Auto Parts from Mechanics

Eric Patterson

Moderator
Staff member
My son's truck is getting serviced by a local repair shop. When the owner went over the work and parts it needed he gave me a $400 price on one of the needed parts. I searched around and found I could buy the exact same part for $200 (even cheaper if I went with an off brand). So the mechanic is tacking on a 100% fee for supplying the part. I called him back to discuss this and he acted like "duh, of course we charge for parts." I expect to pay them for the service of handling parts but didn't think it was that much so I did some googling to see what standard fees were and turns out 100-300% tack-on for parts is normal. I guess I'm naïve to it because in my line of work any pass through fee over 15% is not allowed by the government. Sure seems excessive. I'd rather pay a higher hourly shop rate than get gouged for parts. I look forward to the day I have the time to do my own maintenance, or better yet, own brand new vehicles all the time.

Rant over.
 
Eric,

I see the same thing with marine parts. I don't have a problem if the store front or repair shop is stocking these parts on their shelf. But when they pick up the phone and call the same outlet I can buy from,,,,,,,,,,,,,, well how much mark up do they need?

I go to the local farm fleet or hardware store where one stainless bolt might cost me 6 dollars. I drive two blocks to Fastenal and buy three bolts, nuts and washers for the same 6 dollars.
 
Just bought a transmission - mechanic arranged for me to buy the unit at his price and have the factory warranty in my name. He'll take care of all logistics and installation.

I like it when the mechanic and shop owner are the same person ... different world.
 
This is why my buddy who is a master mechanic at a major dealership has more side work than he can handle, he does all my repairs.

We are fixing my son's car, I bought all the parts off eBay for 1/2 of what the dealership would have charged and he only charged me $20/hour for labor.
Replaced a front rotor on my F150 last week, parts were $30, labor was $50.
I called a local shop to see what they would have charged: $250 total!
 
I recently added a 3rd car to our fleet to save the miles on my truck and a little better gas mileage. It was my son's car, who now uses mass transit for work, so they downsized to a single vehicle (against my recommendations). It needed some work, that exceeded the KBB of the car if done at a shop. The power of eBay and Youtube, and not "needing" the car each day affords me to save a lot of money on all my vehicles. I can wait for parts to arrive, and can fix it as I can, not when I must. I shop the local parts places and compare to eBay and get the best price. The parts I have gotten of eBay have been very good quality, arrived quickly, and great pricing.
 
I don't get to bent out of shape on small stuff... I am getting a clutch put in the truck this week. My guy has no prob. With me buying the parts and only paying for him to install . Did that with exhaust too.

I used to be a tier I OEM autonotive supplier. I can tell you that we made a hinge that was sold to the OEM for $7.56... if you bought it from the dealer in aftermarket... It was $76!
 
Eric Patterson said:
My son's truck is getting serviced by a local repair shop. When the owner went over the work and parts it needed he gave me a $400 price on one of the needed parts. I searched around and found I could buy the exact same part for $200 (even cheaper if I went with an off brand). So the mechanic is tacking on a 100% fee for supplying the part. I called him back to discuss this and he acted like "duh, of course we charge for parts." I expect to pay them for the service of handling parts but didn't think it was that much so I did some googling to see what standard fees were and turns out 100-300% tack-on for parts is normal. I guess I'm naïve to it because in my line of work any pass through fee over 15% is not allowed by the government. Sure seems excessive. I'd rather pay a higher hourly shop rate than get gouged for parts. I look forward to the day I have the time to do my own maintenance, or better yet, own brand new vehicles all the time.

Rant over.

For a lot of auto dealerships, service and used car sales are a large portion of their annual profit, well over fifty-percent.
 
Carl said:
This is why my buddy who is a master mechanic at a major dealership has more side work than he can handle, he does all my repairs.

We are fixing my son's car, I bought all the parts off eBay for 1/2 of what the dealership would have charged and he only charged me $20/hour for labor.
Replaced a front rotor on my F150 last week, parts were $30, labor was $50.
I called a local shop to see what they would have charged: $250 total!

I had the four disc brakes done on a Tundra for $435 via your route with OEM Toyota parts. A couple that I hunt waterfowl with occasionally had theirs in for brakes at 43,000 miles? Their cost, via the dealer was $750..., when Sue told me, I suggested she call Silas. He now has three mechanics working for or with him on three bays. They rent the work bays and one of the lifts from the muffler shop owner and run things like a co-op.
 
Typical mark up should be 40 percent from what I've seen. You need to have a auto tech next door to your shop that you give a hand now and then that charges parts at cost and reasonable labor. I'm lucky to have that.
Tom
 
I hear you. I have a decent mechanical shop I trust as the guy who owns it went to high school with me. He told me when I wanted to bring in parts that it was perfectly OK to do so but, it they end d up being able be wrong parts and they needed to put the vehicle back together to move it, I would be charges for the labor to do so. Gave up on that idea real quick.

I do have a new found guy who can fix any jetski/jet boat. Very reasonable and a good guy to boot. He just saved me half the cost to replace a wear ring on the jetski.

I am with you on the time/money continuum. I used to love fixing my vehicles when I was younger. I had no money and I had lots of time. It was my way to relax. Now I have very little time -and a little more money but have others do this kind of work. I don’t think that when I retire I’ll be so keen to work on my vehicles. Back to the time/money continuum but this time I have the time and should be able to afford it but I want to spend my time on something other than fixing my vehicles. Funny how all this works.
 
