So why do Lexus parts HAVE to be expensive?

[The-Acre]

I realise this has been discussed before but I do struggle to understand just why we pay so much for main dealer parts. In an idle moment I've been looking at some common parts that fail on the LS range.  Take for instance a front upper control arm. Main dealer about £500.  ACdelco, generally high quality parts, £64 from the US with lifetime warranty.  VAT paid upfront, plus fast delivery (5days) £120 tops.  This is of course from Rockauto/FedEx and this is their most expensive UCA called "professional" with grease nipple on the ball joint.  

Edit on that.  Lexus parts direct sale price £562 for one UCA.

[Paul Brooksbank]

If you make a car that is far more reliable than almost anything else in the world, you risk having nothing to do to make a profit. The Honda dealership in Crewe closed down recently due to only selling cars and servicing.

Singer Sewing Machines had to offer a part ex deal on the ones they made in the 1950's to the 1970's in order to sell new ones, the old machines lasted too long.

Mercedes were the best cars in the world in the 1970's, but profits tumbled, so the accountants took over from the engineers, and now they're complete crap.

[NemesisUK]

"So why do Lexus parts HAVE to be expensive?"

Simple answer is they don't but Lexus/Toyota want to project an image of luxury, so price accordingly. Plus they don't have a huge turnover on parts as the cars are built up to a higher level of quality, rather than down to a price.

Plus I'm sure the £500 part will have been made/quality controlled to a higher and tighter spec than the cheaper ones.

[The-Acre]

I do understand the logic in the replies, and separate parts for anything are always expensive, be it a car or a boiler, it's just the extremes that bug me. Still, I'm very thankful that there is plenty of competition if we delve. 

[Malc]

8 minutes ago, NemesisUK said:

Plus I'm sure the £500 part will have been made/quality controlled to a higher and tighter spec than the cheaper ones.

not quite .........  my UCAs from Amayama cost about half this, £250 in total with carriage, Customs Duty VAT etc and of course, manufactured by Toyota in Toyota land too along with the Lexus parts the same

I'm afraid it's just the UK main dealer mark-up god bless 'em 😎

Malc

[The-Acre]

1 minute ago, Malc said:

not quite .........  my UCAs from Amayama cost about half this, £250 in total with carriage, Customs Duty VAT etc and of course, manufactured by Toyota in Toyota land too along with the Lexus parts the same

I'm afraid it's just the UK main dealer mark-up god bless 'em 😎

Malc

I guess this is the point really, we just get stung so badly in the UK.  Like I say, just as well there are alternative sources.

[skyway]

30 minutes ago, NemesisUK said:

 

Simple answer is they don't but Lexus/Toyota want to project an image of luxury, so price accordingly. Plus they don't have a huge turnover on parts as the cars are built up to a higher level of quality, rather than down to a price.

 

Nail right on the head there........brand perception is everything.

It is amazing how many hoops brands can make you jump through to acquire one of their products.. You should check out Hermes bags, a friend told me that she had to ask for an appointment to go to one of their shops 3 times before they gave her a date she could go. 

when she went in they made her wait ages then asked her what she wanted the bag for, the sales assistant then left the shop floor 15 mins later came back with a bag.

only choice was to buy the bag or never get another appointment there for no choice over the bag.

I told her she was dumber than a sack of hammers (or words to that effect).

[Paul Brooksbank]

53 minutes ago, skyway said:

Nail right on the head there........brand perception is everything.

It is amazing how many hoops brands can make you jump through to acquire one of their products.. You should check out Hermes bags, a friend told me that she had to ask for an appointment to go to one of their shops 3 times before they gave her a date she could go. 

when she went in they made her wait ages then asked her what she wanted the bag for, the sales assistant then left the shop floor 15 mins later came back with a bag.

only choice was to buy the bag or never get another appointment there for no choice over the bag.

I told her she was dumber than a sack of hammers (or words to that effect).

She didn't walk out in disgust, my wife would have.

 

[Herbie]

It may be to do with 'brand perception' in a small way but that can't be the whole thing because all motor manufacturers do it 'because they can.'

I had a Nissan Maxima QX that needed an oil sump pan. It was probably made of pressed enamelled steel, it had a few fancy lines on it that had no functional purpose, and it had a few holes drilled in it. Nissan wanted just under £200 if I remember correctly.

