It
is actually kind of hard to argue with that much of a difference in price Steed. But I did argue (with myself) for about a week after deciding I even wanted one. And still ended up with the Mean Green.
I'm with the others that the factory starters are typically very reliable, and I don't have many years of history with the Mean Green personally. Only known of them and sold them for years, but never used one. Finally pulled the trigger on one just two weeks ago as a matter of fact.
The only argument I had for it was after installing one in a customer's rig I was helping install a Painless harness on. It just
SOUNDED so BADASS when we first fired it up. All three of us there during the initial fire-up noticed the same thing the first time we hit the button. Man, that thing cranks!
It's very hard to explain actually, when a standard one works well enough for most (and makes your truck sound like a newer Ford truck or Mustang up to the late nineties also), but the MG just sounds so cleaner and well, stronger.
Like I said. Hard to explain the feeling. And it might have been totally self-induced, but that's ok too. I'm gonna like it.
I'm sure it didn't hurt that this is a big Windsor with like 10.5:1 compression big cam and all the cool stuff you'd expect out of a hot Mustang (donor), so we expected it to task a starter for sure. But it did turn that thing over clean and tidy, with no complaint at all.
As you would expect of course.
So I forked over the almost 300 bucks (more after tax and almost five times as much as the standard one we sell) and am not unhappy I did. Well, it did hurt, but I'm still not unhappy.
Other than it's going to sit on the shelf for at least a few more months before I start getting my money's worth!
It's a quality feeling piece of Made in USA stuff.
Good luck with the decision!
Paul