Most expensive simple part ever?

[Mr E]

The Moose said:

Love the warning

Indeed, genuinely made me laugh.
How many have they sold, and then had fail inside 12 months?

[TekoTime]

Over here in NZ I lost a wing mirror on my Holden Astra. I guess the glue on the glass got soft on a hot day and it plopped off or something. No worries! I'll just pop to the local Halfords equivalent. "Aw, yeah, nah. You'll have to go to a scrapyard for that." Hmm.

So I went to a more specialised motor factors. "Nah, no one sells those. Your best bet is to go to a glass place and get them to cut a mirror to size. Probably be about $250 (£120)" Hmm.

So I finally tried a Holden dealership. "We don't sell the glass on its own but we can supply the entire wing mirror housing in primer for $980 (£480)." Oof!

Off to ebay then! I got the glass delivered from the UK for £12 including postage. I'm having a similar issue with a replacement headlight for it now. £140 for a single used headlight in NZ or £90 for a pair of new ones on ebay.




In the UK I had a 1997 Jaguar XJ. One of the headlights wasn't working when I bought it and it turned out to be missing the little bulb holder. I asked at Jaguar and they wanted around £2,000 for a whole wiring loom! Imagine having to buy an entire loom because a coolant sensor that plugs into it stopped working. I got in touch with the previous owner who had a rummage around and posted the part to me.

[thatguy11]

Theophany said:

thatguy11 said:

Last year I had to replace the secondary air pump on my Celica, cost of the part from Toyota was £1,650. I found one on ebay for £80. Dealer prices are just outrageous, biggest load of ste in the car industry

Even BMW only charged me £600 for a secondary air pump and that was inclusive of labour and VAT!

That's roughly what i was expecting mine would cost...just about fainted when they told me how much they were wanting to charge! Thankfully i knew i could get the part for a fraction of what they were asking simply by shopping around a bit.

Which BMW was that price for, similar age to my Celica? I think the issue I have with part prices is that my car is 15 years old and the model has been out of production for 10, so major components are getting harder to come by

[Conscript]

Bonnet hinge sheared on our 2005 X-Trail. Couldn't find one on eBay (guess it's not a common failure), and MOT was coming up, so I was forced to go to a Nissan dealership. £68 for a rudimentary hinge.

[lostkiwi]

TekoTime said:

Over here in NZ I lost a wing mirror on my Holden Astra. I guess the glue on the glass got soft on a hot day and it plopped off or something. No worries! I'll just pop to the local Halfords equivalent. "Aw, yeah, nah. You'll have to go to a scrapyard for that." Hmm.

So I went to a more specialised motor factors. "Nah, no one sells those. Your best bet is to go to a glass place and get them to cut a mirror to size. Probably be about $250 (£120)" Hmm.

So I finally tried a Holden dealership. "We don't sell the glass on its own but we can supply the entire wing mirror housing in primer for $980 (£480)." Oof!

Off to ebay then! I got the glass delivered from the UK for £12 including postage. I'm having a similar issue with a replacement headlight for it now. £140 for a single used headlight in NZ or £90 for a pair of new ones on ebay.




In the UK I had a 1997 Jaguar XJ. One of the headlights wasn't working when I bought it and it turned out to be missing the little bulb holder. I asked at Jaguar and they wanted around £2,000 for a whole wiring loom! Imagine having to buy an entire loom because a coolant sensor that plugs into it stopped working. I got in touch with the previous owner who had a rummage around and posted the part to me.

To turn that the other way round...

I had a 1990 Mazda 323F GT a number of years back. The right CV joint started clicking so I thought no problem - will just swap it. Off to dealer - £700 (only available as a complete driveshaft).
Sod that I thought. Nothing on motor factors anywhere so thought "I'm heading to NZ next month - it can wait till I go over and I'll get one there...".

Walk into the Mazda dealer and they confirmed its complete driveshaft only but after a brief chat he said they did an aftermarket CV on its own for $65 (about £25 at the time).
A pair duly bought and stuffed into the suitcase to take back.
Fitted them up and all good.

[Slow]

TooMany2cvs said:

Is it just pretty flat, maybe with a bend or two for the tips? Should be cheap and easy to get laser-cut locally.

If yours has lost two of the three corners, presumably due to some kind of fatigue, I'm not sure I'd be trusting a used one, given the work to replace it.

Edit: Oh, wait... Not that simple...

http://www.roverparts.com.au/inc/sdetail/18738/187...
http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/ftc-4713-h...

So £65 for a new HD one from a very respected supplier - no way would I put a used one in...

Edited by TooMany2cvs on Friday 6th May 08:47

Yours posted are both td5, try find them for a td6 and it's almost impossible. Not a common fail item I assume.

[Slow]

10penceparalyzed said:

KungFuPanda said:

OP, you sold your mum a shagged car? Bravo!

well she only has herself to blame for the OP's moral fibre after all he is only a refelction of his upbringing.

