Why, We Won’t Use Cheap Parts !

One of the biggest challenges in the auto repair business is getting our hands on good quality parts.

It’s getting more difficult these days and can even be downright dangerous.

Cheap car parts, often from China, have flooded the U.S. market in the past 15 years and the quality is hit-or-miss.

“Every time I work on a car, the easy to find part is a Chinese part” said Brayan Salazar – Owner of Bridgewater Motorworks in Bridgewater, NJ with over 20 year experience in the car repair field. “The quality part is more expensive and I usually have to wait longer to get it.”

The cheap parts in the auto repair industry are commonly called “white box” parts. They are usually made in China and are less expensive for a reason,

We have found the parts will not last as long causing early repair failure. Motorworks offers a 3 year /36,000 mile warranty.  Brayan stated, “The only way I can give a good service, a great warranty  and not have premature repair failure, is to use good quality parts.”

Good parts sometimes are hard to find. We recently have found quality brands of parts that have cheap parts inserted into the quality brand shipping boxes.  

We often hear from customers. Quality parts are too expensive. I can go on the internet and get it cheaper.  The customer is correct, but what we have found is wrong parts being sold, a wait time for shipping, computer says it’s an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer ) part and ends up not the case and when the part is wrong or goes bad it is almost impossible to return or warranty.

Due to the influx of cheap parts on the automotive market. Many repair shops including Motorworks will not install customer supplied parts. We often find the wrong parts ordered, extremely cheap parts and we can’t warranty the repair.  It never fails that a customer supplied part fails and the shop that installed is blamed for the failure.  Customer supplied parts make quality customer service impossible to achieve.

Look at online review sites such as Yelp and www.consumeraffairs.com and you’ll find dozens of customers citing faulty car parts manufactured by Chinese companies that stranded people on highways, led to accidents and near-accidents.

I recently spoke to a shop that he went through eight alternators for one particular car at a national car parts chain before finding one that worked.

As if it wasn’t difficult enough to tell the difference between good and poor quality car parts, there is a recent rise in counterfeit car parts. Many of these parts are available on sites like eBay is further complicating things.

Counterfeit parts often look like one that bears the trademark of a legitimate and trusted brand, but was produced by another party and is usually not made to the specifications of the original equipment manufacturer.

These parts “represent a grave threat to public safety,” according to the Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, which is part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission places the value of the counterfeit car-parts sector at $12 billion a year.

A seemingly endless string of prosecutions on counterfeit parts includes two Washington state cases from 2013, involving the online sale of counterfeit airbags from sources in China. It’s a product the center considers potentially extremely harmful.

“Some of the most dangerous counterfeit products involve the explosive elements of air bags that can literally explode in the victim’s face during an accident,” the center states on its website.

Tires, brake hoses and brake fluid are among 13 items of motor-vehicle equipment for which the federal government enforces minimum safety performance requirements. Certification of compliance is shown by the symbol DOT, for Department of Transportation, on the outside of the part’s box or container.

Brake pads are not on the list. The only requirement the government has on brake pads is the amount of metal in them, because the government has determined that the dusting from brake pads that contain a non-ferrous metal, such as brass or bronze, gets into storm water runoff and negatively affects fish.

So now they’ve got certifications for the brake pads being eco-friendly but not for being DOT approved. So that’s more important now, is the eco thing, than actually being government approved to stop your vehicle.

Customers want cheaper parts because they don’t want to spend money on car repairs, Brakes are the most important item on a car and everybody handles them like such a trivial thing — oh, it’s just brake pads, right? No big deal.

“Well, there’s a huge difference between a $20 brake pad and a $60 brake pad.” Says Brayan Salazar

He advises customers to go with original equipment manufacturer brake pads — usually made by the original supplier though often also in China — rather than the cheaper aftermarket, or generic, brake pads.

That’s where you should not compromise, is on tires and brakes 

Have any questions, please feel free to call or contact Bridgewater Motorworks at 908.218.9100 or bwmotorworks.com