Hi,

I agree with Dave whole heartedly.

The price spreads between those examples is a reason not to other business with the other parts offered.

I found the following by using randomness of a search engine and selecting out what I know about rubbers.

https://www.rubbercal.com/sheet-rubber/synthetic-rubber/

This site puts in the effort to tell us that after the natural tree rubber everything else is synthetic.
Synthetic means manipulating to made for certain qualities.
I skipped around to find some on rather repetitive but I got a better explanation as it went along.
Neoprene and Nitrile are closely the same so it explains the “ripping off” marketing does within price ranges.

If you look at the prices and amounts of products offered in the explanations on this website you can get the best view of what a rip off that price spread is.
The sheets are three by six feet. That’s a lot oil cap gaskets that IPD can have made to sell as aftermarket.
Imagine E EURO and FPC are doing the same thing. I think I got mine from them as they do work to get our business too.

There isn’t that much difference as long as you stay above the generic EDPM that’s a catch-all synthetic rubber. I gathered that’s it’s just above the natural tree rubber limits many years ago.

Thermoplastic and urethanes are the latest upgrades in the industry and their pricing has improved a lot.
So shop around for any of these technologies and weigh them accordingly.
Manufacturers all do it, we just to sort out the greedy ones!


Phil