Are there any cheaper online car parts?

Wig

The UK usually leads the market in online stores in Europe.

All I know of in UK is EuroCarParts(ECP) and GSF but I've never used GSF.

I have been looking at costs of new brake disc and pads for C4 Mk2 post 2013.

local motor factors wanted
£56 - 2 rear discs - Juratec
£60 - 2 rear discs - Apec
£74 - 2 rear discs - Mintex

£18- rear pads - Juratec
£30-rear pads - Apec/Mintex

*I did not get a price for fronts

Citroen want for Genuine (apparently discs are made by TRW)
£100 for 2 rear discs (I'm not a 100% sure it could be double this price)
£62 for rear pads
I did not get price for fronts

GSF (nice website layout, they group the pad and disc sizes into a single window and give the different brands on the right of that window, much easier)
£166 2 rear discs, No brand name supplied, rediculous price
£58 to £96 rear pads no name ridiculous prices
£183 2 front discs No brand and ridiculous price
£50 front pads (no name) to £80 Brembo ridiculous prices
*The website says sale 25% I did not check through checkout if the prices above were included in the sale...It is such an annoying practice, why not just show what the final price is going to be in the listing (like the German site below does). Even with 25% off those prices are crazy.
Total £457 , £343 with 25% off. :rotfl:


ECP ROTFLMAO
£124 2 rear discs
£53 rear pads
£152 2 front discs
£34 pads front

ECP may have inflated their prices at the moment due to having a 45%off sale, so all those prices are currently reduced by 45% (increased to 50% now). (out of interest would this be against trading standards to inflate the price during a sale?) but even with [strike]45%[/strike] 50% off those prices are respectively.
£62 Brembo/Pagid
£26.50 Pagid (ECP's own brand I suspect)
£76 Pagid
£17 Eicher/Pagid
Total £200

Carparts4less - sister company of ECP
same web layout as GSF
£63.80 2 Rear discs Brembo
£29.30 rear pads Pagid
£85.68 2 front discs Pagid
£18.50 front pads
Total incl discount 16% = £200

Then I found misterauto a French company who alegedly has a warehouse in UK. they don't say this on the wesite, I read an article online. They give free delivery on orders over £39 so entirely do-able.
£37 two rear discs TRW
£29 rear pads Brembo
£59 two front discs Bosch !!!
£19 front pads Bolk (their own brand)
Pretty good prices....
Total £144 and overall a much better branded lot than the ECP order

Until I found a German company who has at least 3 different .co.uk websites, the English used on the website told me they were not native and the multiple websites all exactly the same in price but different styles raised alarm bells as to if this co. was legit, I was thinking China scammers, but I have decided they are legit German site. websites buycarparts (BCP), onlinecarparts, autodoc .co.uk All of them yesterday had a discount of 19% and this changed last night to a 15% discount..(EDIT prices below based on 15% sale, they now have a 10% sale, don't know how often they have sales, but it has cycled from 19 to 15 to 10, probably will be 5% on Sunday) and it is a genuine discount unlike ECP. They only do free delivery on over £140, but delivery is less than £9 on below that total.
BCP
Prices are displayed with the 15% discount much easier
£26 2 rear discs Ridex (their own brand? I wonder)
£14.70 rear pads Ridex
£42.50 2 front discs ABS
£17 front pads Ridex
cheap total £100 + £9 delivery

The German site had more options than all the others. better Brands would be:
£40.60 TRW, £45 Brembo, £53.50 Bosch (2 rear discs)
£27 Bosch, £30.50 Brembo (rear pads)
£67 Bosch 2 front discs
£31.20 Bosch, £40 Brembo front pads.
Total £178 full set of Bosch discs and pads free delivery from Germany


Conclusion & **WARNING**
EDIT, I have since writing this post read the reviews for both
"buycarparts, onlinecarparts, autodoc" the German company with 3 websites.
and
misterauto

The reviews for both are very very similar, they both have many unsatisfied customers, complaining of slow delivery, misleading delivery times on the websites, both companies standard reply is that it takes a few days to process an order and when it sent that is when the 24 hour or 48 hour delivery clock starts. Users have said the companies should give a more realistic delivery expectation on the website. I would suggest they should say 1 week.

However many reviews said they still did not receive their orders for weeks.

Some have said they received wrong parts in the right boxes, i.e. ordered Gates and received cheap brand in a gates box.

When I asked the online chat today about delivery, the sales person told me they use parcelforce in the UK and should expect delivery within 2 days, she did not mention about the 2 - 3 days order processing time.

A very common complaint was that when things went wrong Customer Service all of a sudden changes to being very unhelpful, and will put the blame on the customer, and even if the customer is succesful to get them to admit fault, they will still not refund.

So many reviewers have said they will NEVER USE THIS SHOWER AGAIN...

So I am now very wary of ordering from either of them.

On the other hand the prices are really good.

I don't know what I will do yet, I'll check ebay again.

Gloomendoom

have you checked Ebay? Not familiar with C4s but it looks like rear discs are available from less than £15.

Wig

I will try to check ebay, but it is difficult to find the right part just looking at the listings, one way to do it I think is to search for the disc diameter

C4 268mm (rear) 283mm (front)

But that won't get you pads.

System

I'll just throw in that there are a hell of a lot of fake Brembo and Mintex discs and pads floating around so I'd treat ones that you find cheaply with mucho caution. I would go to my local motor factors which is part of a chain so say Andrew Page for example.

Jakg

CarParts4Less is a little cheaper than EuroCarParts on virtually everything. It's basically the same company. Plus there's normally a small (10-15%) discount code.

GSF are actually doing a 60% discount at the minute using code "GSF60".

atrixblue.-MFR-.

https://fpsdistribution.com/ have you tried these.

Wig

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

https://fpsdistribution.com/ have you tried these.

They have a branch in Cardiff, so I will give them a call, and the other motor factors of Cardiff,

Carparts4less - same weblayout as GSF

£63.80 2 Rear discs Brembo
£29.30 rear pads Pagid
£85.68 2 front discs Pagid
£18.50 front pads
Total incl discount 16% = £200

Not good enough

markudman

I use eBay all the time

burtons

Wig wrote: »

Then I found misterauto a French company who has a warehouse in UK.

I used mister auto for the first time on the label it said from mister auto psath, Gate 1 Torrington Avenue, Conventry, CV4 9AP.

DidierAubin87

I usually check some Japanese sites for cheap car parts. The price is very competitive

n217970

markudman wrote: »

I use eBay all the time

I am quite happy to use ebay for most parts but would advise against it for brakes. The pads I bought from there looked like genuine Mintex box included but the performance was terrible, ended up swapping them for some trusted ones a week after. The couple of quid saving is not worth the risk on brakes IMHO.