My local garage is pretty decent and happy for me to supply parts and charge the labour for fitting them, don't go overboard, and let them supply and fit pads and discs for example but they were happy to fit a subframe I bought and a stainless steel exhaust as well as a few other bits. Having given them a couple of grand over the years a bit of sensible give and take works well for us both.
At what point do you call it quits on a car?
- Thread starter Raymond Lin
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To be honest, any garage that has a policy against fitting customer supplied parts is not a garage I want to do business with.
The 'steak analogy' is also faulty, a car part is not a steak.
Having a policy against fitting used parts, or refusing on a case by case basis because you believe supplied parts are not of adequate quality or are not correct for the application, that would be fine, I don't see a problem with that whatsoever. But a blanket policy against it?
I will never allow a garage to supply parts to be fitted to my vehicles, I want to know exactly what is being fitted. And that has never been a problem with any of the garages I have used, which range from backstreet one man bands, to multi million pound custom shops, and most things in between.
The only potentially valid reason I can see for refusing it outright, is the question of liability if a fitted part fails.
Hell, most of the time I'd rather do it myself anyway.
The 'steak analogy' is also faulty, a car part is not a steak.
Having a policy against fitting used parts, or refusing on a case by case basis because you believe supplied parts are not of adequate quality or are not correct for the application, that would be fine, I don't see a problem with that whatsoever. But a blanket policy against it?
I will never allow a garage to supply parts to be fitted to my vehicles, I want to know exactly what is being fitted. And that has never been a problem with any of the garages I have used, which range from backstreet one man bands, to multi million pound custom shops, and most things in between.
The only potentially valid reason I can see for refusing it outright, is the question of liability if a fitted part fails.
Hell, most of the time I'd rather do it myself anyway.
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Ha ha, stroll on son, I'll let you keep your 100 I'm feeling generous, plonker
I can see it from the garage side, and I've had it where I currently work, the issue is when it comes to warranty.
You lose an awful lot of control when it's the customers parts being fitted, when they fail who's taking the brunt of it? The garage then has to prove they've fitted it properly etc, customer gets Aggy cos they have to pay again for the part to be fitted. It can become messy.
Or they supply the wrong part and the right part is more expensive and they get Aggy over that and think your doing them over etc etc.
It's horses for courses,
Just because a company doesn't want to let you supply parts that doesn't mean they are a bad garage.
Not much gets past you, does it?
I don't think this is the comeback you think it is.
I just didn't think it required further explanation...
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Caporegime
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If I owned a garage I'd also tell you to jog on if you turn up with a box of parts tbh. I'm running it as a business, not a dodgy backyard operation, not to mention the vast lack of quality control issues.
If I want to know what gets fitted to my car I simy ask them to pop the old parts in the new boxes so I can have them back, and check the receipt. I can also physically check the parts if I need to.
If I want to know what gets fitted to my car I simy ask them to pop the old parts in the new boxes so I can have them back, and check the receipt. I can also physically check the parts if I need to.
Ok - I mean, the steak analogy is not mine, it's from a garage so I have no vested interest in it. But as an analogy, I don't see any issue with it.I don't think this is the comeback you think it is.
I just didn't think it required further explanation...
You wouldn't expect a restaurant to cook food you supplied - where does liability sit if something goes wrong? The garage is taking the same view with self supplied parts.
I didn't think that required further explanation either.
Some restaurants allow you to take booze
Caporegime
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Dunno why Acme's just responding with laughing emojis, hope he's not having a stroke 
Soldato
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Having now done 56000 miles since we got it 7 years ago, and I've now replaced all the springs, bought 8 tyres, done timing belt, water pump and all dsg oil once... It's cost me approx £50 a month to run. Or 7p a mile. The diesel has cost us 11p per mile.
It'll do for another few years until the expensive stuff starts to near in 40/50k miles time.
It'll do for another few years until the expensive stuff starts to near in 40/50k miles time.
