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Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 20:55:54 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <ron@NETCARRIER.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <ron@NETCARRIER.COM>
Subject:      Re: was fuel tank, now cost, performance, and risk
In-Reply-To:  <v03102800b53e174512af@[146.201.210.171]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

> The answer to your question will be hard to come by, > 'cause no one who went the cheap route and had poor > results will want to admit same.

Actually, my experience is exactly the opposite. Some people buy a part for $20 that the dealer charges $200 for, and then complain about the _slightest_ inconsequential difference between it and the $200 part. Yet when offered the opportunity to return it and buy one from the dealer for $200 instead, they decline the offer. I'd be willing to bet that anybody who was unhappy with a part would be quick to complain, regardless of what they paid.

People expect reasonably good quality at any price, and they have a right to. Whether the quality will match O.E. depends on the individual product. In some cases, it will. In other cases, it will come reasonably close for a fraction of the price. In some cases, the quality is so poor that the part is not worth buying at any price. The latter is, of course, the type of "bargain" that I stay away from.

Many aftermarket parts are actually made by original-equipment suppliers, and are identical to the original part. Others are as good as, or even better than, original. (Poptop seals come to mind; would you rather pay $400 for an original one that rusts out in two years, or $50 for an aftermarket one that doesn't rust?) Still others are pure garbage. You can't make a blanket statement that all aftermarket parts are inferior, or that they are comparable to original either. It varies widely. To some extent you have to put some faith in the vendor, the manufacturer, and dumb luck. Or you can just play it safe and buy everything from the dealer (and go bankrupt putting $400 poptop seals on your Vanagon every two years :-).

Parts can be cheaper for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they are built cheaper. Other times, the reason is market related, such as a closeout, overstock, bankruptcy, etc. These avenues are where I look first. If the only affordable alternative is aftermarket, I try to talk to others in my business to see if they have had good experience with the aftermarket product before I offer it. I'm careful about offering a product that seems "too cheap" unless I know of other reliable people who have had good experience with it.

Is my $139 gas tank as good as a $500 dealer one? I'd be the first to say that it's probably not. Not that I have had any bad experiences (and I sell plenty of them), but I'm a realist. This is an aftermarket tank, not an OE one, and yes, the odds are that at the price it is not quite as good as stock. On the other hand, is it a better alternative than a used one for about the same price, with an unknown quantity of rust, etc.? The fact that I sell a lot of gas tanks indicates that the old ones are failing, so buying a used one is certainly a risk. If it were my van, I'd opt for the new aftermarket one, because I wouldn't trust a used one and woudn't shell out $500 for a new one. But that's me. Everybody makes their own choices with their own money. Life is a set of compromises, and so is the world of Volkswagens.

My rule of thumb is that when it comes to a part whose failure would cause unusually high risk or hardship (such as a water pump, whose failure could seize your engine, or a crucial brake part whose failure could cause an accident), I tend to err toward caution and use (and sell) the best parts. On something far less important such as a turn signal lens, I lean toward the cheapest reasonable quality alternative (if there are significant cost savings in doing so). And in between there are many, many shades of gray. Nobody can be 100% right all the time. But to me, the criterion of a responsible retailer or mechanic is that they wouldn't sell you a part that they wouldn't feel comfortable using on their own personal vehicle. While there are opportunists in any business, I really believe that more vendors than not tend to think the same way.

- Ron Salmon The Bus Depot, Inc. http://www.busdepot.com


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