I'm sure I'm not the first person to say Dealerships are over priced.

[aczlan]

This is true, but it ignores the issue of "is the part different". In a lot of cases, no, it's not. It's exactly the same part, just one that's passed certification, that cost 25X as much.

The one I'm surprised nobody mentioned yet is boats. "Marine grade" parts are just nuts. Go to your local West Marine and take a look at some parts you might use on a tractor, you'll feel great about the prices you're paying for tractor parts. And the same situation exists there, I'll never forget buying heat shrink ring connectors there, it was like 25 bucks for 5 of them. Found the same connectors on Amazon or Ebay for 25 bucks for 100! The markup in local stores can be eye watering, I'd never go to West Marine unless I was in dire need. Also, as I got more and more familiar with my boat, I started to swap in a lot of "non-marine" parts (typically GM) and found them to be identical to the marine versions. There just isn't much/any difference, not to justify the 3-5X increase in price. OK, even if this Mercruiser valve is better than the GM version, I can buy 8 of the GM versions and have 7 spares. Pretty sure I'm gonna come out ahead on that deal.

One of the craziest ones for me, my buddy had a go fast boat that needed a prop. IIRC, the total price rang in close to 10K. Yes, it's a chunk of brass that's been though a CNC machine. But 10K? Come on, you can't tell me that prop lives a harder life than the track on an excavator, or any other heavy equipment part! The price inflation is just insane, I'd be shocked to find that prop costs 1K in materials/machining.

Some of it is making it explosion resistant (thinking starters and alternators) so that your boat doesn't go boom when you turn it on without venting the bilge first, but otherwise, you are correct.

Aaron Z

 

[cabinhollow]

Was at a local parts house this week.
One of their invoices, for a filter, was laying on the counter.
List $115 and their price was $35.

I use alot of steel.
I drive 100 miles round trip to buy all of it.
The place I go to has 15-20 times the stock/selection as what the local suppliers have.
Each trip I also save $300 to $500 on my order.
Ex. a 5' x 10' sheet of 14ga steel, cost 2/3 what a 4' x 8' sheet of 14ga steel, cost local.

 

[Alan W.]

Was at a local parts house this week.
One of their invoices, for a filter, was laying on the counter.
List $115 and their price was $35.

I use alot of steel.
I drive 100 miles round trip to buy all of it.
The place I go to has 15-20 times the stock/selection as what the local suppliers have.
Each trip I also save $300 to $500 on my order.
Ex. a 5' x 10' sheet of 14ga steel, cost 2/3 what a 4' x 8' sheet of 14ga steel, cost local.

cabinhollow where do you go for steel. I had been going to Sanduskys in Columbia. Just curious how the prices compare. Its been a while since I bought any but am thinking of a project to complete over the winter.

 

[oosik]

There use to be an old saying that still makes a lot of sense - - "If you can't afford to feed the horse, put your shoes back on brother".

 

[mred2]

Some marine parts are made a lot better. My BIL put a key switch in a family boat. It worked for awhile, until the moisture got to it. Would start cold, but not hot. It took me a while to find out he put an automobile switch in.
The company that I work for sale Deere heavy equipment. We have out cost from deere and the deere list price and our list price. We will use Deere parts on a Deere machine for warranty. And we will pay their price. We make between 5 to 30 percent and have to pay to stock close to $7M in parts. If you can find the parts cheaper, go for it. Are the parts as good? maybe. Is there a warranty on the part? There is, if we sell it. A hobby farmer can be down waiting for a part. Most companies can not wait.

 

[Industrial Toys]

The kicker is when you convince yourself to buy quality over price and find out that the item you bought was exactly the cheap one you could have bought for a fraction of the price.

 

[cabinhollow]

Just pickup a $1000 of steel there today.
The 5' x 10' 14ga has went up $25 per sheet this year.
Last year I have a customer with a rush job and said " what ever it cost get it done".
At that time I was paying $84 per sheet 5' x 10' 14ga at Sanduskys, local all I could get was 4' x 8' 14ga at $150 per sheet. So, that is $1.60/sqft vs $4.69/sqft.

Now lets talk about markup. I am now paying $2.18/sqft and when it goes out the door, I get $25-$30/sqft.
And with what I do, apples to apples, I can beat China.

 

[Gem99ultra]

Even worse then tractors and cars is appliances!!! Hundred bucks an hour for the guy to show up, and then he has to come back after he figures out what part you need and charge another hundred bucks to install it, plus whatever he decided to charge for the part. I think this is why so many people just buy a new appliance when it stops working. My LG washer had a leak, so I figured out that one of the valves, or whatever it's called was cracked and needed replacing. I put in the part number, Sears came up first with the price being almost $50. I kept looking and found it for under $20 at dozens of other places. It was a quick five minute job to replace it. My parents Samsung dryer stopped working because the counter balance had cracked. It was under warrantee, it took the guy one trip to figure it out, and then two weeks later, to install the new one.

I had exactly the same situation on two appliances. First time I threw away $200 ($100x2 trips) plus another $80 for the parts, for the dryer repair that took 5 minutes to replace the heating element. Next repair was on our $1100 GE washing machine. That repair I did myself in about 20 minutes and saved that worthless service call.

Service calls on appliances are a total waste of money these days. Search on Youtube and you'll likely find a video explaining the 'How-To', and usually its an easy fix.

 

[Gary Fowler]

To the OP's example of a new factory radiator $ compared to a auto level recore $ is surly not comparing apples to apples. Did the OP attempt to find a NEW radiator and what was that price? Would the quality be comparable? Regardless what we are repairing, be it the house, car, tractor, we can normally save money by repairing vs replacing.

I had a leaking radiator on my JD 336 garden tractor. JD wanted to sell me a new one made out of plastic for over $600. I found a radiator repair shop that put in a new solid brass core and used the original brass top and bottom tank. The rebuilt radiator was just like the original and looked like new and was better than a new replacement made out of plastic.

 

[oosik]

Exactly four years ago - after 32 years of use - I had to replace the - wash machine, dryer, hot water heater and refrigerator. Engineered obsolesence. The stove I have will never die - I just replace the heating elements - Jenn Aire.

Long ago, when God was still figuring the formula for DIRT, I had the dish washing machine, in Anchorage, AK, serviced. That taught me all I ever needed to know about having an appliance serviced. It still makes me angry when I remember that incident.

However - I do plan on having to replace these new ones twenty eight years from now - HA.