You're absolute right Dan. I buy most of my stuff from the dealer as well and have worked out good pricing. Some things are just not reasonable, so I buy from Gary. He and I speak fairly often about quality of parts and he puts real effort into finding out who is really the current OEM to Mercedes for a given parts. For many things, its very difficult to figure this out. At least, we try to find out where something is made.
For example, for W126 control arms it recently changed from TRW to another supplier. The list price also went up very significantly. TRW is/was available in the aftermarket and they were identical to MB genuine. But now, who knows. Jaime On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Dan Penoff <d...@penoff.com> wrote: > Jaime, > > You might be interested in a casual non-scientific survey of Internet > parts vendors I made a week ago. it was rather distressing to find that > many suppliers offer substandard parts made offshore, the URO brand being > one of the most prevalent suppliers. > > If you do some comparisons between suppliers you can easily pick these > out, as they are almost always a substantial amount less than other > suppliers. > > This is why it is critical to have a trusted and knowledgeable supplier > such as a Rusty or Jabba who knows the difference and can filter this > information. > > Based on some of the phone calls I made, one example being Autohausaz, the > person on the phone either could not make a distinction or failed to offer > an alternative to the cheap parts. In fact, one supplier I called who will > remain nameless argued with me as to why I would want to "waste my money" > on a higher priced part from a different supplier. The concept of quality > versus price was nonexistent to them, or so it seemed. > > My little experiment last week made me realize that many of the online > parts suppliers are selling on one thing and one thing only: price. > > Sadly, that's not their fault, but the fault of the consumer. > > It's also why I went back to my local dealer and was able to work out a > discount that is fair and equitable to both of us. I'll still buy parts > from Trent as long as he does well, but if the difference in price is > marginal, or I want the part tomorrow, I'll go to my dealer. > > Dan > > On Mar 19, 2013, at 10:46 AM, Jaime Kopchinski <jaime...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > The biggest issue I see with them is that many of their parts of low > > quality. For example, looking at suspension parts for a W123, I see lots > > of parts that are only available in the "Uro" brand. These should be > > avoided at all costs, the parts only last for a short time. Buyer > beware. > > > > They do seem to have good prices on genuine Bosch stuff, which is a > > positive point. > > > > Jaime > > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > -- Jaime Kopchinski http://www.jaimekop.com/ _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