We bought a new roasting tin at around the same time. It was probably made of pressed enamelled steel, it didn't have any fancy lines on it but it did have a couple of holes drilled in it. Asda or Sainsburys or wherever we got it from charged under a fiver - and I defy anyone to tell me that there's about £180-worth of difference between the two items:

[Britprius]

1 hour ago, Herbie said:

It may be to do with 'brand perception' in a small way but that can't be the whole thing because all motor manufacturers do it 'because they can.'

I had a Nissan Maxima QX that needed an oil sump pan. It was probably made of pressed enamelled steel, it had a few fancy lines on it that had no functional purpose, and it had a few holes drilled in it. Nissan wanted just under £200 if I remember correctly.

We bought a new roasting tin at around the same time. It was probably made of pressed enamelled steel, it didn't have any fancy lines on it but it did have a couple of holes drilled in it. Asda or Sainsburys or wherever we got it from charged under a fiver - and I defy anyone to tell me that there's about £180-worth of difference between the two items:

I worked in industry on automatic production lines "mainly industrial robots". A lot of my work revolved around press feed work where a coil of steel was fed into a press in precise steps with anything up to 6 steps. Each step took the material through a different stage in the press, and after the last stage a finished component "apart from paint" was ejected. Both the above items would be made in 2 or possibly 3 almost identical steps.
The difference between the 2 is in the finish. The baking tray would have a far superior finish to the sump pan.
The material cost would be possibly 50 pence per item. The press tool cost would be for the baking pan circa £20K to £25K for the sump £25K to £30K. The press would operate at around 30 strokes per minute producing one item per stroke. This includes any holes in the item usually done at the first stage of the press.
From this you can gather an approximate cost of the items at the factory gate if you add on labor, electricity, and any other overheads bearing in mind the production time for an item would be less than one minute per finished item.

The tooling cost is the largest outlay, but you have to divide this cost by the number of items pressed by the tool so 100K items would work out at between 20 pence, and 30 pence per item. Obviously the more you make the cheaper they become.

The baking tray would be made in larger quantities, but have a much more expensive true enameled finish. The sump would have a basic oven dried paint job probably without even an undercoat. 

John.

[ambermarine]

The manufacture and sale price of any product is subject to a number of variables that are influenced by factors outside of the manufacturing process and invariably it is these that add the biggest cost  to the end figure.

Factory gate price is usually easy to ascertain and can be fixed over a long period ,in the case of a replacement part that could be years the uncontrolable factors are beyond that gate,the transport storage and warehousing cost the import and export costs dealership costs and profits currency fluctuations and volume of sales and the last one is the biggest cost in keeping the spare part available.

The reason is the warehousing cost and keeping enough stock available for future requirements and in some cases it is a toss up between keeping idle tooling maintained or making hundreds of thousands of a product that may never sell, the cost of which lies on the books and as to be paid for .

The other variables mentioned in other posts such as brand image and the units being made by one manufacturer and distributed under different titles is not entirely correct as these manufacturers produce parts under liscense if they quote the original part number and manufacturer and conditions of those liscences  determine the quality of the product they can produce and it is never as good as the original.

Anyone who owns a Lexus LS knows they have one of the most reliable cars ever made and to that end be happy that when you have to shell out it is infrequently.

[Britprius]

In part I agree with what Phil says above, but this does not explain the high cost of parts while the particular vehicle part ordered is still in production. It also does not explain the huge sale price on items that are obviously very cheap items to make, and are available in other countries at a fraction of the price being charged here in the UK.

The high cost of replacement parts is not a new phenomena. Back in the days when British cars had mostly Lucas electrical equipment Lucas supplied parts "starters, dynamos, distributors, and many more products" to the car manufacturers at factory prices. There profit came from the replacement parts market. This market was substantial particularly because all the parts no matter what vehicle they were fitted to were essentially the same be it Ford, BMC, Vauxhaul, Rover, or Rootes. However the cost of these replacement parts even allowing for inflation was nothing like the cost of even minor items today. Just look at the price of an OEM sump plug washer from Lexus. This being the same item from 20 or 30 years ago as it is today.

Why is the paper oil filter element that is used on many Toyota/Lexus cars more expensive than the disposable canister type filters that have a very similar paper filter inside a metal housing with a thick threaded steel base, and often a non return valve? 

