What's the typical garage mark-up for parts?

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

(Warning: slightly boring introduction. Skip to last paragraph if bored)

Took my car to the local shite-friendly garage. "Chuck these new spark plugs in, and investigate the occasionally rough idle".

They say it's ok (and even refuse to charge me for the plug change), until I get into it and it stalls when I try to reverse. They check bits and pieces again, find a fault with the throttle position sensor. I check ebay prices on the mobile, it's around 40 quid. "Ring me with a price tomorrow, if it's in the same ballpark we'll get it done as soon as they can get it".

 

Today I get a call from the garage "the part's £67+VAT, we'll charge you another £20 for fitting etc, and we can't get it until Monday".

A call to the local Unipart branch later, I had reserved a TPS for £27 including VAT. Picked it up after a few minutes.

 

Evidently, the two chaps running the garage are quite honest and aren't out to rip me off. They have no problem working with customer-supplied parts, even on small jobs (viz. spark plugs). And they knew that I am not going to pay £80+ for something which I can get for £40.

 

So, what's the opinion of those who work/have worked in the trade? Do they have a fixed 250% margin from which they will never budge, does their supplier charge them £65 (or even £80) for a £27 part (they mostly get bits through Euro Crap Prats and a large local factor), or is there something 'hidden' (delivery charges, credit terms) which inflates the price of the bits?

[Ben_L]

I know my mechanic always gives me the parts at the price they cost him. But on the invoice, it says something like;

 

OSF CV Joint - Vx Cav 1.6 Man - RRP; £200 - Trade; £17.50

 

So, on the invoice, they give one price which is the cost to the garage, then another which is the cost to the consumer.

 

I had a garage try and charge me £500 for doing ONE Driveshaft in Cambridge (Little back street one in Great Shelford - Vauxhall did it for £110!!! - Was only a CV joint issue!)

[michael1703]

Depends who they use as a supplier, my supplier is a bit tied to who they get the bits from, for driveline parts it will be FIRSTLINE whereas I'd prefer QUINTON HAZELL (klarius)

 

Other supplier I use will only sell LUK clutches and nobody elses etc

 

I can often see things on ebay cheaper than what i can get them at trade but when I've got a car stuck on my ramp I'd just pay whatever it costs to get the part delivered to me ASAP so i can get the car gone and free up the ramp

 

I can get 3 deliverys a day from local motor factor/euro car parts/gsf/tps etc and one item will be cheaper from one place than the other and vice versa

 

Gone of Euro car parts a bit as they are a bit "Argos"

[Rod/b]

Most likely that that is what their supplier charges for that part, plus a few quid. At the end of the day garages work with one or two suppliers, chosen because they are competitively priced, reliable and who deliver quickly to the garage. They won't be checking eBay or all over the net for the cheapest price for each and every part they use.

 

And lest we forget they're in business to make a living.

[whitevanman]

Personally I usually charge at cost..........but for non regulars its +10% which I think is OK as I have my fuel and time to collect etc, I do have a supplier that delivers but they are not always the cheapest.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Most likely that that is what their supplier charges for that part, plus a few quid. At the end of the day garages work with one or two suppliers, chosen because they are competitively priced, reliable and who deliver quickly to the garage. They won't be checking eBay or all over the net for the cheapest price for each and every part they use.

 

That makes sense. I guess if I rang Ford, they'd probably want £148 for the same part, and perhaps Unipart would be more expensive than Euro for a pair of shocks or something else.

 

And lest we forget they're in business to make a living.

 

True that...But it works both ways- pricing yourself out of a job generally isn't conducive to profit maximisation.

[Danblez]

My mechanic is as honest as they come and is always amazed and the prices I get parts for as I have the time to shop around. As others have said they pay for speedy service and convenience if they send a wrong part etc. He hasn't got time to be messed around or have the wrong part delIvered from eBay.

[dollywobbler]

Mechanics are all bastards who rip everyone off. That's why they all drive around in gold plated Rolls-Royces. Someone should start a petition.

[Albert Ross]

Mechanics are all bastards who rip everyone off. That's why they all drive around in gold plated Rolls-Royces. Someone should start a petition.

 

 

Fuck off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DSdriver]

When I was at college (back in the days when you could still buy a Renault 16 new) my college tutor bought one and then decided to find out how much all the parts that made it would cost if bought as spares. It worked out at almost exactly double but he might have missed a few bits.

[AeroNautiCal]

^^^ I seem to remember a bike magazine doing this with a Honda CB250N Super Dream, and it worked out about five times the cost of buying the bike whole, without the charge of assembly!

