Why Are Billet Parts More Expensive?

A billet is a piece of metal that is rectangular, circular, or square in shape.

Billets can be made of steel, iron or aluminum.

There are a few different factors that make the billet truck parts more expensive than either a cast or forged part:

When you start with a block of aluminum or other metal there is a lot of the billet that ends up as recycling from the milling process. These pieces of scrap aluminum are worth pennies on the dollar compared to the cost of the original billet.

The computer controlled machinery that does the milling to precisely cut each part separately is very expensive.

Since billet parts are so expensive to produce why not just die-cast the parts? Die-cast parts are made from aluminum or other metals poured into a mold, therefore it’s difficult to achieve the same uniform structure, strength, and near perfect finish found in top-quality billet parts.