Taking the p**s!!

Hi All,

Filled up at Tesco's just now and the fuel filler cap exploded in my hand:

When that happened on a Citroen I had part of the filler cap fell into the tank!

This thread will draw lots of comment ! I will thow petrol on the fire ! Landrover key fob £120+vat for £2 worth of electronics. Noel

Known as "market Place pricing" or "As much as we think the traffic will bear"

Takes no account what practical folk will ,do, if they can.

If sales fall, or don't materialise, the price will fall.

Years ago the local Renault dealer wanted to charge me £4.50 for a bit of plastic about 40 mm long.

"they used to hang peoples for that" " What?" "Highway robbery" No sale. Covered the gap in the winscreen rubber with black tape. Worked just as well!

Not tight. Just careful, y'ken

Howard

Paying for the brand, not the value.

What's the betting the fuel-cap and the key-fob have identical equivalents for other but much cheaper cars, for which they are sold at much nearer their true cost?

It was a VW / Audi main-dealer who told me of that trick, although I had heard of it previously. The German firm has two huge warehouses, he explained, one labelled VW, the other Audi. The two ranges have many common parts but the warehouses store them in separate boxes with different labels and part-numbers by the appropriate brand, price them by make and model - and of course insist you must fit only brand and model OEM parts.

(I think the OEM scam is by rigid law in Germany - a gift to the car makers. Indeed, the law was quite likely by the trade's idea and lobbying!)

I had to pay £250 for a BMW key fob after my son lost one, as I understand it the old one remains operational, unlikely the finder will ever be within 500 miles of my car. I noticed the front brake callipers on a A6 were VW but it was an old car so may not be factory fitted.

Mike

Volkwagen Audi Group includes Porsche, Skoda and Seat. Many of their parts boxes have multiple logos printed on them.
https://www.cbautoservice.co.uk/vw_audi_group_parts.html

Alternative parts get really creative when they are cheaper and better. An example is the Fiat Croma (mk2) two piece driveshaft. They have a tulip joint which is prone to failure. Also due to low numbers prodced, expensive. The driveshaft from a Vauxhaul Vectra C is much better but the (proper CV) joint is in a different place as is the support bearing. However the gearbox on the Fiat has two bearing mount positions. A shaft and bearing from a scrap Vectra fit's straight on
Not so nice is the electronically controlled power steering pump. New Vectra one is a fraction of the cost of the Croma and appears identical. However it is on the CAN databus system and the codes (address) in the firmware are different. So you can't use the Vectra one.... unless of course you are an electronics engineer and an swap the surface mount chip from the old into the new....

Robert.

Go to Timpsons to have a battery fitted to a Tissot watch £18. Battery on its own £3.50. Watch back is only press on.

Roy

Coupled a Perkins prima to a volvo outdrive, the engine was also marketed as the Volvo MD22 HUGE difference in parts prices. Did a job in the Perkins packing plant, worked round them, so I know they never came from Sweden. Noel.

Land rover used to have 3 hourly rates for servicing, depending on whether it was a proper landy, a disco or a range rover. This is the same people in the same garage using the same equipment. Difference was what the owners were prepared to pay.

Many years ago I worked in a motor factors. We sold trim clips to hold trim on cars. Ours came in boxes from Tucker's direct and a clip to hold trim on the side of any car was about 3p (it was in the seventies!)

Walk round the corner to Sandicliffe, the nearest Ford dealer and at the spares counter the identical part was 5p plus vat - I was sent to get some by the back street garage where I worked on my day off.

Intrigued I asked the price at Truman Mitchell's on the Derby Road and at the Triumph end of the spares counter they were 8p and at the River end they were 11p

All of these were made by Tucker's so ever since my healthy cynicism has just grown!

In the 1990's, as part of our club's activities, a small party of members visited a local British engineering manufacturer that was producing parts for major car companies and engine builders, Jaguar, Perkins etc. As we observed the finished products coming of the machines, king-pins, camshafts etc., these were being placed in containers marked, for example, Land Rover, then Quinton Hazell and lastly Del Boy's Car Parts (obviously, I am making that up but you get the idea). The components, whatever their destination may have been, were exactly the same, produced from the same material on the same machines and subject to exactly the same quality checks. This is one of the reasons I have never been troubled by the thought of buying 'generic' components for my Volvo's, indeed I actually demand that they are fitted because of the price differential.

This particular small British manufacturer no longer exists, it was taken over by an Italian firm and then closed down but I assume the same practices still obtain, just not in this country anymore.

My car doesn't have a filler cap. Just open the flap and shove the nozzle down the 'ole!

There is, supposedly, an anti theft (syphoning) thing down ther somwhere.

No filler cap, one less thing to go wrong?

I do remember years ago when we had a car sales setup in Holland Park Mews that we had a Ferrari1 308 with a duff door handle. It was over £100 from Maranello Concessionaires at Ethan.

we found out it was identical to the one on a Fiat X19, cost about £15 if I recall correctly!

cheers Martin

I have just got rid of my Mercedes/ Renault because if you go to buy a Mercedes you don’t want 1/2 a Renault, anyway I now have a Lexus hybrid was told not to misplace the key fob because a replacement is £599 including coding.

Dell

Bought a second hand Land Rover Discovery 3 about 9 years ago and it only had one key with it, so off to the main dealers and they charged £500 for the key and keyfob plus half hours labour to program new key and reprogram the original one plus of course VAT on top of all that. Had to go to main dealer, seems they have a monopoly on the sale of keys, also had to provide proof of ID and take logbook with me. I guard the two keys with my life.

Granddaughter has a BMW cabriolet, not a very sensible choice in my opinion as it’s ten years old but assured as one lady owner previously, believe that if you will, car broke down and eventually refused to move. Various helpful friends diagnosed that it was ignition coils as the problem. Granddaughter enquired of local BMW agents what were their labour costs, was quoted that they were charging £220.00 per hour, after much deliberation she took it to a well respected local garage that specialised in automatic transmissions as well as other strings to their bow. Their diagnosis, that was correct, was a duff fuel injector cost £350.00 for the part and they also fixed an ABS problem that showed up during their checks, bill came to £600.00 dread to think what the BMW garage would have charged. Dave W

But you only pay once. Timpsons offer a lifetime warranties on watch batteries. When it dies take it back and they fit a new battery for free. Took SWMBO's Longines ffor the third time last week.

Edited By Robert Atkinson 2 on 03/08/2023 18:37:33

When I visited a manufacturer of filters, down the oil filter line came the filters in all sorts of liveries, depending whon they were for, various O E Ms (Using our engine) or aftermarket. "Genuine" spare parts?

At the air filter plant, there were two parallel mirror image assembly lines,

One was putting the product into the "aftermarket" boxes; across the aisle, the same product was being put into boxes printed with the name of a well respected Scandinavian vehicle manufacturer.

I do wonder what the price difference was.

Howard

Never mind same parts at different prices. A Peugeot drive shaft was £350 or £450 (can’t remember - and then likely VAT on top) from our local dealership. I supplied the £3 reluctor ring and they fitted it.

Same with the window winder - £160 from Peugeot but only needed an £18 one from a third party. The dealership fitted it. I have always got on well with the proprietor (and his Dad before him).

They also fitted two secondhand injectors (£70 for the pair instead of £250 each), a common rail injection pump (£30 or £40 instead of, guessing here, £600).

The dealership is not allowed, by contract, to supply non-Peugeot parts. Fitting them is a different story!🙂