Are there any cheaper online car parts?

stator

Where do local garages get their parts? Are they paying the inflated GSF / ECP prices and passing on the costs to us, or do they have a separate trade pricing that is more reasonable? Do garages bother shopping around, or do they just go with the same supplier every time, no matter the price because they are passing on the cost to the owner?

Jakg

stator wrote: »

Where do local garages get their parts? Are they paying the inflated GSF / ECP prices and passing on the costs to us, or do they have a separate trade pricing that is more reasonable? Do garages bother shopping around, or do they just go with the same supplier every time, no matter the price because they are passing on the cost to the owner?

Garages will be getting trade prices, but from what I've seen it's quite common for them to be beaten by ECP with a discount code. But to be fair - it's a different market. You need a part. You need it today. And you need it delivered.

Wig

stator wrote: »

Where do local garages get their parts? Are they paying the inflated GSF / ECP prices and passing on the costs to us, or do they have a separate trade pricing that is more reasonable? Do garages bother shopping around, or do they just go with the same supplier every time, no matter the price because they are passing on the cost to the owner?

Depending on their size:
a small local independent garage will use a local motor factor some may even use ECP, but in my experience they will use one or 2 or 3 local independent motor factors, who will supply them with a discount. The garage will then charge you the retail price from the local factors, i.e. they will increase the parts price by the same amount as their discount.

You see my OP the first type of price I got is a local motor factors, this is the one a local garage would use.

A large independant garage with a shop floor the size of a Kwik Fit, would order directly from local wholesalers...the same place the local motor factors would order from, so they have enough buying power to cut out the middle man.

If I was to use a garage, I would use a small independent local. the garages I used to use would expect me to buy my own parts and bring them with me, but equally if I didn't they would just get them delivered from the local factors.

Wig

If you have already read this thread, I have updated the OP with some news on customer service from the cheap sites.

The reviews are so bad and expected delivery could be so slow, that I will probably now be going to my local factors, at least there, I know if I have a problem, they are only a 15 minute drive away and they will sort it quickly for me.

For the rear pad/discs, I am looking at paying about £23 more than misterauto

Also the current special offer from misterauto 8% off £80
You either have 8% off and pay for postage £5
or
You have free postage and don't get 8% off.

attila_

Well I have used Auto doc, onlinecarparts, best parts store and to date have foud them to be very good. All my deliveries have arrived and one delivery which I no longer needed I was able to post back free of charge as I paid for safeorder (a couple of quid).

Those who complained online seemed that they were caught out the company is german (its on their website) and the deliveries will inevitably take a little longer.

Quality of parts is good though if u go for the cheapest unbranded option expect a cheaper quality. I use these (calipers, discs etc) and they are fine.

Personally i use this over ECP or CP4less, adter using them for years I have now moved.

Wig

attila_ wrote: »

Well I have used Auto doc, onlinecarparts, best parts store and to date have foud them to be very good. All my deliveries have arrived and one delivery which I no longer needed I was able to post back free of charge as I paid for safeorder (a couple of quid).

Those who complained online seemed that they were caught out the company is german (its on their website) and the deliveries will inevitably take a little longer.

Quality of parts is good though if u go for the cheapest unbranded option expect a cheaper quality. I use these (calipers, discs etc) and they are fine.

Personally i use this over ECP or CP4less, adter using them for years I have now moved.

I am torn between using one of them for the first time, maybe misterauto as they might ship from within the UK, or just taking the many advices to avoid like the plague.

It seems they fall down on customer service. They won't believe their customers when things go wrong, things like missing parts in orders, or they send two right sides instead of 1 left and 1 right.

If they got the service right they would not get so many bad reviews. I did notice however that mister auto bad reviews were generally from more than a year ago, they only had 1 complaint in the last 6 months, but the German one has had 10 in the last 6 months. And 4 in April 2018.

A lot of complaints are about long delivery and wrong parts. Both companies are misleading about delivery times if they just changed it to say "delivery expected to be within 8 days from date of order" that would at least be more truthful. They still take longer than this though, and don't communicate why. Another thing they could do is increase the fonts size on the checkout page of the EXPECTED DELIVERY DATE. it is there on misterauto's page but it could easily be missed.

The wrong parts complaints can be down to customers choosing the wrong ones, A customer doing own repairs ought to be intelligent enough to order the right parts. Unfortunatly the complaints don't go into detail as to how the wrong part was delivered, was it the right part description but the different part delivered, or was it correctly described but didn't fit the vehicle?

When I was searching misterauto I noticed they had a brake disc listed that was completely wrong for my car, my car has 5 bolt holes, they list the 5 bolt hole ones but also one with 4 bolt holes.


How long did your orders take to deliver?
Did you order brand name parts?
Did you check they were genuine not fake?


And I found another one in Germany, free delivery over £120.
https://www.autopartspro.co.uk
They suffer from the same poor reviews poor service and bad practice of deliberately replacing branded with unbranded items without your permission and refusing refunds.