I get my parts from Rockauto.com. I like that they give you a choice on quality and price. They have never sent me the wrong parts. Just had to have my steering box changed out on my 96 F250. I bought a compressor years ago and do all my brake work on 5 cars. I try to get all the all the work done before fall. Winter is no time to work on a car
 
100% mark up on a $200 part is a little ridiculous. It's not uncommon on the smaller parts, say under $50, but anything over that the percentage of mark up should slide down as the price goes up. Back in my wrenching days a $200 part would have been marked up to around $260. But that was many moons ago so things have changed.

If you want to talk price gouging, I can buy a 30lb jug of R134A for about $4 a pound. I called a shop in town just out of curiousity to see what they get for a simple blow and go. $25 a pound for refrigerant plus $75 labor. I charge $6 a pound and $40 labor and still make good money fixing air conditoners.
 
Hello Eric,

If memory serves when I buy parts from Advanced Auto there is a wholesale price and retail price on the screen at the check out computer. Of course, the retail price is higher. As a customer I always pay the wholesale price. I "think" the retail price is used as a guide to aid purchasers in charging the mark-up from wholesale. My "guess" is that most persons who purchase parts like water pumps, master cylinders, rotors, etc. are mechanics working on customer's cars. As to the mark up, I think a 25% mark up might be in order -again if memory serves from seeing the differences between wholesale and retail prices.

Now as to price for a job. I took my old Honda civic to the auto shop where my brother works and another mechanic worked on my car. It was suggested that I change the rotor, cap, spark-plug wires, and spark plugs. I was feeling charitable and said to go ahead with the job -even though I have changed all those parts on that very car several times in its past. Those parts would have cost me roughly $86 dollars and an hour or two of my time -I am slow. The bill, for that part of the job (there were other more complicated things that needed doing -such as replacing the torn control arm bushings) was roughly $350. I could not believe it. Never again. (My brother would have just told me that it was a good idea to replace those parts and leave me to get around to it latter at home.)

So it is easy for shops to get carried away on the charges even if a family member like mine works at the shop and some other guy winds up doing the work. As we all know the prices are set by the owner who charges what he think the market will bear. I guess the owner thinks most people where I live are too mechanically disinclined to learn some of the more simple aspects of light mechanics so he socks it to them. bummer.
 
That does seem a bit excessive. I work in collision repair (primarily insurance work) and we see 20-33% discount off of list price on collision parts and up to 60% on mechanical parts. Collison and oem parts are typically sold at "list" cost meaning that you will pay the same whether you buy them from a dealer or shop. Often higher cost = lower markup %. Mechanical parts are priced a bit differently since most are not sourced as oem parts.

Everyone has to make a living and make business decisions along the way. Obviously he's counting on most people not doing their due diligence. My mechanic gives me a discount on parts because he knows I could source them myself but choose to let him do so as a convenience to both of us.
 

Prior to my moving here, I told my future wife that three things were absolutely essential before I pack up and move.

1) Very good doctors

2) Good Spring Water

3) A Good & Honest Auto/SUV Mechanic


She directed me to the first two of my requests, and so far so good.

The third request I had to find on my own, and yes as the "new guy in town" I took a few beatings and shelled out $$$$ not well spent.


Thank goodness number three has been fulfilled. Folks deserve to make a honest, decent wage living, and most of us know when that is not the case.

So ya a good mechanic is a request come true.

As I was taught - "Good is not cheap and cheap is not good."
 
I was in Lowes looking for stainless steel screws to re attach my shutters. Saw a vendor there working and asked him. He said how many do you need? It would have cost me over $60. He said go to gave me the address. I spent less than $10. Home builders also take a big mark up on materials.
Ken
 
I buy most of my parts from RockAuto.com and provide to shops when I have something I don't want to replace/part swap myself. There is always a 5% discount code out there and I can get OE (Delphi, AC Delco, Denso, Bosch, etc.) parts for cheaper than the local mechanics can because I'm willing to wait 2-3 days for shipping. I have literally saved 1000s of dollars over the past 10 yrs doing this and have better quality parts than the Oreilly, NAPA, Advanced, parts that most shops will install if you don't specify OE... or they will overcharge you for that same OE part. With all that said, I use a cpl of shops in Scottsboro with this method and they are quality mechanics and they don't charge the fee you mentioned. I wrote off auto work in the huntsville Madison area years ago when I would call around for work and get quotes in 1K consistently but drive 40mi and have same work performed for $500-600.
 
Kyle, I may want to get some contact info from you for your Scottsboro mechanic. This summer has been a killer for me for auto repairs. So far I've dumped close to 10k on auto repairs with a good portion of that fixing up Jeff's Toyota pickup. It irritates me when I have work done on that truck because it takes mechanics FOREVER to make repairs. They view it as a "project" vehicle and only work on between daily driver jobs. It makes me angry when my vehicle perpetually is the last in line yet I do not get a lower shop rate. If my vehicle is a lower priority to them then I should get a discounted rate, or get fixed as fast as the other vehicles if I'm paying the same. I hope I am about through with the needed repairs and will be moving on to the body work and interior work. I am doing a lot of that myself and the body shop I use is first-come-first-serve so I won't get treated like a second class citizen.

Appreciate everyone's input. Lots of interesting viewpoints and situations.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top