Spark plugs are another over priced OEM product. I know the today's new plugs have precious metal electrodes, but the amount of this metal used is tiny, and modern production systems will have bought the cost of production down considerably to what it was 50 years ago when plugs cost £1 for a set of 4. Now more like £50 for 4 plugs.

John.

[Malc]

1 hour ago, Britprius said:

Now more like £50 for 4 plugs.

but a V8 set of 8 is possibly 2+ that figure BUT they do now last maybe 120k miles between changes whereas in  ( g ? ) olden times a set of plugs were often changed at each annual service ...  going back to the rusty old car days of car engine maintenance 

Malc

[ambermarine]

Malcolm very good point on longevity of plugs, I doubt the cars of the 70s and before would have been still around at the 60k plug change service on a LS.

[ambermarine]

4 hours ago, Britprius said:

In part I agree with what Phil says above, but this does not explain the high cost of parts while the particular vehicle part ordered is still in production. It also does not explain the huge sale price on items that are obviously very cheap items to make, and are available in other countries at a fraction of the price being charged here in the UK.

The high cost of replacement parts is not a new phenomena. Back in the days when British cars had mostly Lucas electrical equipment Lucas supplied parts "starters, dynamos, distributors, and many more products" to the car manufacturers at factory prices. There profit came from the replacement parts market. This market was substantial particularly because all the parts no matter what vehicle they were fitted to were essentially the same be it Ford, BMC, Vauxhaul, Rover, or Rootes. However the cost of these replacement parts even allowing for inflation was nothing like the cost of even minor items today. Just look at the price of an OEM sump plug washer from Lexus. This being the same item from 20 or 30 years ago as it is today.

Why is the paper oil filter element that is used on many Toyota/Lexus cars more expensive than the disposable canister type filters that have a very similar paper filter inside a metal housing with a thick threaded steel base, and often a non return valve? 

Spark plugs are another over priced OEM product. I know the today's new plugs have precious metal electrodes, but the amount of this metal used is tiny, and modern production systems will have bought the cost of production down considerably to what it was 50 years ago when plugs cost £1 for a set of 4. Now more like £50 for 4 plugs.

John.

The cost of the replacement part is set at the time of the production commisioning and usually lasts for the life of the part regardless of consumption,so  the cost of parts that are still in production are a constant but will rise later when other varible cost are added.

The clue to how Toyota operate their Spare parts diciplines can be explained by a experience I had a few years ago in Florida I went to a Lexus dealership in Fort Myers and requested a serpentine belt for My LS400 The guy at the parts counter recognised by my accent that I wanted to take the belt back to the UK and informed me that Lexus had an embargo on any parts being sold from their dealerships overseas outside of the USA he did not enforce the rule but stated it does exist.

So what Lexus are doing is protecting their market places in designated areas for the overall benefit of the company bearing in mind my earlier reference to custom tariffs and currency fluctuations ,they dictate what is a level playing field by setting the price of OEM parts and protecting their dealerships from cheap undercutting. 

[steve2006]

It’s the same in other marketing areas, I was looking to book a Caribbean cruise so priced it up with their UK website then with their US website. There was nearly a £1000.00 difference but they would not allow me to book via the .com website as I wasn’t a US resident. I then went via a US travel agent, provided a friends US address and not only got the cheaper price but $75.00 on board credit and a $32.00 wine voucher. When I boarded the ship I also got the pre paid port taxes refunded also.

 

[Herbie]

22 minutes ago, steve2006 said:

but they would not allow me to book via the .com website as I wasn’t a US resident.

This is where a VPN comes in very handy.

A VPN or Virtual Private Network lets you get around geolocked content by choosing to use a server in another country and setting up a 'private tunnel' between you and it, so that you appear to be physically located in that country.

Say you were on holiday in Spain for example, and wanted to watch something on BBC iPlayer. You wouldn't be allowed to, because the iPlayer is only for UK residents. However, by using a VPN and connecting to a server in London, the system thinks you're actually in London and gives you access to iPlayer, even though you're really in Spain.

In Steve's example, he could have been here in Blighty but connected to a VPN server somewhere in the USA and had full access to that .com travel website.

[The-Acre]

8 hours ago, Herbie said:

This is where a VPN comes in very handy.

