Worldpac, IMC and the other major parts distribution houses increasingly carry less and less actual MB parts in their inventories. Back in the old days (10 years ago and before) they used to carry significant REAL MB parts inventory, because they were able to get it for good prices and actually make money on it.
In recent years, MB has largely shut down the channels for their own parts, so that more and more MB factory parts are sold through MB dealer channels. This is the result of MB's effort to make their parts business more profitable and to steer more parts revenue through their own channels, and to shut down the aftermarket.
The parts distributors have been massively selling off NOS MB parts over the past 10 years, particularly stuff that doesn't move quickly. This is because it costs them massive amounts of money to stock stuff that may sell one part every year or 5 years. They'd rather stock stuff that they can buy and move quickly, resulting in booked revenue and turnover. And the fact that the margins on these companies' businesses has been shrinking for the past 20 years, so they need cash, and lots of it, to keep operating.
My friend Robert Fenton has been capitalizing on this shedding of inventory from the major distributors for many years, and this is a major source as to how he has acquired his Bay Area warehouse of MB NOS parts. For example, IMC would call him up and say, "Hey, we have 50 fuel pumps for Pagodas on hand, and we want to get rid of them ASAP." Robert would negotiate a price that would be perhaps 60-80% off the wholesale price, and then buy their entire stock of the fuel pumps in one shot. Then he can turn around and sell them, say for wholesale or dealer list, or higher to someone who is DESPERATE for these NLA pumps, and still make a HUGE profit on them. It's pure genius, but of course you have to have the cash on hand to buy these parts in bulk when they come up. And then the connections to sell them.
If the parts distributors ARE selling MB parts, it's as the
@gsxr says, they custom-order them from MB at a slightly-under-wholesale cost (not much less than WE pay for them), and then sell them to the public at a slightly discounted price from list. It's why you see AutohauZ selling a $20.00 MB part for $19.00 ("see, we offer a great discount off of factory list!!!), when we can order that same part for 26% off of factory price plus free shipping.
When it comes to aftermakret / OEM parts, like a Lemforder or something, the game is completely different. Here, they can discount the crap out of things, because they get these OEM parts at good prices. Sometimes, as we have found, these aftermarket parts are the actual MB parts witih the stars ground off. Other times, they are the "discount" aftermarket versions of these parts, as is often the case with things like the TRW front LCAs for the 124 -- inferior quality parts from the get-go, as compared to the "professional" line of parts they supply to MB at a significantly higher price.
These parts distributors do the very best - and make the most bucks - on parts like URO and Febi and Meyle. They sell these parts to uneducated buyers and/or independent repair shops who don't mind shafting their customers and foisting crappy parts upon them. The better shops (with scruples) WILL NOT sell their customers these crap parts. But in these cases, often Meyle and Febi parts are "good enough" to install on customers' vehicles, and work at least for a year or three until they fail -- enough time so that the customer either gets rid of the car or enough time has gone by that the shop can say "Hey, it's not our fault, the part worked for two years !!"
The VERY WORST shops are those who resell crap (Meyle, Uro, Febi, Trucktec, etc.) parts to their customers for FULL MB RETAIL PRICES. That is just pure, unmitigated GREED.
And these cheap Chinese parts are a gold mine for the distributors, too! They buy a URO upper strut mount (MB part number
124 320 14 44) for $2.50 apiece, and sell it to a shop for $7.50. Bazinga!! They just made 200% beyond what they paid for the part. Pure gold !!
Then the shop or distributor turns around and sells the URO strut mount to a customer for $15 a pop, retail. Bazinga!! The shop/retailer just doubled their money on that part -- 100% profit !! If they are unscrupulous, the shop will do the following:
- Buys the URO part for $7.50. (Note, the MB list price for the part is $87.00)
- Sell the part to the customer for $65.00, loudly showing the customer the list price of $87, and the uninformed customer sees the $22 off of the list price and thinks the independent shop is a GREAT GUY for giving them such a major discount on the part)
- Bazinga !! The shop just made a total of $57.50 (times two strut mounts....$115!) PURE PROFIT on a part that only cost them $7.50.
Do the math. It can get pretty lucrative for a shop selling Harbor Fright parts this way -- or at least help them keep the lights on and pay their mechanics.
I've also seen numerous cases where independent shops will sell their better customers good (OE MB or good OEM) parts, and will sell their unknown or low-end customers the crap parts. Sort of a bifurcated strategy depending on the customer profile and tolerance for having things done (fixed and out) vs. done RIGHT (a customer worth keeping for the long term).
Seems to me like customer discrimination and profiling....isn't that illegal in the state of California?
Cheers,
Gerry
