Rip off spare body parts from VW

[Dustydog]

So a slight scrape to the N/S /F wing moulding . The plastic moulding is £340 +vat...I can buy it from Lithuania for £89.00. But dodgy if it’s wrong.
Well you know where VW can stick it. I’ll pay this time but next year back to good solid reliable reasonably priced Kia.

 

[Niall_McIntosh]

Maybe a silly question, but does the whole thing have to be replaced? Can it not be repaired?

 

[RogerL]

So a slight scrape to the N/S /F wing moulding . The plastic moulding is £340 +vat...I can buy it from Lithuania for £89.00. But dodgy if it’s wrong.
Well you know where VW can stick it. I’ll pay this time but next year back to good solid reliable reasonably priced Kia.

That's owning what is effectively a Porsche SUV with an Audi diesel engine - a Hyundai/Kia would be cheaper but simply not in the same class.

 

[Dustydog]

Sadly no. It’s not just the plastic but the clips moulded in. No more VW for me.

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

There are breakers who specialise in vw and other German makes! Worth a try.

 

[otherclive]

Sorry to hear of your accident damage, but there’s no saying a Kia might be better in regards to its ability to be fixed.

 

[Dustydog]

There are breakers who specialise in vw and other German makes! Worth a try.

True and I have tried. The problem and I expect it’s not just VW is the moulding includes all the plastic fasteners. If they are broken or absent the whole piece is worthless. According to my body shop expert the weak one shot fasteners are the Achilles heal. Just like our one shot hub nuts!!

 

[Dustydog]

Sorry to hear of your accident damage, but there’s no saying a Kia might be better in regards to its ability to be fixed.

Kia’s are designed for a very different rugged territory. Having had them for 15 years no parts ever cost VW numbers!

 

[Lutz]

Body panels are quite large and need substantial and costly warehouse floor space for spare parts storage. It is normal within the industry to charge 10 times the actual material cost for such parts. I don't think VW is alone in such practice. The plastic rear bumper panel for my BMW cost around £650 (without paint and fasteners) so the £300 that VW is asking for the wing moulding doesn't sound excessive.

 

[Damian]

So a slight scrape to the N/S /F wing moulding . The plastic moulding is £340 +vat...

Thats not so bad!!!
Some kind person knocked the o/s wing mirror off my Vectra and the new mirror was £208.

 

[Dustydog]

Apparently it is possible to buy the same part from VW in Lithunia for £89.00. A step,too far for me. I understand your comment Lutz but I can’t help feeling ripped off. So the purists on here may well say a manufacturer should advertise at the point of sale of their cars how much their spares will cost🤔🤔🤔🤔

 

[otherclive]

Kia’s are designed for a very different rugged territory. Having had them for 15 years no parts ever cost VW numbers!

Understand as I had a Sorento generation 1 and at 70 k miles it hadn’t put a foot wrong and it got used for off road jaunts with a club on Salisbury Plain.. When we decided to change cars I test drove the generation 2 but it didn’t do anything for me. It could have been any soft roader, and since then Kia have continued that theme. However they have still maintained a good reputation for reliability and you get 7 years warranty, but you really cannot say how much body parts cost until you need them. I suspect most makes charge disproportionately for such parts, especially in a “ wealthy” country as ours. I’ve generally gone with the view that prestige cars cost prestige money to own, and reliability doesn’t necessarily come as standard.

 

[Woodentop]

Isn't duty now payable on VW parts from Germany but there would be no change from Korea?

 

[otherclive]

Isn't duty now payable on VW parts from Germany but there would be no change from Korea?

I cannot imagine any tariff would be so high as to inflate the U.K. price so high compared to Lithuania. Under WTO rules don’t you have to charge the same tariff irrespective of source in order to stop discrimination? But the trade agreement between UK and EU is tariff free and quota free isn’t it if the items meet the percentage source criteria. Items from Korea would have had tariff unless the EU agreed to zero tariff. But as you say there should be no changes in that source. An area where such criteria isn’t met is where a U.K. charity exports used clothes to Lithuania for sale in Eastern Europe. As the clothes are generally made in Asia they don’t meet the sourcing conditions as minimal value is added here. Net result five containers a week used to leave Newcastle. Now it’s averaging less than one. Charity cash flow has dropped to near zero.

