Ferrari makes most every part of their cars with the possible exception of the battery and tires. Maybe light bulbs and mufflers. And they are extremely high quality and very fast while being very compact. Not an easy thing to combine. They also take very good care of their customers no matter where in the world they are.
On the other hand, you can see the pictures in this thread, Kinetico only makes the blow molded plastic control valve, the rubber like gaskets, the plastic cross over pipes (2, usually not over 18"+/- long), the blow molded plastic tank adapter for the second tank and the plastic blow molded by pass valve.
They do not make the remaining 95+/-% of the softener; including the plastic resin, the plastic resin tanks, the plastic distributor tubes, the plastic bottom basket or any plastic top basket or the plastic salt tank and it's plastic lid, plastic brine well, plastic and foam float, plastic brine pickup tube etc. etc.. All those parts are the identical parts all independent dealers and proprietary equipment dealers sell.
And I'm not so sure they actually blow mold anything, they may have Clack or someone else do their plastic molding for all I know. Clack is huge in blow molding all kinds of things for many companies on an international basis.
So I ask you readers of this forum that come here for information, what justifies such high pricing for a Kinetico softener? I say it's the millions they pay for advertising and higher profit for their money driven dealers.
Also, corporate Kinetico will not do business with any end user customer, and that includes providing any service manual, parts breakdown or parts etc.. Everything must go through the one any only local dealer unless there isn't one, and then they may provide the name of another dealer in an adjoining territory, that may or may not help or want to service the equipment, or will charge a lot more due to the distance.
Kinetico softeners set the gallons/frequency of regeneration with a disc. Last I knew there are 6 discs. In another thread in this forum recently there was a guy that had bought a house with a Kinetico softener in it and the seller wanted $1000 to leave the softener there. The buyer wanted advice as to what to do about buying the softener. The seller had a family of 8 living there and Andy, our resident Kinetico salesman (although just the other day he denied being Andy or a Kinetico salesman), asked the guy what number disc was in the control valve.
I said the disc would probably have to be changed (adding to the $1000) because of the fewer number of people in the buyer's family and there probably would be a service call charge and a price for the disc. Andy et al say the number of people have nothing to do with a Kinetico softener...
Of course Andy et al are saying I'm wrong etc. but, if the disc isn't changed, that means the softener will be regenerating twice as frequently for the new family of 4 than it was for the old family of 8.
Andy et al must think picking at me is more important than giving honest advice here. I.E. he has made a comment that resin can not get into the Kinetico control valve even if the tank is turned upside down. I've asked him what prevents resin from going into the control valve inlet to the resin tank if upended and he won't answer that. Resin is very teeny tiny beads usually smaller than 1/16th inch in diameter.
Also, I, many other dealers and dittohead! say that there is no advantage for most homeowners by having a twin tank type softener, evewn with soft water regeneration or upflow counter-current brining....
Kinetico and their dealers and their sales force say everyone should have a twin tank Kinetico and run down all other types of softeners except when a prospective customer refuses to pay their high prices for one. Then many Kinetico dealers sell the same thing as independent dealers do.