Is this a ripoff or fair???

Are you talking about Poly Air Bags, or "Firestone" ?

From memory, I paid $320 for my Poly air bags, from the local Autobarn....( from US, via E-Bay, were about your price, but I got the "what if's ? " ... so I shopped locally

Fitted them myself, to the Navara with help from a mate.
Took 1 1/2 hours .

Air adjustment was done via an "el-cheapo" bicycle pump..
Valves were placed behind the fuel cap, where they slotted in nicely as replacement mounting screws, for the filler pipes.
Why a compressor type, when you can do so easily, with a bike pump ?

Are you going for full air suspension, or just the booster type ?

Have a think about it !

Cheers
Bucky

I bought mine from trucksprings.com in the US. Five days delivery and fitted them myself. I'm 71 yoa. They have every thing that you need as well as technical advice. I believe I did the lot for $350.00 that includes a small compressor, controller, hoses and all the fittings and of cause the bags their selves. You will have to tell trucksprings that you have a 2" lift.

$500 is about on the money for a locally supplied pair fitted. You can get the same thing from Truckspring cheaper as you have discovered. I can't say about the 80 but I have fitted a pair to both a GU and a 100 and the 100 was a PITA. You need to drill holes in the mounts which is a pain. Personally I would fit them again myself to a GU but would have it done by someone else to a 100.

OT

If you buy the airlift's from Truckspring in the US they are actually Polyair's - even have it written on the bags.

As for installation, the only headache I had was getting the airlines attached to the nipples on the top of each bag, otherwise pretty straightforward.

They are exactly the same bag as the polyair's, and for ~$150 delivered (what I paid also) wouldn't even look at buying them local.

Nick,

I had a set of Polyairs fitted (and supplied) by TJM here in Canberra recently. Cost from memory was $290 for the bags and $170 to fit.

As Outbacktourer mentioned, you will have to drill a 25mm hole in the top of each spring tower. That is the hidden 'headache' you were after.

I was going to fit them myself but a decent 25mm metal hole saw will set you back $70-80 if you don't have one (I don't) and looking at hours of pfaffing around (most of my mechanical projects involve this), the $170 to fit seemed like a good deal. To me at least.

As Michael pointed out, you get pretty dissapointed paying (in my case) $290 when you open the box. Not much to them. They work great though.

If I did it again, I think I would import a set for about half the price, then have someone fit them for me.

Cheers,

Matt.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I think I will just take the vehicle into town and let them fit them for the $500.

I might just see if they will trim the price a bit first, by letting them know the import price.

Thanks Nick