Cost of spares.

[Pistonbroke]

This type of thing can often be found in generic form by trawling through an "RS" catalogue.

Industrial Solutions & Electrical Components | RS

RS is the leading provider of industrial and electronic solutions. Secure online ordering, same-day dispatch & free delivery available.

uk.rs-online.com

Dealer had it in stock,needed it quick,arrived next morning,bill came a month later. Hit roof,rang dealer rang other dealers,all same price. Too late to shop round then. Looked like a twenty quid part in my hand

 

[box]

A Mikuni carb for a 125 twostroke came to over £60 from across the pond with postage etc as i did not want a chineseium one. Looking at it makes me think it is a chineseium one at 3 times the cost from China...DOH

I replaced the Mikuni carb on my Grizzly with a Chinese one, it worked OK for a bit and then fell apart (fortunately all the bits stayed inside the carb assembly), I put it back together properly and it's been working well to this day. Jetting is a bit off, it runs a touch lean, it needs warming up for about 20 seconds on a frosty morning or it's undriveable.

At one point when the Chinese one went wrong, I tried to make the two carbs into one but the slight differences between the two mean that not many parts would interchange properly....the usual story when I comes to knockoff stuff I guess. I emailed the seller and asked him to send another one out, he insisted that I courier it back to him so he could send it back to his Chinese supplier first, before they would authorize another unit to be sent to me.

I could get 7 Chinese carbs for the price of one genuine one.
I could get 4 Chinese carbs for the price of the parts needed to rebuild the old one.

You get what you pay for.

It's always amazed me how you can get a whole brand new machine for, let's say, $100,000. But if you get each part individually and build your own machine, you might pay $2-300,000 just for the parts. How does that work? Obviously there's some cost involved in storage, handling, packaging and freight of the parts, but surely it doesn't warrant a 300% mark up? Someone's taking the mickey.....I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say it's the dealer.

I ordered a pair of tie rod/track rod/steering rod whatever ends for my little Same, they were going to be over $150 each. I said don't worry about it, I'll just weld some flat washers over them and stick a grease nipple on the back. 5 minutes later, the phone rang, the price suddenly dropped to $74 each. Still expensive for what they are, but hey, they're in an SDF genuine parts box so must be good. It certainly makes you wonder.

Let's not get me started on a rant about dealers.....

 

[Farmer Roy]

Years ago, the safety switch on the clutch of my Buell ( owned by Harley Davidson ) motorcycle failed. Local Harley dealer hadn’t even heard of Buell, let alone find a part number for the switch.
Was working on my Suzuki DR650 & realised the switches looked similar. They were actually the same switch. Bought a generic off the shelf switch for a Suzuki for only a few dollars . . .