When buying parts for you vehicle you have so many options it can be difficult to know which is best for you, your car, and your specific budget. A small sampling of available routes includes, OEM parts, Aftermarket parts, Upgraded parts, Rebuilt parts, Refurbished parts, Used parts, Take off parts, the list goes on and on. We’ll cover a few of these in this news post.
First to consider is your budget. Break-downs and failures always seem to happen at the most inopportune times. You may not have the ability to purchase new parts. Perhaps the original car parts are prone to failure from the factory, requiring an aftermarket part, or an upgraded part. Maybe original parts are no longer produced for your specific year and model. One of the best things you can do for yourself and your car is to do some research into the failure. This can be as simple as doing an online search for “your make/model/year” + “xyz broke/failure.” By knowing if this is a common problem you can be better prepared when it comes time to fix. A trusted mechanic and performance parts specialist should be able to make this known to you as well.
OEM parts: OEM, or Original Equipment Manufacturer parts (aka stock) are specifically parts that were originally featured on your vehicle at it’s time of construction. Frequently to save costs your vehicle manufacturer (Ford, Chevy, Subaru, etc.) will elect to use a third party for many of its serviceable components, such as brakes, struts, oil filters, differentials, spark plugs, fuel injectors, etc. Your dealer will certainly recommend only OEM parts be used. In fact dealers are usually required by the parent company to install only OEM parts for liability, and warranty issues. However, these are often the most costly of all non upgrade parts. And their availability is often limited to dealerships and direct dealers.
Aftermarket parts: Aftermarket parts is a bit of a misnomer, as they are also aftermarket car parts. However in this respect aftermarket parts are specifically ones which are of oem design, fit, and function, but of a different manufacture then ones originally fit to your vehicle. As with all things, the “devil’s in the details,” so it’s important to compare all aftermarket car parts to the original for fit, quality, and functionality. These parts are frequently far cheaper than OEM units, and sometimes offer the added benefit of revised and improved design and development.
Upgraded parts: Frequently if a car part is a known weak point an aftermarket performance company has stepped up to the plate and redesigned it to be better. These parts can range significantly in cost depending on the amount of engineering involved to produce them. But where an OEM unit may not be able to deal with added stresses, an upgraded performance car part could. An example of an Aftermarket Performance car part would be an RA gearset for a 2002-2005 Subaru WRX. As the stock transmission gearbox assembly is prone to failure under heavy driving conditions, RA has created a more durable unit. An RA gearset iis best left to the professional installation.
Rebuilt parts: Rebuilt parts have been rebuilt as the name suggest. Usually these are rebuilt OEM units using off the shelf components to clean and refurbish the individual part for service. The benefit of this is that you get OEM quality fit and function, without the associated costs. Rebuilt car parts typically have a “core charge” associated with their purchase. The parts house who performed the rebuilding process relies on constant stream of damaged cores to refurbish. This “core charge” can be a small fee or a staggering sum depending on how rare or valuable your damaged part is. Good news however, simply supply the parts distributor with the damaged car part and your receipt to receive the core charge back. Another potential drawback of rebuilt car parts is failure prone parts. If this particular part is a known weak point in your car’s engine, suspension, body, electrical, etc, system, it makes little sense to keep replacing it with the same part. This is a frequent and costly mistake in automotive repair. Although, for some parts, car manufacturers (Dodge, Chrysler, BMW, etc) there may no other repair route.
Refurbished parts: This is a crossover term which frequently means rebuilt car parts. However in some uses it can simply mean a part which may have a scratch or small defect which was rectified during, or shortly after production, but is a reduced price as it may not be 100 percent factory correct. Often times these are a sure bet for cost savings during the repair process.
Used Parts: If money is tight, and the part is resilient and not frequently replaced. A good example of this would be a fuel pump, transmission, engine, intercooler, blow off valve, etc. These parts are ones where the failure rate is low, and the new purchase price is high. This is often a sure bet for bigger car parts, like body parts, where the purchase plus a quick coat of paint is still cheaper than buying factory original.
Take Off parts: Take offs are parts which are considered “used” by a parts house or manufacturer but often times have never actually been used. Confused? Yeah, that happens. If automotive shop is building a performance engine for a customer. They purchased a complete factory short block (lets say from Subaru), which includes factory pistons, connecting rods, bearings, etc. The customer is upgrading to forged pistons (CP pistons), forged connecting rods (Eagle connecting rods), high performance bearings (ACL, Cosworth), oversized valves (Ferrea), and the shop is left holding a pile of unused car parts. These parts are typically classified as Take Off parts. They’ve never been used in a running condition, but have existed outside of their original packaging for a time. These parts are often much cheaper than new, and for all purposes in new condition.