Generally because they don't have a licence to supply their own, you'd be running a pretty rubbish garage if you couldn't supply parts.
Not sure what's up with him.Dunno why Acme's just responding with laughing emojis, hope he's not having a stroke
Actually, the statement "The 'steak analogy' is also faulty, a car part is not a steak" is probably more deserving of the laughing emoji, since the whole point of an analogy is that it's a comparison between two different things in order to clarify, explain or give an example.
You know, like a car part and a steak.
We won't fit customer supplied parts.
For example if we fit a piece of garbage Ebay no name clutch or CSC and then it fails almost immediately (and they do) then it's an impossible situation.
The customer has paid for say, 5 hours labour with no guarantee from us, then they have to somehow claim for the clutch/CSC from the seller along with the labour charge.
You can probably guess how messy it gets from there.
Whereas if they buy the part from us and have it fitted and it's faulty then we get them in ASAP and fit a new one at zero charge.
Hardly worth saving a few quid imo.
Has anyone figured out the steak analogy yet? Because it's lost on me.
could be a sausage ....banger
not sure about steak .tbh when i ran our unit we would fit some customer parts but the responsibility was always on the customer. you supply the parts if we strip the car down and they either dont fit, or are wrong ,we inform the customer he gets the right parts, if he cant supply them same day car gets built up as best as and if no room in the garage gets locked up outside until such time as parts arrive.
most folk at this stage would bite the bullet and allow us to supply the parts rather than be without a vehicle. and again if the part they supply fails then they have to stand the warranty whilst sorting out replacement parts.
i found when you sit folk down and explain what may or may not go wrong with the process they dont mind letting you supply the parts.
If I ran a garage I wouldn't be fitting customer supplied parts either tbh.
It's a bit different if you're restoring a rare care and new parts aren't just laying about for it, but if we're talking day to day stuff then not, I wouldn't be doing it.
It's a bit different if you're restoring a rare care and new parts aren't just laying about for it, but if we're talking day to day stuff then not, I wouldn't be doing it.
My current car is 18 years old and passes the MOT first time, every time. Never breaks down either.
I undersealed it with dinitrol myself several times and that stopped it from rotting out in our naff climate.
Its only a MK 3 Clio which i know is considered rubbish but in my experience it has been more reliable than i ever expected.
I undersealed it with dinitrol myself several times and that stopped it from rotting out in our naff climate.
Its only a MK 3 Clio which i know is considered rubbish but in my experience it has been more reliable than i ever expected.
As I said I can absolutely understand refusing to fit junk parts to a car, but if a customer rocks up with some genuine or good quality OE parts which match or exceed the quality of the parts you would usually use, thats different surely?
The main reason I do it is so I know what is being fitted, I don't know what brand a garage is going to supply, but I'm sure in a lot of cases they will just go for the cheapest one available and then mark it up to maximise profits.
Another reason is because I typically buy and run cars which are difficult to get parts for, so if I source the parts myself beforehand, the garage doesn't have to worry about sourcing them.
The steak analogy is nonsense, but apparently my explanation that "car parts aren't steak" isn't good enough. Frankly there are so many possible explanations that I can't be bothered to thin them down, so I'll just let Lopez carry on thinking he is intelligent.
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What % do you make on parts?
Seems like a very sensible approach.could be a sausage ....banger
tbh when i ran our unit we would fit some customer parts but the responsibility was always on the customer. you supply the parts if we strip the car down and they either dont fit, or are wrong ,we inform the customer he gets the right parts, if he cant supply them same day car gets built up as best as and if no room in the garage gets locked up outside until such time as parts arrive.
most folk at this stage would bite the bullet and allow us to supply the parts rather than be without a vehicle. and again if the part they supply fails then they have to stand the warranty whilst sorting out replacement parts.
i found when you sit folk down and explain what may or may not go wrong with the process they dont mind letting you supply the parts.