Even the replies from all these companies on the review websites, show that they do not fix the customers problem.

redux

Wig wrote: »

A lot of complaints are about long delivery and wrong parts. Both companies are misleading about delivery times if they just changed it to say "delivery expected to be within 8 days from date of order" that would at least be more truthful. They still take longer than this though, and don't apparently communicate why.

The wrong parts complaints can be down to customers choosing the wrong ones, A customer doing own repairs ought to be intelligent enough to order the right parts. Unfortunatly the complaints don't go into detail as to how the wrong part was delivered, was it the right part description but the different part delivered, or was it correctly described but didn't fit the vehicle?

When I was searching misterauto I noticed they had a brake disc listed that was completely wrong for my car, my car has 5 bolt holes, they list the 5 bolt hole ones but also one with 4 bolt holes.

I recently had a Citroen specialist do some work on my Xantia.

It took 4 attempts for them to obtain the correct version of a certain part.

When he phoned and told me about the first occurrence, I correctly guessed which supplier, and said they'd given me the wrong brake discs a few years ago. The third part was coming from a warehouse 70 miles away, and that turned out to be wrong too.

Wig

redux wrote: »

I recently had a Citroen specialist do some work on my Xantia.

It took 4 attempts for them to obtain the correct version of a certain part.

When he phoned and told me about the first occurrence, I correctly guessed which supplier, and said they'd given me the wrong brake discs a few years ago. The third part was coming from a warehouse 70 miles away, and that turned out to be wrong too.

Which suppliers were they / you using? was it local or online misterauto? People should know their cars, measure the discs, before ordering, like I know my fronts are 283mm and the rears are 268mm then it should just a matter of saying, "and the pads to fit those discs".

It's easy to be given the wrong ones if you don't know yourself what you need.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Wig wrote: »

Which suppliers were they / you using? was it local or online misterauto? People should know their cars, measure the discs, before ordering, like I know my fronts are 283mm and the rears are 268mm then it should just a matter of saying, "and the pads to fit those discs".

It's easy to be given the wrong ones if you don't know yourself what you need.

Don't be so sure about that Theres vehicles out there with certain sized discs with 2-4 different type of pads because of the type of caliper they had available at time of manufacturing, depending on the type of system the motorfactor is running usually it wont state what pad goes with what disc size only make of caliper bosch or lucas or brembo etc so a motor factor will usually send/sell the most commonly used for that year according to the manufacturing dates. its best if your going into a motor factors shop and doing a DIY brake disc and pad change is to take both disc and pads with you so they can match the pad with theyre pictures in the books to give you the correct ones. Made my life easy in a motor factors when people did this.

Saeed

Wig wrote: »

I am torn between using one of them for the first time, maybe misterauto as they might ship from within the UK, or just taking the many advices to avoid like the plague.

It seems they fall down on customer service. They won't believe their customers when things go wrong, things like missing parts in orders, or they send two right sides instead of 1 left and 1 right.

If they got the service right they would not get so many bad reviews. I did notice however that mister auto bad reviews were generally from more than a year ago, they only had 1 complaint in the last 6 months, but the German one has had 10 in the last 6 months. And 4 in April 2018.

A lot of complaints are about long delivery and wrong parts. Both companies are misleading about delivery times if they just changed it to say "delivery expected to be within 8 days from date of order" that would at least be more truthful. They still take longer than this though, and don't communicate why. Another thing they could do is increase the fonts size on the checkout page of the EXPECTED DELIVERY DATE. it is there on misterauto's page but it could easily be missed.

The wrong parts complaints can be down to customers choosing the wrong ones, A customer doing own repairs ought to be intelligent enough to order the right parts. Unfortunatly the complaints don't go into detail as to how the wrong part was delivered, was it the right part description but the different part delivered, or was it correctly described but didn't fit the vehicle?

When I was searching misterauto I noticed they had a brake disc listed that was completely wrong for my car, my car has 5 bolt holes, they list the 5 bolt hole ones but also one with 4 bolt holes.


How long did your orders take to deliver?
Did you order brand name parts?
Did you check they were genuine not fake?


And I found another one in Germany, free delivery over £120.
https://www.autopartspro.co.uk
They suffer from the same poor reviews poor service and bad practice of deliberately replacing branded with unbranded items without your permission and refusing refunds.

Even the replies from all these companies on the review websites, show that they do not fix the customers problem.

Businesses are going to get their share of complaints no matter what they do, especially over delivery which is out of their hands.

I have purchased brakes pads from Mister Auto and because I knew exactly which brake pads I needed, I ordered the right ones and got the right ones. Delivery was fine. Their website will list wrong components for your car as the manufacturer may have changed suppliers mid-production or people may have imported cars, for example I can see the wrong brake discs listed when I put in my car reg are for the Japanese model of my car which some people have imported into Britain. As long as you know your car you shouldn't have any problems with the likes of MisterAuto.

EuroCarParts have been alleged to sell fake Pagid brakes, I would not even entertain buying from ebay for safety critical components like this, in this case if money is that tight, I'd go for some of the cheapest Eicher brakes from EuroCarParts. Atleast they are a British brick and mortar store and WILL HAVE to take some responsibility if things go wrong.