Mark up middle men…
Mr Whippy - 5/6/18 at 01:17 PM
So the lower gearbox mount rubber is torn on the Fiesta, a common issue on cars, a very basic part and rarely up to the task. If your car shakes
pulling away it’s that mounting.
On Ebay the price ranges from £12.99 (the one I bought) to over £500! For the same part, seriously how do people even sell these?!
Anyway phoned my local Autosave in case the could beat that and they quoted me £74.95…special order… so I says, but I can see them for sale on ebay
for £12.99 free postage…
Oh that’s less than a 3rd of the price we can buy them at! So 3 x £12.99 = £38.97 so they are applying almost a 100% mark up just for ordering a part
in… Given the person I bought mine for £12.99 is still making a profit greedy doesn’t even cover that.
I even bought a pair of front disks & pads for half the cost Autosave wanted for just the disks! Those arrived yesterday and they are nicely
machined and British made.
Middle men are just con men really, do yourself a favour and google for parts and don’t be fooled into paying for premium prices as its really nothing
more than premium profit for them for the same parts.
In the meantime till the part arrives on Friday I'm going to fill the mount with silicon sealant to firm it up and stop it juddering at every
junction...
theconrodkid - 5/6/18 at 02:14 PM
always pays to shop around, when i had my garage it was quite often cheaper to buy parts from my not very local BMW or Merc dealer that euro car parts
and the cheapest place for recon Ford engines was.....Fords.
ian locostzx9rc2 - 5/6/18 at 03:22 PM
Yes the markup does sound quite a lot but think of there overheads it’s a business not a charity !! As for internet parts be careful as there is a a
lot of poor quality counterfeit parts out there .
[Edited on 5/6/18 by ian locostzx9rc2]
big_wasa - 5/6/18 at 04:21 PM
As above, anything cheap and rubber and you will be replacing it before your next mot.
For the Mrs’s Ka when needs must we did the bottom arms and drop links and thermostat housing with cheap bits and none of them made it through the
next mot.
Slimy38 - 5/6/18 at 05:25 PM
quote:
Originally posted by big_wasa
As above, anything cheap and rubber and you will be replacing it before your next mot.
For the Mrs’s Ka when needs must we did the bottom arms and drop links and thermostat housing with cheap bits and none of them made it through the
next mot.
It's top mounts for me, I bought a cheap pair from ECP (not the cheapest, just cheap), and they lasted 5000 miles ish. I've now gone and
bought some Meyle... for not actually that much more!!
MikeR - 5/6/18 at 06:42 PM
I worked for a company who worked with ecp 10 years ago. The cheap stuff isnt worth fitting in my view. It also made me realise their is a wide range
of quality.
Having worked for other companies, the cost of running a shop is huge. The markup you're seeing is the result of that.
adithorp - 5/6/18 at 07:07 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
So the lower gearbox mount rubber is torn on the Fiesta, a common issue on cars...
...when you buy cheap poo chinese fakes/copies from some spurious internet site...
PS, I'm in the business of marking up parts and charging to fit them (so "ripping folks off" on two fronts) and I can't remember
the last time I had to replace a Fiesta gearbox mount.
Shooter63 - 5/6/18 at 07:22 PM
quote:
Originally posted by big_wasa
As above, anything cheap and rubber and you will be replacing it before your next mot.
For the Mrs’s Ka when needs must we did the bottom arms and drop links and thermostat housing with cheap bits and none of them made it through the
next mot.
You're not wrong there, my Mrs has a classic mini, c.v and rack gaiters are a yearly change, and it's not for the want of trying to pay for
decent ones, they just not available over here, believe it or not one of the UK suppliers is starting to import Japanese rubber parts as the quality
is so much higher.
Shooter
steve m - 5/6/18 at 08:03 PM
Food retailers mark up a big percentage of there products by 80-90 %
The overheads of running enormous warehouse's and 1000's of staff, show why, and Car part places are no different,
Not the answer you were looking for, but it affects all of us
steve
SJ - 6/6/18 at 07:53 AM
I'm quite happy to pay more for better quality. The problem is often that it can be hard to tell if the more expensive stuff is in fact better,
and sometimes the difference is huge.
For example I needed to buy a Clarion adaptor cable to fit a reversing camera to our Suzuki and in the UK they were £25 and in China £2.50 delivered.
The cheap cable arrived and I'd bet money it is exactly the same as the £25 one in the UK. Probably made in the same factory.
For brake / suspension / engine parts though I would always get something branded from a reputable suppler.
Mr Whippy - 7/6/18 at 05:38 AM
quote:
Originally posted by SJ
I'm quite happy to pay more for better quality. The problem is often that it can be hard to tell if the more expensive stuff is in fact better,
and sometimes the difference is huge.
For example I needed to buy a Clarion adaptor cable to fit a reversing camera to our Suzuki and in the UK they were £25 and in China £2.50 delivered.
The cheap cable arrived and I'd bet money it is exactly the same as the £25 one in the UK. Probably made in the same factory.
For brake / suspension / engine parts though I would always get something branded from a reputable suppler.
well that is the problem, suppliers simply marking up cheap stuff to make it look expensive and people buying expensive parts based on the assumption
that because it's expensive it must be better...but it isn't it's just expensive cheap stuff! all the time these "crooked"
suppliers are making loads of unjustified profit at your expense. It is very hard to judge if a part is worth buying based on just price alone.
alistairolsen - 28/6/18 at 02:59 PM
Got to agree with Whippy here.
Im VERY fussy about parts and tend to use dealer parts or high quality aftermarket, or OEMs. The UK is horiffic for poo parts, lack of retailer
knowledge and never having stock, which negates the point of a shop so I find myself ordering online and a lot of it from Germany.
Springs is a good example. Here, you go to the dealer which is prohibitive, or buy aftermarket replacements which often only come in one spec, so wont
be correct for your VXR/Msport/ST spec car and will break by the next MOT. I found myself on a few cars just using Eibach lowering springs for the
standard model because you can check the rates online. In Germany however, you can order the entire Sachs back catalogue!
Nowadays I use:
https://www.buycarparts.co.uk/