Cheaper Toyota Spares

[IanML]

Had an argument with a stone pillar yesterday.  I now need a new moulding for the rear door (the one which follows the wheel arch).

I tried the local (Jersey) Toyota dealer - £56 plus sales tax of 5%.  Would  be a lot more in UK because VAT is 20%.

I then tried eBay - local offerings much the same, plus delivery costs,  but  Partsouq in the UAE for only £36 including Fedex delivery (genuine Toyota part).  The actual cost of the part was only £19!!!

Why pay more?

[Parts-King]

Was there no import duty to pay? Parts in the USA are much cheaper, but by the time you pay the import and carriage, you don't save that much 

[IanML]

In Jersey, I'd pay the 5% sales tax if the consignment was more than £240 incl carriage, so in this case, none.  In UK I'd pay 20% VAT plus £10 clearing, so about £54 in all, But the UK cost, incl. VAT would be nearly £78.  Check If you'd care to, the part no is 

75722-42020

[Parts-King]

That part is £44.81 plus VAT, £53.77 in total

 

[IanML]

Well, that's disgraceful - the Toyota dealer in Jersey quoted me £56, as I said.  So I saved, but in the UK, I would not.

[Parts-King]

The only thing about ordering from abroad is that if anything goes wrong, like it's the wrong part or does not fit, it is more hassle to sort out, but I do take your point

[IanML]

And I take yours.  It arrives tomorrow, so fingers crossed 🙂

[mrfixer]

Toyota price their parts according to what they think the local market will tolerate. I guess that is why UK parts prices are obscene.

I have a Toyota Avensis in the UK and also a Camry in Thailand, where I spend part of the year (officially retired now but am a passive partner in a used car sales company).

Toyota parts here in Thailand are mostly Japanese sourced and far cheaper than from UK dealers. I recently went to the dealer for front and rear engine mounts (the fluid filled ones). The bill was about £60.  The UK price would have been well in £00's...

Got a set of plug leads (5FSE engine) - in the UK about £120+, here about £50. And that is with a very weak £pound (its fallen by about 30% against Thai currency since the referendum).

Interestingly a lot of other products here in Thailand are the same price or more expensive than in the UK (e.g. mobile phones, TV's, computers, electrical and plumbing parts etc) so I don't believe the difference in spares parts pricing is due to taxes or transportation.

I remember in the UK a few years back we had a Celica that had been flooded and we wanted a new full moulded carpet. We actually had one express shipped from an Australian dealer and even with all the taxes it was still cheaper than from our local UK dealer. Insane!

Years ago I used to repair automatic transmissions and where possible we would order parts from the US. Buying official UK supplied parts cost a fortune. The suppliers would just think of a number, double it and add 10%.

[PeteB]

In the 1970s (when I was in my first very low paid job and every penny counted) I had a friend who was a partsman in a British Leyland dealer who used to give me trade discount of 60% (yes more than half!) on the very many parts I needed for my 1968 Riley Kestrel.

By the time I got rid of the car after 2 years I joked I'd had so many parts off him I should have been entitled to a "J" registration plate suffix instead of the "F" it came with!

[Parts-King]

2 hours ago, PeteB said:

In the 1970s (when I was in my first very low paid job and every penny counted) I had a friend who was a partsman in a British Leyland dealer who used to give me trade discount of 60% (yes more than half!) on the very many parts I needed for my 1968 Riley Kestrel.

By the time I got rid of the car after 2 years I joked I'd had so many parts off him I should have been entitled to a "J" registration plate suffix instead of the "F" it came with!

Those days are long gone. Very many parts these days have less than 20% margin, particularly body and "captive" parts. By captive I mean parts that you cannot get anywhere else other than the manufacturer. On trade parts sales (and TOC sales) we typically make a very small percentage, the same can be said for the new car market, there is little profit in a new car, the profit comes from add on's and hitting target.

[PeteB]

For the record, I didn't mean to imply that still happened, just an interesting aside.

Another one, I recall a newspaper article in the 1960s, when a Mini cost under £500 new, where the reporter had (it was claimed) obtained the over-the-counter retail price of every part needed to build a Mini and just the parts came to over £3,000!

[Parts-King]

None taken

If you applied parts retail prices for every component on a modern car I am sure it would be 100 times more expensive

 

[mrfixer]

On 10/22/2019 at 7:55 PM, Parts-King said:

Those days are long gone. Very many parts these days have less than 20% margin, particularly body and "captive" parts. By captive I mean parts that you cannot get anywhere else other than the manufacturer. On trade parts sales (and TOC sales) we typically make a very small percentage, the same can be said for the new car market, there is little profit in a new car, the profit comes from add on's and hitting target.

You're talking about the margin the dealer is making. How about Toyota GB's mark up?  I've spent the best part of a working lifetime in the motor industry and I don't think there is much of a relationship between ex-factory parts costs and what they retail for.  Those little Denso pressure switches that are on nearly all Toyota A/C systems can be bought from the Denso agent here in Thailand for about £10. Toyota dealers in the UK list them at a crazy price - £120 or something?

Of course the German manufacturers used to ask crazy prices for spares and that was the catalyst for the establishment of a whole parallel parts supply channel (ECP, GSF etc).

[Parts-King]

What I'm saying is that TGB ARE the ones making the money, not the dealer. 

Not that many years ago, somebody I know in a foundry told me they made con rods for manufacturers and they were made for 80p each, those same con rods retailed at £190 plus VAT, so somebody was making a killing, and it wasnt the dealer

 

[Jammacat]

On 10/8/2019 at 2:25 PM, IanML said:

Had an argument with a stone pillar yesterday.  I now need a new moulding for the rear door (the one which follows the wheel arch).

I tried the local (Jersey) Toyota dealer - £56 plus sales tax of 5%.  Would  be a lot more in UK because VAT is 20%.

I then tried eBay - local offerings much the same, plus delivery costs,  but  Partsouq in the UAE for only £36 including Fedex delivery (genuine Toyota part).  The actual cost of the part was only £19!!!

Why pay more?

Absolutely, having just paid near £10 for rear wiper rubber, I hope it works out well for you Ian, looks like a good find if you live in Jersey. Be interested to know how you get on. Hopefully the stone pillar incident will have a positive side 🙂👍.