[Tayne]

Albert Ross, nipping out for a pint and a paper this morning.

 

[worldofceri]

I wouldn't have thought Albert would be the sort to be drinking before lunchtime.

 

Or did you mean a pint of milk? He's always struck me as the sort who'd get his milk delivered by this bloke:

[Des]

The punter can always instruct his mechanic to sit down and ring every supplier in the area, trawl the internet, ceefax, consult a ouija board, read tea leaves, visit a Medium and phone a friend before standing upon the roof of his gilded Rolls with a telescope and spotlamp searching into the horizon in order to find the lowest possible price for parts.

Obviously at the mechanics hourly rate, see how that works out for you.

[Pillock]

I'd rather have a car back quickly and pay a bit of a premium than have it sat in the yard for a week trying to save a tenner on a spring or something. And that's without them actually charging more for the ringing around which I suspect they'd manage somewhere, even if it's just rounding up labour etc.

[Rod/b]

Did you ask your mechanic whether he'd tried hammering a smaller price over it?

[crapcarcollector]

You've got to think about quality too. My local will only use certain clutches, rotating electrics etc, simply because they don't want to (and have experience of) doing stuff twice, because the parts were shite.

The bay can be great for the the hobbiest or shitest, but for a professional doing a job, they need quality, delivered ASAP by a known quantity.

 

Then they add %, because you know what, they are a business providing a service.

[cobblers]

Prices for what is essentially the same part can vary massively, even at the same supplier. GSF do 3 "identical" coilpacks for a ford ka - all the same fitment, just different quality and they range from £12 to £60. Ford RRP is £150.

 

A mechanic will generally just have a couple of trusted suppliers that he'll ring, and they will bring the parts. If they are a busy garage, they don't really have the time or inclination to phone round 4 or 5 places to get the best price on a part. They stick with a supplier they know sells reasonable quality stuff and brings them free mugs and an occasional crate of beer at chrimbo.

 

I've got a few mates who are self employed mechanics and they will generally just round the parts price up to the next 10/50/100, more as an effort to pay for the consumables on the job like brake cleaner, latex gloves, copper grease, etc etc than to try and make extra cash.

 

One exception is parts they change loads of and hold a bit of a stock of, eg one lad changes a lot of DMFs and clutches in VWs which cost about £450 a go normally or something. If he buys ten kits he can get a pretty good discount on them, but he still charges the customer £450 for the part. I can't really fault him for that, he's got 3 large invested in a pile of clutches.

[Pete-M]

Garage I do a lot of work with buys the majority of its parts from a couple of local motor factors. They get bloody good discount (as you would spending a couple of grand a week) and don't mark things up excessively.

 

The only time that things get expensive there is when people go in and are obviously being tighter than tight. "You told me £50 for this part, I can get it on eBay Kuala Lumpur for £37 (plus shipping), but I'm afraid it'll take three weeks to arrive. I've ordered it, so if you can send back the £50 bit and just leave my car in bits on the ramp for the best part of a month without charging me storage and lend me a loan car that would be great".

 

This whole "all garages are cowboys" mentality really truly fucks me off.

 

I was talking to a garage owning friend about this earlier this week. He has a small garage which is always very busy indeed. He's not expensive, the work is top notch and he's not out to rip anyone off. He's had the garage for about four years, works very hard indeed and is often there from 8am until 9pm. He has all the top notch diagnostic and repair equipment and only has one other person working in his garage. He simply doesn't have time to spend an hour looking around for every part needed, he rings a couple of motor factors and occasionally the main agent to get prices on most things over about £40. He doesn't put a huge mark-up on parts, just enough to justify things to the tax man, and his labour rates aren't excessive. It's a proper garage, the kind most people have trouble finding. Yet people turn up at his place with a boot full of service parts they've bought themselves (often for more than he'd charge you for 'em) so they can 'save' a couple of quid.

 

This drives him mad. "They get the wrong bits more often than not, and because they've bought their own stuff I can't ring the motor factors and just swap them. I have to ring the customer, tell them the bits are the wrong ones and either order the correct bits from the places I use or bring the car back a week or so later to fit the bits once they've managed to exchange them with wherever they've got 'em from. This wastes loads of my time and stops me from getting jobs done because I have to book cars in for 10 minute jobs all over the place. If they'd just let me get the bits I could do everything in one nice easy go, but no, they think they're saving money. Easier to just charge double for labour and fuck 'em for being cheeky."

