4 ms·

Part of the problem here is we don’t know the margins of this stuff. Just how badly are we being screwed? Probably pretty bad but… Manufacturing cost for a non

Part of the problem here is we don’t know the margins of this stuff. Just how badly are we being screwed? Probably pretty bad but… Manufacturing cost for a non-OEM part is not representative of total cost to an OEM to provide quality-assured and warrantied spares of said part to customers. Some parts are stored as complete assemblies. A unique screw may not be stocked as a separate item. It’s possible replacing a damaged or missing subassembly puts the whole thing out of tolerances. The majority of these arguments are probably complete bullshit. Repairability is the cost of doing business. This is going to be a pain to enforce. Hopefully enough companies get painful penalties to deter the rest from playing this game.

roywashere 3y ago
And as the article stated: it can differ from vendor to vendor. I used to own an 8 year old Honda Civic and spare parts were difficult to obtain and expensive. Later I owned a 30+ year old Mercedes and parts were relatively cheap and easy to obtain and shipped locally next business day. With electronics it sucks a little that it seems for almost all brands everything is expensive and difficult. It does not really help that many electronics (such as the mentioned grass trimmers) are so extremely cheap to begin with.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > 8 year old Honda Civic and spare parts were difficult to obtain and expensive What parts did you find difficult or expensive? We've owned a 2005 CR-V (a jacked-up AWD Civic, basically) and I've had no problems or complaints with the few items I've needed to source. RockAuto almost always gets them to me the next day or 2 days in the worst common case. (I agree that parts availability for Mercedes is also good, but I'm a little surprised to hear of parts issues [other than perhaps interior plastic panels] on a Honda Civic.)

roywashere 3y ago

And as the article stated: it can differ from vendor to vendor. I used to own an 8 year old Honda Civic and spare parts were difficult to obtain and expensive. Later I owned a 30+ year old Mercedes and parts were relatively cheap and easy to obtain and shipped locally next business day. With electronics it sucks a little that it seems for almost all brands everything is expensive and difficult. It does not really help that many electronics (such as the mentioned grass trimmers) are so extremely cheap to begin with.

sokoloff 3y ago
> 8 year old Honda Civic and spare parts were difficult to obtain and expensive What parts did you find difficult or expensive? We've owned a 2005 CR-V (a jacked-up AWD Civic, basically) and I've had no problems or complaints with the few items I've needed to source. RockAuto almost always gets them to me the next day or 2 days in the worst common case. (I agree that parts availability for Mercedes is also good, but I'm a little surprised to hear of parts issues [other than perhaps interior plastic panels] on a Honda Civic.)