Car parts pricing

When you have your car fixed at a service/repair station, the replacement parts installed and furnished by a parts warehouse are billed to you with a certain percentage added to cover getting the part and taxes.
What is a customery markup, 10, 20, 30, 50, or 100%?
I had a repair done recently and the cost of the parts (listed in detail on the bill by manufacturer and part number) was more than 3 times the retail cost if I had bought the identical parts myself. Is this normal?

 

I've seen them marked up 300%......Had a buddy back in the 70's who worked at a Ford parts counter...even then it was double their cost.

But you can't buy the parts and ask them to install..most places won't do it or no warranty if they do.

I had an independent place (well, a franchise) tell me my wiper blades didn't pass inspection and wanted $30 for parts and $15 for install. I was born in the morning..but not yesterday morning!
When I said I'd buy 'em and install 'em myself and bring it back for re-inspect..they said..just bring 'em in, we'll put them on for free.

 

are you sure your comparing apple to apples

my mechanic uses only OEM (as do I on my DIY repairs ) and the parts are considerably higher than what the national chain DIY car parts places charge (for non OEM )


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Three times retail would be, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, quite excessive; especially since the garage didn't pay retail for the part, they paid wholesale. That is, as Mango opines, as long as you aren't comparing an OEM retail price with an aftermarket price. Fairly common for a garage to pay wholesale and charge retail. All part of the cost of doing business, like marking up the cost of the tow in.

 

After a couple of years of looking for a good place that was not one of the national interconnected and controlled shops, I found a place about 1/4 mile away.

It is a 3 mechanic shop with electronic scanning information and with 4 bays, but they have too much backlog and are usually late on the completion time. - Honest people!

They will install whatever I buy, which is much less than than dealer with the same parts. Since I have had such good luck with synthetic oil, he does not mind dumping in my oil because it is easier and cheaper than him ordering/getting it. Same thing for name brand shocks - he just gives me instructions on what to buy. He does his work based on his labor time. He will tell when to take it somewhere else.

He is a Corvette(C3) owner/enthusiastic and only gives straight opinions on what is important an sensible and does not like pickey people and "little old ladies".

I can drive in and drop off my car and get a ride home and he will call in the evening (usually 2 or 3 hours after he promised) and will even come to get me if my wife has the other car tied up. For my last oil change, he asked me to get my Mobil 1 and filter and leave it in the back of the car and the total charge was $8.00 - no mark-up.

My 1999 Jimmy has about 135,00 miles on it and has never run better than since he did a 100,000 mile tune/up (plugs, wires, etc.) for half the price of the Goodrich, Goodyear or Bridegstone stores that my wife took her 2000 Blazer to.

Just look around and listen to people to find the right local place to go for normal work (although I would always ask him first since he is honest and knows more than me). Then he may tell me to take it elsewhere.

Dick

 

I would say this guy likes you and is giving you a deal. If he did this for everyone he wouldnt be in business very long.

 

I am worried about his ability to stay in business, but he has been around for a while (a few years) and apparently owns the building and his his employees are are not high-tech people that work a variable schedule as evidenced by the late completion times.

I intentionally did not give his name or location because I did not want to force him into early retirement at his seasonal home.

He is honest and good and people like him exist in many cities.

Dick

 

Know what you mean Concrete. My VW specialist let me bring in a yard transmission for them to install because I found one for $400 less than they did. 63,000 miles later and still runs great. VW has the very annoying habit of not using the same transmission from year to year. They change it just enough so it won't mate to the engine. Makes it a bit harder this way to find the right one.

 

I actually run an automotive shop and most parts are marked up at our shop and most other professionally run shops according to what we call a parts matrix.

I don't have the matrix with me but I'll describe it a bit.

Really cheap parts are on the top end of the matrix.

I believe our first level (it's all computer controlled) is from $.01 to $2.99. those parts are marked up I believe by 4. So a $.29 fuse will cost you $1.16. As the price of the parts go up the Matrix price drops considerably. For instance A $500.00 part (our cost) will be at a 1.1 matrix price or $550.00.

It has about 10 or so price levels in the Matrix and each step the percent of mark up drops. We believe it's the fairest way to price parts and it is usually the industry standard.

The old Dealership 20% off thing is a thing of the past. You can shop most dealerships at the wholesale level and get different prices for the same part from different dealers.