“Why is your alternator so expensive? I called Autozone and it is only $79.95 with a lifetime guarantee!” Several years ago I bought a used 1996 Ford crew cab 3/4 ton diesel truck to tow my race car. One of the selling points was the owner telling me he had just put in an Autozone “Duralast Gold” BRAND NEW, alternator with a lifetime warranty and the paperwork was in the glove box. I can be as cheap as anyone else, so every time I saw the alternator warning light illuminated with the engine running I used that warranty to get another “premium” alternator from Autozone. They exchanged it every time with no hassle. Having used the warranty 6 times in about three years, I started thinking about how lucky I had been never to have had my battery power running out 100 miles from home at 2:00 AM with a race car trailer behind my truck. One of these days I was going to be royally screwed and the warranty would not really help the situation. So I bit the bullet and bought a Motorcraft rebuilt from A-Line Auto Parts and installed it at my expense. It only had a one year warranty, but is working fine 6 years later. How extravagant the warranty is has nothing to do with the quality of the part. Alternator and starter “remanufacturers” seem to be engaged in an ongoing price war to see who can build units cheaper to win contracts with Autozone, O’Reilly, Advance, Pep Boys, etc. These corporations don’t worry about the failure rate too much. They are going to have a high percentage of returns anyway because of misdiagnosis when their units are installed in the parking lot by weekend mechanics. Don’s Automotive has an account with the wholesale arm of Autozone, but they receive a very small percentage of our parts business because of quality problems and catalog errors. Contrary to what much of the public assumes, many of their parts are actually grossly overpriced. Well known fast moving items are cheap, but something like a motor mount for a Toyota is typically a really crappy China sourced piece that costs more than the retail price of a quality unit from the Toyota dealer.

Buying automotive repair parts is a never-ending research project for best reliability, availability and price. The order in which I placed these three factors is intentional. Availability and price are of no benefit if the part is defective out of the box or defective a week after installed. One of our wholesale suppliers tracks warranty return rates on all of their part numbers. I call and ask them for statistics on a Nippendenso rebuilt starter for a Camry: “Last year sold 431, 2 came back.” I ask them about the Bosch part number, (Bosch being a less expensive brand which is also very easy to find in lots of local parts stores): “Last year we sold 547 and 73 came back.” Doesn’t bode so well.

Are dealer parts always better? Short answer: “Depends.” Sometimes the aftermarket part comes from the same original manufacturer and the difference is 100% in the box, the part number and the price.

It is a constant battle to keep up with parts issues. We do our best and make no apology for being paid for our time and knowledge by marking up the price of the parts we sell .