A few weeks ago our Focus wing mirror cover was knocked off - a simple piece of plastic. Cost £9 plus my input of painting it. It was possible to pay three or four times as much - which is probably what a garage would charge.

However, if parts are too cheap, the firm will go out of business. A few months ago our old Hotpoint washing machine stopped, flashing all its lights. U-tube informed me of the known fault of a blown capacitor. I replaced it with one bought at Maplins, cost 80p. I would happily have paid ten times as much for a part so complex compared to a simple piece of plastic.

Thanks for the link, ORB. That Black Sea site is an eye-opener, Private Eye on steroids. (Take a look at the reports on David Beckham!)

This is hardly a recent thing, we in Britain (other european countries vary) have been paying through the nose for car spare parts, (and innumerable other things), for decades.

I ran American cars now and again at one time, the cost of spare parts from the few factors who imported them here by the container-load were an eye opener, less than half the price you would expect to pay for an equivalent size of european vehicle.

We didn't get a fair crack of the whip over european (German/Swedish makes first), until Eurocarparts and German& Swedish started up, this led to other motor factors agreeing to sell to the public, where the two mentioned scored is the quality of the parts for sale (often OE standard if not actually named) when compared to what was sold in the typical accessory shops of the time.

Before the internet, how many others remember huge lists of parts in magazine (exchange and mart) adverts for the above factors, where good make items like water pumps brakes clutches bearings for Merc/BMW/Porsche were way cheaper than we could find them anywhere for other makes.

Japanese cars of the time were a little different, invariably only service items were needed because as a rule they didn't go wrong unless seriously neglected, if they did the genuine parts were not as expensive as was generally thought, ie a genuine cambelt kit for a Toyota Supra being around £60, and the same car needed some parts for the gearbox which were not only quickly supplied but relatively well priced...also how many other makes could you have bought gearbox internals for in the 80's, or now?

The last 30 years have been much better for the home mechanic, and now with online spares available (though care has to be taken when buying), our main servicing friction and consumable parts have never been so cheap,even with the 20% the govt takes.

This is little help to the non mechanical car buyer or those who insist on dealer only spares and service after warranty expires, but in a still partly free country people can do as they wish, and one can only assume they have the funds or they'd be getting their hands dirty learning to fix their own, like those of us who didn't have the funds did in our younger days.

Edited by gordonbennet on 03/06/2018 at 10:32