I do a lot of electrical work for friends, mostly GM stuff. I try to follow standard GM wire colors code. I use slot of gray (dash lighting) pink (ignition) orange for constant power, etc. I called Mouser electrical looking for the aforementioned colors in 22 gauge (that’s all that’s needed for electrical gauges and most sensors) they quoted about a 100 bucks for a 100 foot spool! I have a spool of each color on my wire rack, I know for a fact I didn’t pay nearly that much!!! I seriously doubt I spent 100 bucks on ALL the 22 gauge wire in my inventory!!

Has wire REALLY gotten that expensive??




Every color was around the same price.

 

It doesn't surprise me; everything is through the roof.
A guy on another forum uses marine wire. I haven't tried that yet, but it probably carries the boat tax.

 

Seems a tad high, still. But depends on if it's solid or stranded, plus the quality, I imagine. Wasn't trying hard, but scanned a few searches and found this for like 13 cents/foot.

 

It appears Belden wire is trying to corner the market on overpricing. Everywhere you look, Belden wire seems overpriced. I've used Belden in the past without issue and they make good wire. But, sorry, they can't be THAT good. What is their secret, 0 ohm resistance per foot?

 

You can also get wire cheaper if you get Copper Clad Aluminum instead of copper. Gauges, ignition, lights, etc. should be fine wired in CCA. The only reason you'd need pure copper is if you're installing a stereo system (or mobile radio if you're a ham).

 

Copper has become very expensive; have you looked at the price of 14AWG and 12AWG ROMEX lately?

 

Wow, that's an outrageous price for pvc jacketed wire. I would look around to other places. Just for reference, I buy my tefzel wire from https://racespeconline.com/ for $0.50 - $0.70 per ft.