Consumer guidance on fake car parts

Yes it's important that people are aware of fake parts and their dangers, but I don't like the part where they discourage car mechanics from allowing customer-supplied parts. It's the customers risk to take, if the garage is afraid of liability, then make the customer sign something confirming they supplied the part and did so at their own risk. In my experience I can find genuine parts cheaper than my local garage around two thirds of the time. I don't want to end up paying more for parts because I'm forced to pay extra to a supplier chosen by the garage rather than by me.

Whether a part is fake or bad quality versus genuine or good quality is not a binary 'either/or' situation, usually there's a continuous scale of quality and cost, and it is not a certainty that the most expensive option is the best quality nor that the cheapest is the lowest quality. Some car manufacturers put huge markups on spare parts (looking at you BMW) where the cheaper alternatives are just as good if not identical, where's the government warning about that hmm?

I may be overly cynical, but this sounds like the government giving car manufacturers, garages and parts suppliers carte blanche to rip off customers in the name of getting 'genuine' parts.

Getting more cynical still, some of those comparison videos are made by the car manufacturer, they have a financial incentive to persuade people to buy parts from them. It is not an independent comparison and therefore I am skeptical as to the veracity of their findings. There are no details of where they sourced the 'fake' part for example, I'd like to have seen a teardown analysis of the oil filters to see exactly what's going on inside. The one with the Mercedes wheel rims seems to be from an Australian channel, not Mercedes, which seems more trustworthy.
 
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Ormy1 said:
Yes it's important that people are aware of fake parts and their dangers, but I don't like the part where they discourage car mechanics from allowing customer-supplied parts. It's the customers risk to take, if the garage is afraid of liability, then make the customer sign something confirming they supplied the part and did so at their own risk. In my experience I can find genuine parts cheaper than my local garage around two thirds of the time. I don't want to end up paying more for parts because I'm forced to pay extra to a supplier chosen by the garage rather than by me.

Whether a part is fake or bad quality versus genuine or good quality is not a binary 'either/or' situation, usually there's a continuous scale of quality and cost, and it is not a certainty that the most expensive option is the best quality nor that the cheapest is the lowest quality. Some car manufacturers put huge markups on spare parts (looking at you BMW) where the cheaper alternatives are just as good if not identical, where's the government warning about that hmm?

I may be overly cynical, but this sounds like the government giving car manufacturers, garages and parts suppliers carte blanche to rip off customers in the name of getting 'genuine' parts.

Getting more cynical still, some of those comparison videos are made by the car manufacturer, they have a financial incentive to persuade people to buy parts from them. It is not an independent comparison and therefore I am skeptical as to the veracity of their findings. There are no details of where they sourced the 'fake' part for example, I'd like to have seen a teardown analysis of the oil filters to see exactly what's going on inside. The one with the Mercedes wheel rims seems to be from an Australian channel, not Mercedes, which seems more trustworthy.
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Fair points.

Plus garages aren't immune from receiving fake parts.
 
They talk of "fake" or "counterfeit" parts, but then go on to also include this: "sub-standard vehicle parts are often cheap-looking imitations".

They do have to be careful about what they are trying to present as the problem. Going to eurocarparts and buying a filter that isn't an OEM one, should not be portrayed as buying sub-standard parts.

This seems more geared towards buying parts that are advertised as genuine OEM parts which aren't. i.e. In the oil filter example the packaging and actual part looked identical.
 
Ormy1 said:
Yes it's important that people are aware of fake parts and their dangers, but I don't like the part where they discourage car mechanics from allowing customer-supplied parts. It's the customers risk to take, if the garage is afraid of liability, then make the customer sign something confirming they supplied the part and did so at their own risk.
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Fair point, but from experience it doesn't always end well.
For example, you buy a clutch kit from Ebay along with a concentric slave cylinder and we spend (say) 6 hours fitting it.
A week later the CSC goes pop and you're stuck and need recovering in.
Obviously we won't cover the parts or labour under warranty, so you then have to try and claim from the seller, which as you can imagine will be a royal pain in the ass and take time, all whilst you're stuck with no car.
This is why we won't fit customer supplied parts.
As for fake parts, I remember back in the 90's there was some branded brake pads doing the rounds, and the friction material was actually mud, like literally mud!
 
jaybee said:
They talk of "fake" or "counterfeit" parts, but then go on to also include this: "sub-standard vehicle parts are often cheap-looking imitations".

They do have to be careful about what they are trying to present as the problem. Going to eurocarparts and buying a filter that isn't an OEM one, should not be portrayed as buying sub-standard parts.

This seems more geared towards buying parts that are advertised as genuine OEM parts which aren't. i.e. In the oil filter example the packaging and actual part looked identical.
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As long as the non-OEM parts are manufactured to and pass the relevant safety standards then it’s fine? Euro car parts etc aren’t the problem… It sounds like they are referring to cheap knock-offs from china that like you say, are claiming to be the real mccoy.