[crapcarcollector]

Sounds like my local.

 

They have had a 59 plate Mondeo Diesel on a lift for 4 weeks whilst the customer looks for a replacement engine....

 

In the end the customer gave up after being unable to source one for less than the one originally quoted for.

 

There not all out to get you...

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Pete (and others), while I broadly agree with your sentiment, Unipart were cheaper than the ebay vendors (and about 70% cheaper than the factors used by the garage) AND had the part in stock (as opposed to the other factors needing 3 days to bring it in).

 

There must be a business opportunity in creating some software that aggregates local factors' stock and pricing details for a given part (assuming the factors have stock control systems and are happy to share the details).

[rml2345]

I tend to use the same garage all the time and his price for parts doesn't seem excessive to me. Probably could get it cheaper from Pyongyang EBay but then you haven't really got any comeback if it blows up a week later either.

Also, they are a decent bunch of lads and willing to tell you what needs doing too.

[michael1703]

Tyres is another one.

 

I use FEDERAL on rover p4's p5's and a few other things, but all my local tyre depots cant get them, I can go on to roundandblack and get them for £40odd a piece

 

The reason that my local tyre places cant get them is they all buy their tyres in from a regional tyre place, all the places I've tried from Ipswich to Diss are supplied by a place in colchester that don't stock federal

[Bren]

TBH I pity the proprietors of small garages at the mo - there seem to be an increasing number of people that think the motor trade is some kind of charitable organisation where you can provide your own parts, pay weekly etc....

 

I must add I am not in the trade. My sister recently had her car fail the MOT (what I will say was the failure was dubious AND expensive), it was taken from the garage so my father could do the repairs.

 

Dad was not happy about having to pay a partial fee for the re - test. I explained that even a ten minute inspection was time on the ramp and had to be paid for.

 

The garage had recently changed hands, father used to take his car there also, but said not any more. When the old parts were shown to the guy in the factor (also a mech), even he said there was nothing wrong with them.

 

Like was stated in an earlier, not everyone is out to get you....

[oldford]

Cheapest isn't always best, especially when the garage will have to give a warranty on the repair. We've had problems in the past in trying to save the customer some money, a pattern cat for a Fabia 1.4 where it would throw an engine light every couple of weeks with an efficiency fault, a cat for a Peugeot 106 that produced worse emissions results than the knackered original, alternators from Unipart where we had to get three of them before we got one that worked, ABS sensors from GSF that would fail after a few months. For VW group stuff, I'd go genuine all the time, buying through TPS, prices are good plus their parts have a two year warranty.

 

In my experience mark up on your own franchise parts is from 12.5% to 40%, the 40% being on service consumables, if buying genuine from another franchise trade discount is usually 10%. On factors parts, often the invoice doesn't show a retail price, other times they'll show a retail price that is quite high. Bulk oils used during service, 100% mark up is not uncommon, if the customer wants oil at near enough cost price then they can buy a 200 litre barrel themselves.

 

There is some truth in the saying 'Buy cheap, buy twice'.

[blackburied]

I use a chap who doesn't mind me bringing my own parts, new or second-hand. Then again I have used him for ALL the work done on my cars, and push quite a bit of work his way.

[fordperv]

I completely agree with the saying, buy cheap buy twice, I work in a parts suppliers and speak to the general public day in day out and a lot of them dont understand that you have to pay for quality, I have often been met with "bloody hell its cheaper on ebay" I often reply yeah it may be but this one definately is right and you can have it now

[alf892]

For a few of my (PJ) customers I actually used to welcome them bringing their own parts, on the understanding they were fitted at their risk, as it stopped them questioning how I priced mine. Most expected to get the bits at what i paid........and would look askance at any uplift

 

As for discount it varies as to what part and stock. I typically used to buy unipart because qualitry is good and well priced and could expect a genuine 50% discount. On the other hand if something was out of stock and ordered as 'VoR' then usually max discount was 10%. Exhausts were always -60%

 

I do very little in the way of PJs now but use a small local factor where i have known the boss for years but don't really know the counter guys. The boss told me to make sure the invoice has a 3 on the account code as this automatcally gives 'proper' trade pricing on their system.

 

I simply don't trust the majority of parts on ebay. You get what you pay for and the idea of fitting cheap steering/suspension/brake parts just seems fucking silly................and cheap engine parts similar. I think the key to economical parts sourcing is to find the manufacturer or trusted brand name and buy close to them.

 

Depending on the initial cost of a part I would expect to pay 50% more via the repairer..............and think thats fair enough.