When It Comes to Purchasing Car Parts, Is "You Get What You Pay For" Still True?

We've all heard the expression "You Get What You Pay For". When it comes to purchasing replacement car parts, is it always true? Do you always have to buy the best parts for your car that you can afford? Are you putting your car in danger, if you don't buy OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) Parts? Should you always look for a familiar brand name of auto part?

I think that the answer to all these questions is NO.

The world of car parts is changing. Like most other products, production is moving from the western world to Asia. The primary advantage of this is lower production costs. In times past, if you bought something from Asia, it was most likely a cheap copy made with inferior materials that would not stand up to the tests of time. But now, all of the major car parts manufacturing companies have manufacturing plants in Asia, which produce high quality parts. This influx of mainly European Manufacturers has brought European Engineers and European quality control procedures with it. This is driving up the quality of all manufacturing in Asia. The competition from European owned and operated manufacturing companies in Asia is causing the inferior manufactures in Asia to go bankrupt, which is leading to less inferior products coming from Asia.

Because of this increase in quality from lower priced auto parts suppliers, it is now less important to pay extra money for a name brand car part. The lower priced parts are increasing in quality, so paying the extra money to have a part stamped with a high quality European label isn't necessary now. The difference in quality between a made in Europe auto part and a made in Asia car part has never been lower.

The higher prestige a manufacturing company has, the more they will charge for their parts. But what do you get for the massive increase in price? Most of the time the quality will be higher, but at what price? Is the increase in quality always worth it? Most of the time, it's not. Most people will not hold their used car long enough for an auto part warranty to expire.

If you don't want to pay a lot of money for a car part, you won't necessarily "Get What You Paid For."

How can you make sure that you are not buying a junk auto part? Find a company that has been around a while, and will stand behind their parts with a good warranty. If a company has been selling discount parts for years, the company will have already figured out who the best manufacturers are and aren't. Fly-By-Night companies are here today and gone tomorrow. Find a company that has been in business for at least a few years and verify their contact information.

Pete Rothenbacher is the owner of www.HansAutoParts.com, which sells both OEM and Aftermarket Parts for VW Cars and has been selling car parts since 2002.

By Pete Rothenbacher