Maintenance Items: OEM or Aftermarket?

[Mike]

i think you'd be wrong on that one.

(that just felt so derek-esque and i love it)

[.RJ]

i think you'd be wrong on that one.

Its not like I grew up hanging around dealerships with my dad or anything :roll:

[Mike]

good answer.

(i'm derek today)

[white_2kgt]

i think you'd be wrong on that one.

(that just felt so derek-esque and i love it)

Then you are showing ignorance. Maybe the mickey mouse dealers you goto. I PERSONALLY know many Ford auto techs and they are in NO way out to 'screw' anyone. Sometimes they are the ones getting screwed due to the way book rates work out. All depends on the jobs they get for the day. Yes, dealer prices are high, but they have the equipment to get the job done right.

[Mike]

showing ignorance? joking around by posting like derek? no way!

[white_2kgt]

showing ignorance? joking around by posting like derek? no way!

Thou shalt not imitate the Derek or the Ferst.

[HAULN-SS]

the Derek...that has a nice ring to it

[ScottyB]

i stick with OEM whenever i can, unless i can find valid evidence that the OEM component has a serious weakness that an aftermarket unit has rectified (like a clutch for example)

[HAULN-SS]

I usually just do a ton of research on any part that's more than 200$. Some things you can't go wrong with OEM. For example, the vortech headers I put on my SS were 500$ for both of them, and have good flow numbers, compared to paying that much for EACH for aftermarket heads.

For water pumps, fuel pumps, etc..just be prepared to take it back to AAP or wherever, but you're probably getting a rebuilt OEM core anyway, and its easy to take back for a repair..if you're doing it yourself you're just out your time for the swap.

[.RJ]

and its easy to take back for a repair..if you're doing it yourself you're just out your time for the swap.

You may only be out your time for the part, but if the part craps out in the middle of the track event, you've just spent a lot of time/hassle/$$ to end up sitting on your ass all weekend.

OEM honda for me... always. Been burned too many times in the past on aftermarket junk. And every time it happens, my dad says "i told you so".

[NTIman]

Too bad I literally know that sometimes I deliver belts all the time to the dealers to put on cars.....sooo...your car might have an AAP belt wether you got it done at the dealer or not. I see this everyday as I am the one delivering those parts to the dealers. They try to use their own belts to save money (buying in bulk) but when they dont have one all they do is call us. All the regular shops? Yep those are our belts, our olympus, or NAPA.

Your not picking up many expensive things, so you wont be killed by the dealer so its basically your peace of mind. Choose what makes you sleep comfortable at night.

Yeah, when we don't have a certain belt in stock and need one we get them from NAPA or Federal. I was just pointing out the fact that the belts we get from those places haven't been the same quality, and if given the choice, I'd rock the OEM.

There are a lot of dealerships that are honest, a lot that have shitty mechanics who don't know better, and a lot of dealerships that screw people over.

If you go to a good dealer, you'll have no problem getting very good honest service. I like to think that smaller "hometown dealerships" are usually honest, but I can't speak for everyone. I'm just lucky enough to work at a dealer that doesn't want technicians to sell everything and a bag of chips.

[WRXtranceformed]

I'm going to give Irontoad a try when they get back to me on some parts pricing. After making some calls, they seem to be about a third cheaper on a lot of parts than going through Leesburg Toyota. From the research I did, for Lexus parts anyhow, you can get most of the stuff cheaper from a Toyota dealer than you can through a Lexus dealer. And they're the exact same parts in many cases. The water pump is a Lexus only part though, so I'd have to go through Irontoad or a Lexus dealer regardless. Just a though for any of you Lexus guys. Here's a pretty good spreadsheet that some guy on the IS300 forums put together of OEM IS parts you can get through your Toyota dealer (without that Lexus markup).

[Andy]

http://www.partznet.com has had better toyota prices than Irontoad.

[WRXtranceformed]

Hey awesome Andy, they're definitely better price wise! Gonna hit them up.

[Maengelito]

so a friend of mine has a 4runner and he was wondering what online stores you toyota fools go to? is there anything else thats decent aside from irontoad and partznet?

[Andy]

so a friend of mine has a 4runner and he was wondering what online stores you toyota fools go to? is there anything else thats decent aside from irontoad and partznet?

Partznet net has the best prices on the east coast. Some west dealers are better but the shipping offsets any savings.

[Goodspeed]

http://toyotaworld.com/

Champion Toyota in Houston. Them and Elmhurst Toyota/Scion in Chicago have huge parts availability and particularly good service (very positive customer feedback) among the Toyota community

[SStratman]

I would agree it definitely depends on what part is being replaced and sometimes OEM is the weaker of the two choices.

example, in my heavy chevy oem idler arm is a known steering part to be prone to weaking much quicker then all the other steering components, and Moog at least for my breed of car is the brand most go with for everything steering, given though idler arm is still weak point but still a bit better durability and def CHEAPER going with Moog.

But when it comes to sensors I stick to OEM (especially with the Optispark, if anyone on here knows LT1s) and even learned my lesson a while back had a niehoff or whatever aftermarket brand Ignition module and sure enough when my car wouldnt start that ended up being the fault, luckily Advance Auto let me return the faulty part and actually upgrade to the AC Delco version so I didn't have to pay in full for it again.

As for dealers, def depends (only for buying parts, never would I have them actually do work on my ride!) for example there is one guy that is known on my impala ss specific forum for actually usually being cheapest way to get any OEM GM part to us forum members, although RMS Auto is also pretty good probably how I will go about putting together a Frankenstein exhaust for my car