spare parts prices

swap it for your laser..

Try $130 for radiator relay for Patrol, still makes me cry.

As an ex-mechanic, I've said for the last twenty years that a car wrecking yard is a licence to print money. It's almost as good as a brothel,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Buy secondhand,,,,,,if ya can. The secret here is to buy a vehicle of a make 'n model of which many have been sold, hence many will have been wrecked, hence comparatively cheap parts can be had.

Musso? There's never been that many around. If new entrants to the car market want thier cars to sell, they need to adopt a reasonable parts pricing policy or lose market share.

Car makers don't make money out of selling cars, they make money out of servicing cars and selling spare parts - both at criminal prices. And the more technical the car is, then the more the parts cost and the more it costs to service it.

Who do you think keeps coming out with all these "Euro Emiission Rules" and "fuel economy regulations" and "exepensive synthetic oils"?? Car manufacturers, that's who. When yer working on "10 percent profit margin" - 10 percent of 100 dollars is more than 10 percent of 20 dollars - so sell the synthetic oil for 100 dollars a litre. Make the car harder to service or reapir and we make more money in labour costs. Make it more complex and technical to fix and we make more money in parts 'cos there's more to go wrong!

Simple stuff eh!! And we all fall for it.

Bilbo

As an ex-mechanic, I've said for the last twenty years that a car wrecking yard is a licence to print money. It's almost as good as a brothel,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Buy secondhand,,,,,,if ya can. The secret here is to buy a vehicle of a make 'n model of which many have been sold, hence many will have been wrecked, hence comparatively cheap parts can be had.

Musso? There's never been that many around. If new entrants to the car market want thier cars to sell, they need to adopt a reasonable parts pricing policy or lose market share.

Car makers don't make money out of selling cars, they make money out of servicing cars and selling spare parts - both at criminal prices. And the more technical the car is, then the more the parts cost and the more it costs to service it.

Who do you think keeps coming out with all these "Euro Emiission Rules" and "fuel economy regulations" and "exepensive synthetic oils"?? Car manufacturers, that's who. When yer working on "10 percent profit margin" - 10 percent of 100 dollars is more than 10 percent of 20 dollars - so sell the synthetic oil for 100 dollars a litre. Make the car harder to service or reapir and we make more money in labour costs. Make it more complex and technical to fix and we make more money in parts 'cos there's more to go wrong!

Simple stuff eh!! And we all fall for it.

Bilbo

Nowimnumberone

When my starter motor for my 95 80series cruiser jammed on and cooked itself i was quoted $880 + tax from Toyota.
I contacted Denso who make them for Toyota and was given the following choice
$225 for one with a Denso sticker
$600 odd for one with the Toyota part number sticker.

Both the same part. Just one has a expensive sticker attached to it.

No guessing which one I got

Rob

In the Melbourne Age this week there was a comment that Toyota has significantly reduced the prices of Echo spares to reduce the large numbers being written off after prangs!

No wonder Toyota`s catch cry is : "Oh what a feeling ! " when they empty your wallet. In my early days when working in the motor trade, a spark plug cost 50 cents, engine oil was about $3.00 for five litres etc etc. My 4Runner did the sealed bearing in the viscous fan hub. According to Auto Masters here in Beldon/Belridge a new housing cost $1660 !! The poor manager was outraged at the price, that he told Toyota to shove it and went ahead and fitted a large thermo electric fan , and its worked perfectly for the past two years , without the noise coming from the viscous fan ! The motor industry is a law unto itself !

I remember years ago ,sometime in the 70s reading an article put out by the NRMA on spare parts pricing , it had the figures based on a new Holden that at the time retailed for around $5000.oo , to build the same vehicle from spare parts would have cost in the vicinity of $100,000.oo not including labour costs ,,,,, storage / retrieval / scarcity /commonality ect all play apart in making a part that cost 20 cents to manufacture into a part costing $20+ .

Wasn't it old Henry Ford who said something like, "I will give you the car for nothing if you buy the parts off me for its working life"??

By the way Jim what did your customer say to those prices and what did he do?

nowinnumberone

Musso's are a bosch system, read the part number on the air flow meter and contact Bosch or Repco, I got one 2 years ago through Repco $700.00 approx, I still have it and will sell if part number the same, if you are interested email me, johnauto at vic dot chariot dot net dot au

john

Have you thought about aftermarket? Being a Mercedes engine in should be a bosch unit, and shouldn't be to hard to find.

know the feeling.

SWMBO has an Astra - this is a case of engineered obscelence... it is a 2001 with 78ks - should be just run in.

Instead I've been up for $800 worth of engine mount repairs.
$1,160 for both rear door window winder assemblies that died young.
$1,100 for brakes including new rotors - rotors were so thin they couldn't be machines
and now I am holding out with Holden to get them to fix:
$400 for replacement idle pulley tensioner assembly, and
$1,200 for a/c compressor, hi/lo pressure switch, receiver drier/filter assembly!

I got jack of the situation and called RAA Technical Dept who told me they get 10-15 complaints a week on Astras and Vectras, and that they are the most expensive car in running costs bar none!

Cheers
Andrew.