I slightly disagree on being able to supply garages with parts you find on ebay. No matter what you say, it leaves them liable for potential issues. Not everyone is as sensible as you lot(or most of you). Proving it was the customer supplied parts that caused the engine to blow up would be a nightmare.
 
Ormy1 said:
Whether a part is fake or bad quality versus genuine or good quality is not a binary 'either/or' situation, usually there's a continuous scale of quality and cost, and it is not a certainty that the most expensive option is the best quality nor that the cheapest is the lowest quality. Some car manufacturers put huge markups on spare parts (looking at you BMW) where the cheaper alternatives are just as good if not identical, where's the government warning about that.
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Some of the cheaper alternatives are made in the same factory as the genuine parts, but have the logo's ground off so they can sell them to motor factors, it's not uncommon to see it.
That said, there's some absolutely awful quality stuff being supplied out there.
 
That airbag example video...oof. Basically a bomb blowing up in your face! I mean come on, who goes on ebay to buy an aftermarket airbag kit? At worse, most people are going to buy a second hand OEM one from a car that was being broke for parts.
 
jaybee said:
That airbag example video...oof. Basically a bomb blowing up in your face! I mean come on, who goes on ebay to buy an aftermarket airbag kit? At worse, most people are going to buy a second hand OEM one from a car that was being broke for parts.
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Cheapskates and indy traders that ‘flip’ cars. It’s probably surprising how many people run cars until the engines seize up through lack of oil. No proper servicing and maintenance.

I’m sure the chap on high peak autos says he hates 1 series BMW’s because folk buy them and do exactly that, overspend on getting the badge and then aren’t interested in looking after or servicing the cars correctly.
 
shifty_uk said:
Proving it was the customer supplied parts that caused the engine to blow up would be a nightmare.
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That's a fair point and I can't really come up with a counter-arguement. Except to say that the number of parts for which a fake/defective part could cause catastrophic failure (i.e. fire or explosion, danger to the user or others, as opposed to just stop working with possible collateral damage to other parts) is a pretty small fraction of the total parts in an engine. Brakes and suspension (and tyres, but nobody bats an eye about fitting super cheapo tyres) are where there is a greater danger IMO.

But allow me to illustrate with a few examples from jobs needing doing on my car right now.

Oil and filter change: not a complicated job, more than simple enough for me to do myself but it's messy so I let the garage do it. Oil is something that is easy to get ripped off on. If I ask the garage to supply the oil, they'll probably use a premium brand like castrol which is unnecessary for an engine as old as mine (20yrs). I get oil (infact most fluids) from Mannol, they are reputable and reasonably priced. I buy oil filters in bulk from a reputable third party that sells parts specifically for my car and get a decent saving there too. If a garage refused to use my supplied oil/filter I'd just find somewhere else that would.

Rear brake calipers: again not complicated, but bleeding them afterwards is a two person job (and don't have a competent second person) so I'll get the garage to do it. Unfortunately there are two types of rear brake caliper for my model car, they look almost identical and it's easy to confuse, I have had the wrong ones fitted by a garage before. I know exactly which ones I need, but before buying I would discuss with the garage, if they can beat the price I pay for them then fine (unlikely), otherwise again I'll shop around for a garage that will accept my supplied parts.

CV boot: I could do this myself but it's one of those jobs that's a lot quicker with the right tools (which I don't have), I wouldn't even bother trying to source my own though, they're so cheap and ubiquitous that I'll just let the garage supply this part.

bloodiedathame said:
Plus garages aren't immune from receiving fake parts.
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Exactly.
 
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I've never had any problems with parts I've purchased and I basically never get OEM parts.

To be honest, whilst I'm not necessarily saying it's bad advice, this seems like sone stuff conjured up, likely funded by the big car manufacturers to try and scare people into buying parts from them at rip off prices.
 
JonRGV250 said:
Some of the cheaper alternatives are made in the same factory as the genuine parts, but have the logo's ground off so they can sell them to motor factors, it's not uncommon to see it.
That said, there's some absolutely awful quality stuff being supplied out there.
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I think the logos are ground off because they don't pass quality standards.
I have had this with the pulleys and tensioners for my Aux belt on the S4 - ordered everything as INA from Autodoc - came with the Audi logos ground off and... They had more play and noise in them than the ones on the car with 100k miles. Painfully noticeable by hand play, can only image how it would be at 7000rpm.
Returned all, bought from a vw dealership dealership and voila - nice and tight, no funny business.

It really put me off aftermarket parts, I had Lemforder ball joints within less than 10k miles fail on the S4. Sure, London is full of potholes and speed bumps but that is nothing short of disgusting given the originals were still OK ish after 90k miles!
 
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