Not sure what your getting at but she knew it was making the noise before I sold it to her. Had already agreed to fix it for free. She's not out of pocket.

[996TT02]

Slow said:

Having found the problem with the Range Rover I had sold to my mum (I had agreed to fix for free) with a grumbling noise.

Turns out it was this plate attached to the torque converter



2 corners had snapped off, not sure why.

Phoned the local land rover parts place (not main dealer) and he couldnt get hold of one from anywhere but land rover. Ok fair enough its a uncommon thing to break I imagine, so how much do they want? £2100 inc VAT.

WHAT THE fk?

Got hold of a used one for £25 on ebay...

Misquote.

[RenesisEvo]

IanCress said:

...even though it's just a piece of moulded plastic it still costs about £120.

Tooling costs for 'just a piece of moulded plastic' are quite huge, never mind the cost of all the engineering that goes behind it, making sure it's durable (or not..!), etc. Add several tiers of mark-up as it passes its way up the supply chain from the actual manufacturer to the OEM, and it's little surprise that seemingly small bits can cost a lot. Yes, that cost can be lowered by high volumes, the number to recover the tool cost will all be worked out well in advance. Window and door seals - just a long bit of rubber, right? When you consider all the tooling involved, especially when you have shot-moulded ends on extrusions, the prices start to make a little more sense.

I'm also aware of another OEM with seemingly insanely priced badges on its top models - again, that's what happens when you have a fancy finish requiring specific tools and processes on a very limited run. The LF-A, as one example, was built in very small numbers, so the mark-up on each part has to be big to cover the cost of the tools. E.g. a £1 million tool for one component - build 100 cars, cost per car is £10,000. Build 100,000 cars, cost per car is down to £100. That's one tool, for one part. Now apply across the whole vehicle... This is what makes low-volume manufacturing a real challenge, and why so many like Lotus, Caterham, Radical use existing bits like air vents, control stalks - because to make their own would push the price up far too much. And why platform sharing and widespread parts re-use is so prevalent in the automotive industry (VAG a prime example).

[FD3Si]

As above, are you sure that's solely for that part? I'd suspect it's part of an assembly, hence the price.
On a similar theme, the Intercooler on s14 generation 200sxs is prone to cracking, and replacements are over 2k, as it only coomes as part of a huge section of the intake assembly.

At least these other parts get something for their size and weight.
These:

Are oil cooler pipe clips for an FD3s RX7.

They were a few pence under £50 each if my memory serves correctly.

[LordGrover]

Not a part as such, but I understand that in order to replace the spark plugs on GT86/BRZ the whole engine has to be dropped a few inches.

[Matt UK]

Mr E said:

Indeed, genuinely made me laugh.
How many have they sold, and then had fail inside 12 months?

Love a bit of Australian marketing!

[new_bloke]

I was quoted £480 + VAT for the rear roof seal on a mk3 MX5 roadster coupé. Got one from mx5parts.co.uk in the end for just about half that

[Theophany]

thatguy11 said:

That's roughly what i was expecting mine would cost...just about fainted when they told me how much they were wanting to charge! Thankfully i knew i could get the part for a fraction of what they were asking simply by shopping around a bit.

Which BMW was that price for, similar age to my Celica? I think the issue I have with part prices is that my car is 15 years old and the model has been out of production for 10, so major components are getting harder to come by

I think you're probably right about the age/part rarity thing - the car is a 12 year old 645ci, but the engine (and derivatives of it) were used for a long time after mine ceased production in 5s, 6s and 7s, just at different displacements.

[TooMany2cvs]

Slow said:

Yours posted are both td5, try find them for a td6 and it's almost impossible. Not a common fail item I assume.

Are you sure it's different? Got a part number?

[delta0]

Wow a flat plate of steel. I would have made it myself with a decent sheet of high strength steel.

[k-ink]

KungFuPanda said:

OP, you sold your mum a shagged car? Bravo!

OP, put that on your CV. You'll be taken on as a main dealer salesman in no time

[bitchstewie]

Weren't there some crazy Skyline bits?

I'm sure I recall a piece of polystyrene or something that needed replacing if the airbags went off that was a few grand and something about floormats rings a bell?

[TooMany2cvs]

delta0 said:

Wow a flat plate of steel. I would have made it myself with a decent sheet of high strength steel.

Well, spring steel - it's a flex plate. There's a clue in the name.

I'm unconvinced it's different from TD5 Disco - and if it is, and they're so hard to find, I'll bet Ashcroft would be interested in remaking them, too.

[k-ink]

These simple parts could be made for peanuts. I get custom things CNCd for my vintage model cars locally. They can do anything. Lazer cutting out a plate would be so cheap. Looks like there is a case for getting a batch made up and sold on Ebay!