5 Things to Know Before Buying oem casting parts company

This may cause a bit of a stir, but it's worth discussing. Some of you are staunch users of genuine, OE, brand-name appliance parts. I am not one of those people. Appliance parts are a significant expense in my business, second only to labor. My rough estimate is that I spend about $50,000 a year on parts. If I used exclusively genuine, new parts, that figure could easily increase by 20% or more.

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Control Boards:

You can buy new, genuine control boards and pay $200 plus a $60 core charge, or you can purchase directly from core-centric suppliers for $98 with no core charge. It sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, it's more complicated than just money.

1. The defect rate is definitely higher than new. I've purchased hundreds of reconditioned boards from core-centric suppliers. I would say that 1 in 50 will go bad within 30 days or be bad out of the box. I can't recall ever buying a new board from Servall that was bad out of the box.

2. You are charging your customer "new board" money. I had a moral dilemma with this for a while but found a solution. Guarantee your work, parts, and labor for one year. Chances are, you won’t hear from them again. I've had only two callbacks within the 60-day to one-year timeframe. The bottom line is this: you are offering your customer more than what they would get with a "new" board, and you get to make more money.

3. The core charge can be a hassle. Many of us have had over $500 in core money sitting in our vans. Buying a refurbished board eliminates that issue, keeping more money in your pocket!

Non-Complicated Generic Parts:

Let's talk about the Direct Drive lid switch part. I use at least three a week, between COD calls and my shop. They cost $16.29 at Servall, but I get generic ones for $2.20, saving over $14 each. I've been using this switch for about two years and have installed a few hundred. I've had ONE fail, and it wasn't even broken; the casting was filled in one of the mounting holes. If you calculate $14 times the 300 or so I've used, you'll conclude that I've saved a considerable amount.

I can apply the same savings to couplings: Servall: $6.89, generic $1.50, Servall: $14.50, generic $6.50, Servall: $15.60, generic $6.

I'm not even going to tell you how much a complete Duet water pump costs. (Hint: it's less than $20)

I'd like to mention one part specifically, the GE gas oven thermostat WB20K8. You can get it at Servall for $86, or from ERP for about $65. I know, it's only $20. The thing is, both parts are made by the same company, Harper Wyman. They are EXACTLY the same part; one comes in a bag, and one in a box.

I've used many hundreds of these parts and find them as good or better than genuine. Again, you'll get the very rare premature failure, but it's more like 1 in a hundred with this stuff. If you're using this stuff in bulk, it makes financial sense to use it.

Electricky Complicated Stuff

Quite frankly, I don't use them. I had a bad experience with some VMW lid locks that were dirt cheap, like $16, but none of them worked. I don't use that many of them, so the savings are not significant to me. Genuine sensors are dirt cheap, so I'd rather buy those. I'll eventually warm up to them again. It takes time.

Conclusion:

There is a time and place for generic parts. I genuinely believe that some aftermarket companies aim to make good products and end the OEM monopoly. Some companies sell cheap junk. You have to try a company or a line of parts before buying in bulk. For me, it's worth the slight aggravation based on how much extra money it puts in my pocket every year. Ultimately, you should do what's best for you and your business.

An OES is a third-party manufacturer for an OEM Vehicle Manufacturer (most basic definition). The typical car company (like Volvo) simply does not have the capacity to manufacture every part they need to make a car. It's much more cost-effective to contract with specialty manufacturers. This is true for many complex industries, and automotive is just one example. Specialty manufacturers can produce parts more efficiently, faster, and often have more experience to produce better parts.

Typically, a supplier change or engineering/design change results in the OEM superseding the part number to a new one. Some Volvo part numbers have been superseded many times. These supersession chains can also be due to continuing development to use the same part on newer/more models (e.g., using stronger axles for a turbo model on a non-turbo model as an HD upgrade can eliminate the original part).

If the OEM vehicle manufacturer changes suppliers at some point, the new supplier can now be called OES even though that part is not original to the car. So keep in mind that OES does not necessarily mean it is the same as the part that was originally installed in the car at the factory.

Original Equipment Supplier seems simple on the surface.

In most cases, you can get the same OE-engineered part, just not in an OEM-branded box (e.g., blue Volvo branded box).

Many times, you can see where the OEM branding has been ground off the castings or stickers removed from the parts. This is because the OES manufacturer does not have the licensing rights to sell products using the vehicle manufacturer's brand name or trademark.

A good example is the OES Aisin water pumps IPD sells. Aisin does a manufacturing run for Volvo and produces extra units for their own channel but they grind off the Volvo branding from the casting. Aisin also does not include new bolts with the pump because Volvo didn’t source the bolts from them as part of the pump. Aisin may not even know what bolts are used in any given application since Volvo doesn’t have any obligation to tell them. IPD provides new bolts with our pump kits to make them a direct replacement for Volvo-branded kits at a lower price.

Most aftermarket parts sources will label a parts manufacturer as OES since they are OES for some parts but will not differentiate for each model or application. Some just flag a whole brand as OES because they are OES for one car manufacturer. But being an OES supplier for one part does not make a supplier OES for the entire vehicle.

Generally speaking, OES parts are the most cost-effective quality option. However, there can be aftermarket options that are better.

There are even some OES suppliers that will make lower quality versions of the OE parts for their aftermarket supply channel. We don’t generally see this in the European car market, but it's possible. It’s usually not cost-effective for lower volume manufacturing runs to retool for a cheaper version. We’ve even seen cases where the original OES manufacturer is still selling the old version of a redesigned part through their aftermarket channel after Volvo re-engineered the part and moved to a new manufacturer.

At IPD, we attempt to match OES parts to OEM parts and ensure they are equivalent. We don’t like to list something as OES when it isn’t equivalent to OEM. Many parts suppliers are blurring or eliminating the line between OEM and OES, which isn’t really full disclosure. This is why IPD is moving away from the deceptive OEM terminology and using the term Genuine.

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