Why I like genuine parts

[Newbie1]

Christmas came today with a delivery of Toyota parts from Amayama for my Soarer and LS400. A photo of a humble LS400 ARB bush is attached. Note the additional textured material lining to the bush which presumably reduces the possibility of creaking from the bush (a common enough issue with ARB bushes. ) I must have put on dozens of ARB bushes over the years on all sorts of makes but this is the first time I've seen this level of attention to detail on a simple bush. 

[JohnDavis]

Original parts fit and last so well that they are cost effective.

[dendonc]

What % extra to advertised price was the + VAT & Customs duty? ta.

[The-Acre]

9 hours ago, dendonc said:

What % extra to advertised price was the + VAT & Customs duty? ta.

I just had an 02 sensor from Rockauto in the States which was £52+ £5 postage, then there was an £8 Royal mail handling charge and £10 customs fee. It's a Denso part, £195 at main dealer.  Well worth it if you don't mind waiting two weeks.

[Newbie1]

den-i did a bulk order and customs and VAT added about £100 to a £400 total (including shipping). Basically, it worked out that I got everything for half price versus a dealer, with some items much lower than the dealer and even listed by the dealer as no longer available. Amayama dispatch and updates were superb (3 days from order to dispatch) however once it hit the UK it sat for 9 days customs and ParcelForce  doing their bit.

[dendonc]

Those costs surprised me, I thought the xtra's would be much more than that, good prices.

[Newbie1]

Just checked-the customs invoice was for £115. I had to spend a good bit of time looking through their parts catalogue and double checking against ToyoDIY etc to make sure I got the right parts. An expensive habit, though...

[ColinBarber]

2 hours ago, The-Acre said:

I just had an 02 sensor from Rockauto in the States which was £52+ £5 postage, then there was an £8 Royal mail handling charge and £10 customs fee. It's a Denso part, £195 at main dealer.  Well worth it if you don't mind waiting two weeks.

I like Rockauto. If you select a courier rather than the postal service you can pay all the duties up front so you know exactly the price you will pay.

[Newbie1]

Really professional outfit to deal with.Great website and support. Good fridge magnets, too.

[sorcerer]

1 hour ago, Newbie1 said:

Really professional outfit to deal with.Great website and support. Good fridge magnets, too

Maybe not as good as they used to be on the support front since they ended telephone support:

 

[Newbie1]

Oh man! That's what made them great.

[ambermarine]

Well the problem this guy on the video had was self inflicted, you should always check the parts before placing them on the vehicle and he knew he was placing an incomplete part on the car .

If he had waited until the part arrived before stripping the old part the customer would not have been put in the position of a bad fix in the first place.

Online companies deal in logistics and are not partco men who traipse off to the stores as they did in the19 50s/60s and leave you chatting to a calender on the wall for half an hour while they look for your part.

if you have not experienced that scenario I can tell you done properly buying parts online is the best experience if you follow the correct procedure.

[AndyCheltenham1]

I've bought a lot of stuff from RockAuto in the past for my Cadillac and they've been good and reliable. The thing that put me off using them again was when I wanted to order a seal off them for about £1.00 or less and the carriage was £20!! The seal was so tiny and light they could have posted it easily for a fraction of the cost but they totally refused to do so-they insisted on charging me £21 for a £1 part!!  Needless to say I didn't order the part from them and have not used them again due to their attitude and poor customer care on this occasion.

[ambermarine]

Andy I have come across this with uk online sites and not strictly Auto related,it comes down to their logistics set up and if they are dealing with Fedex Ups or corporate logistics the dispatching is down to the carrier and they dictate minimum pricing based on software devised for the customers operations ,anything that falls outside that scope cannot be handled below a certain minimum price.

The telephone sales or online sales staff have nothing to do with the item and probably never see it.

When the software is formulated seals washers screws and small items are usually assumed to be accompanying larger orders and are not priced for individual delivery.

[sorcerer]

1 hour ago, ambermarine said:

Well the problem this guy on the video had was self inflicted, you should always check the parts before placing them on the vehicle and he knew he was placing an incomplete part on the car .

I do agree there, but it doesn't alter the fact that if something goes wrong, you can't just phone them up anymore and talk to someone one-to-one. A situation that's already difficult when separated by thousands of miles has now been made even more difficult.

[ambermarine]

1 hour ago, sorcerer said:

I do agree there, but it doesn't alter the fact that if something goes wrong, you can't just phone them up anymore and talk to someone one-to-one. A situation that's already difficult when separated by thousands of miles has now been made even more difficult.

My understanding of his complaint was that although they had offered to change the part he wanted to vent is spleen on somebody because he had fitted the part , as any business got a department that deals with the customer cocking it up.

[sorcerer]

37 minutes ago, ambermarine said:

My understanding of his complaint was that although they had offered to change the part he wanted to vent is spleen on somebody because he had fitted the part , as any business got a department that deals with the customer cocking it up.

No, but again, if you order a part but the incorrect one is delivered or damaged on arrival, there is no telephone support anymore. That, in itself, may be enough for some people to avoid using that company in the future, which is what the guy is ranting about - not that he fitted the part; not that they have web support* but simply that they have discontinued telephone support so they can't deal with problems as effectively or expediently as they used to.

*It's not beyond the realms of possibility when one has to deal with 'web-only' support that the online form doesn't have the correct option that fits your circumstances or the situation is complex and has to be explained to another human.

[The-Acre]

7 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

I like Rockauto. If you select a courier rather than the postal service you can pay all the duties up front so you know exactly the price you will pay.

I didn't know that, I'll remember next time. Thanks.

[Newbie1]

Lesson is: spend those hours checking and double-checking part numbers and diagrams.

If you really want to spend money start ordering parts of interior trim...Can't believe the costs for bits of plastic.

[ambermarine]

Phil

The cost of replacement parts is down to volume of sales relative to cost of manufacture,trim is not a consumable and volume will be small the tooling for these parts is very very expensive and cannot be absorbed entirely  on the manufacture of the model so any replacement parts because they may sit around on shelves for years are costed for sale at compound projected annual increases.

[Newbie1]

Thank you, Phil. I'd thought that it was partly due to costing building in the low turnover.  It's been interesting to watch in respect of some of my older cars as the huge price for e,g. a door panel eventually doesnt matter as the cars fall into the hands of real enthusiasts. Then lots of trim becomes NLA very quickly! Sadly happening to even suspension control arms and other essentials.

[ambermarine]

You are correct in that observation it is common practice for manufacturers to dispose of parts enblock when the cost of storing them is seen as negative asset value and they don't see a big enough market for them in the future.

The parts are sold to the highest bidder in aftermarket auctions that the general public don't get to see.

[runsgrateasanut]

Back on the 9th I bought from Rock two packs described as Wholesale Closeout parts - Disk Brake Hardware Kit. 

Frankly, I wasn't sure what I'd be getting but hoped they would include Caliper pins.  They didn't!  Just 8 spring clips and four coat hanger style spring clips.  One of the packs had been thumb forced open and was missing its Coat hanger Spring clips.  I emailed Rock and they have since sent me a replacement box with all parts.  Came in last week.

I paid £9.71 which included the postage for these parts and so the cost to them of replacing one box - which they did promptly, can't give them any sort of profit.  

 

[Malc]

...............  they might be insured against theft in transit !

Malc

[runsgrateasanut]

1 hour ago, Malc said:

...............  they might be insured against theft in transit !

Malc

Like amazon the Box  was way over the size needed (about ten times) and had not been tampered with. They had been removed at the stock shelf is my guess. Can you imagine the the cost of processing an insurance claim!