A VPN or Virtual Private Network lets you get around geolocked content by choosing to use a server in another country and setting up a 'private tunnel' between you and it, so that you appear to be physically located in that country.

Say you were on holiday in Spain for example, and wanted to watch something on BBC iPlayer. You wouldn't be allowed to, because the iPlayer is only for UK residents. However, by using a VPN and connecting to a server in London, the system thinks you're actually in London and gives you access to iPlayer, even though you're really in Spain.

In Steve's example, he could have been here in Blighty but connected to a VPN server somewhere in the USA and had full access to that .com travel website.

Is this totally safe?  I'm thinking when we go on our next road trip to Austria in April we might want to recline one evening with bellies full of wine and schnitzel and watch something on iPlayer!  

[rich1068]

Safe in what way? You're not at risk of your door being kicked down by the rozzers or Russian mafia if that's what you mean. It's only iPlayer Phil.

(Start 'em off on iPlayer, slowly get them hooked and onto the harder stuff like Netflix )

[Cotswold Pete]

4 hours ago, The-Acre said:

Is this totally safe?  I'm thinking when we go on our next road trip to Austria in April we might want to recline one evening with bellies full of wine and schnitzel and watch something on iPlayer!  

VPNs are totally safe, been around for a couple of decades.

If all you want to do is to make the Internet think you are in UK (where-ever you are), you could use a Draytek 2762 router as your own VPN handler, and then use free VPN software on your laptop/PC/Mobile phone to tunnel back to the UK (works better if you have your ISP provide a Static IP address).  The only cost then is of replacing your current routerand the time taking to set it up (Personalyl I only ever listen to BBC radio when abroad and that works fine - and I use Get_iPlayer (on Git Hub) to rip BBC TV programmes onto my phone/tablet before leaving UK so I have something to watch while on the plane)

ProXPN makes it so that you could appear to be USA user, or UK user (etc) dependnig on which web site you want to fool into thinking you are a 'citizen of said country'. 

If only this tech was available back in the 90's when I was permanently flying here there and everywhere (with my travel case full of CDs!!)

[ambermarine]

Just a rider to this Topic, another reason for the USA differentials on parts and distribution is  the fact that they build Lexus cars there in Kentucky and employ 7000 US citizens .Now the deal to build a Lexus factory in the US will have major input on the price of Lexus cars in the states and not just the ones they produce in Kentucky, there will be concessions on import duties as a trade off by US officials for the benefits of the factory location.

It is well known that there is a substantial difference in price on any Lexus bought outside of the USA this is sometimes a lot to do with the spec as they don't do all up models like we do in the UK one of the reasons for that is they sell a lot more cars there and can bespoke offers ,here we are given little choice as volume sales make it impossible with the import cost and jit system. Take a look at the factory its very interesting. google" Lexus enthusiast Kentucky factory."

[royoftherovers]

5 hours ago, The-Acre said:

Is this totally safe?  I'm thinking when we go on our next road trip to Austria in April we might want to recline one evening with bellies full of wine and schnitzel and watch something on iPlayer!  

Works very well when I am in Spain for 6 months of the year. Eat, drink and be merry Phil, for we know not what tomorrow brings !!

[Tulpen]

4 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

Works very well when I am in Spain for 6 months of the year. Eat, drink and be merry Phil, for we know not what tomorrow brings !!

I live in Holland and do most of my stuff via a VPN. A couple of years ago, Brussels passed a law which restricts what a lot of foreign websites can show. I was researching a future holiday in the States and had quite a few access requests denied. Solution was simple...….make the internet think I'm in the States, via VPN.

[steve2006]

Prime example today, short flexible transmission hoses for the RX300, top one around £75.00 bottom one around £17.00. Look around the same to me but even £17.00 for a bit of rubber hose is taking the p***!

[Tinonline]

Part sourcing is a major exercise and we are poorly served in the UK, no doubt about it.. 

I try and retain Lexus parts wherever possible - but there is a fair and reasonable limit or value to a part. I have no issue buying from Rockauto and I opt for quality over price.

I breached that principle last month, probably for the first time and I could have done better...paid £70 for wiper blade refills and a coolant cap... oh the pain, the pain...at least the parts manager was good enough to fit the blades.

Then I got a windscreen washer float from Amayama... genuine article for  £38.30 all in so that was a win.

Next shop is for upper front suspension links - looking like Rockauto for these...