Inferior Replacement Parts

I am not sure what to blame this on but lately we are seeing an invasion of what I call inferior replacement parts that have been installed at other repair facilities or possibly by the car owners themselves. These parts then fail or cause a problem to the cars which is what brings them to our shop for diagnosis. I have known and I am sure a lot of you know that there is quite a variety of replacement parts manufactured for motor vehicles worldwide to replace the original parts that have been taken off your car for whatever reason. The biggest determining factor here is generally price, and as the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for”. This applies to these parts.

One of the biggest culprits is replacement brake parts, since we do a lot of brake work in our shop. My primary concern is to get the best possible quality brake parts into our customer’s cars at the most competitive price, all while preventing them from returning with complaints about brake noise or other. It proves to be very competitive as we have lost brake services we estimated because “the shop down the street will do it cheaper” and those are some of the cars that end up back here having the job done correctly. I often ask why don’t you go back to the installer and complain? Quite often the answer is “I already have but the noise is still there” or “I just do not want to go back there”. Bottom line is if you are shopping for the best possible price then truly compare apples to apples before making your final decision.