Manager Forum

I was asked my opinion about what shops think on this question and decided it was better to let you all comment directly on the matter and then give that information to the interested party rather than my heresay.

This is strictly hypothetical, nothing is in development. This is merely posing the question to measure response to see if there is a market to develop for OE parts. This concept is based on a single Asian mfg at this time.

Thanks as always for taking time to vote and comment.

Seldom do we not find parts that can't be gotten aftermarket. But there are MANY parts we will ONLY get from OEM. I voted for less than 10% because you asked for availability.

I chose 10-49%

We do specialty work; we use a high % of oe parts. We require quality. On tune ups we use oe plugs and wires we do not do many come backs. Ford 6.0 ff's are cheaper in motorcraft than in the a/m. Delco's allison tf's are cheaper than a/m.

Yeah the question is kinda vague. I went with the 10-49 bracket, I think OE is probably really somewhere around 35% or a lil higher, but that is MY specification. Rich's response is also correct because the vagueness allows him to answer the way he did- in an absolute sense, you CAN buy almost everything aftermarket.

I don't believe the question asked yields the most beneficial answer. I voted 10% (or less) because seldom are the parts not available from the aftermarket. Whether or not the part is suitable for the application, or if the part is of high enough quality to stake my name on is a different question. I suspect that the real question is whether or not seeking integration with the OE system(s) for parts ordering would be a benefit to the average Mitchell1 user. The answer to that is, "It depends."

The real numbers of our purchasing is much higher than the 10% vote that I gave, mostly for some of the issues listed above, as well as others, such as convenience. In the last 5 years, we have purchased parts from an aftermarket source 69.60% of the time, have purchased from an OEM dealer 30.21% of the time, and have data entry errors resulting in an unknown vendor or have purchased parts from deleted vendors .19% of the time. However, we source our parts from many more OEM dealers than we do aftermarket parts suppliers. Simply removing our primary aftermarket vendor (WorldPac) makes the OEM/Aftermarket split come out to 50/50.

We are currently set up to purchase via the 'net from Toyota, and I would welcome the ability to do this with many more OEM vendors. A networked link to various OEM vendors through Mitchell is something I would find beneficial.

TR

Jim Brown wrote:A networked link to various OEM vendors through Mitchell is something I would find beneficial.

TR

I couldn't have said it better.

I Third that motion!

So far this inquiry is limited to only one OE's potential interest, but that's one more than before.

Please everybody vote on these two POLL questions ASAP as I want to forward your opinions early next week.

We work mainly on diesel pickup trucks. I am including O.E. when I have to call International for Powerstroke parts, Cummins for Dodge Cummins parts etc. There is definetaly a market for O.E. parts. Dorman is generally a good source to check as well.