to pay for ANY day.

 

Ok, well.. whatever makes people feel better!

 

I have in my car and so far it has not fallen off. Although I'm not 100% confident with it. It didn't seem to me that it is tight enough. Nice supercharger whine.