 

[Lutz]

Apparently it is possible to buy the same part from VW in Lithunia for £89.00. A step,too far for me. I understand your comment Lutz but I can’t help feeling ripped off. So the purists on here may well say a manufacturer should advertise at the point of sale of their cars how much their spares will cost🤔🤔🤔🤔

I would imagine that the part that you can apparently get for £89.00 from Lithuania is either from a stolen car that has been broken down for spares or they are cheap copies, but hardly an original VW factory approved replacement part,

 

[ProfJohnL]

The reason as Lutz explained for the cost of such parts for cars happens to be exactly the same for caravan mouldings!

 

[Buckman]

Apparently it is possible to buy the same part from VW in Lithunia for £89.00. A step,too far for me. I understand your comment Lutz but I can’t help feeling ripped off. So the purists on here may well say a manufacturer should advertise at the point of sale of their cars how much their spares will cost🤔🤔🤔🤔

Imagine the cost of a car if you built it from spare parts!

 

[Lutz]

Another reason for the high cost of spares is that the manufacturer may not have the facility for storing enough spare parts. If he runs out of them he would have to do a production re-run of a relatively small quantity just to cover the need for replacement parts. The cost of setting up such a re-run spread over maybe just a handful of parts is immense. Often, the manufacturer will already have de-commissioned the tooling to make way for current model production, so the tools have to be brought back into the factory or the work outsourced to an outside supplier. Both alternatives are relatively costly.

 

[JezzerB]

They are all the same- friend needed a plastic cover for the towball hatch on a Renault van-about 4x4'' cost-over £60! It had just 'gone missing'. PRobably someone's fell off and they took it at that price!

 

[Deckchair]

I am restoring an old classic car and there are only 2 dealers that sell the parts I need, and their prices are both the same, Astronomical to say the least!.

 

[Dustydog]

VW U.K. decently replied by return to my pricing enquiry.

“I am sorry to learn you are unhappy with the price of a part for your Volkswagen Touareg. Your enquiry has reached Volkswagen UK Head Office; our role is as an importer of Volkswagen Group vehicles to the UK and to provide sales and after sales care, we have no input to the pricing for parts. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

I have forwarded your feedback to the factory who will be able to investigate further and action, if necessary.”

I guess most of the cost is as Lutz suggests and possibly transport costs from the factory in Eastern Europe.
Ironically the diesel glow plugs only cost £12.03 each. Weird when you think about high-tech engine parts versus plastic mouldings. Live and learn.

 

[otherclive]

VW U.K. decently replied by return to my pricing enquiry.

“I am sorry to learn you are unhappy with the price of a part for your Volkswagen Touareg. Your enquiry has reached Volkswagen UK Head Office; our role is as an importer of Volkswagen Group vehicles to the UK and to provide sales and after sales care, we have no input to the pricing for parts. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

I have forwarded your feedback to the factory who will be able to investigate further and action, if necessary.”

I guess most of the cost is as Lutz suggests and possibly transport costs from the factory in Eastern Europe.
Ironically the diesel glow plugs only cost £12.03 each. Weird when you think about high-tech engine parts versus plastic mouldings. Live and learn.

Car pricing is a nightmare. No rhyme nor reason. I’ve got to have a front drive shaft replaced. Repacking it with grease last July worked for a while in quietening the slight knock but it’s coming back and have only done 2300 miles. The supplying car dealer quoted £650 last July. Subaru Franchise quoted £422 today. No competition.

 

[Lutz]

VW U.K. decently replied by return to my pricing enquiry.

“I am sorry to learn you are unhappy with the price of a part for your Volkswagen Touareg. Your enquiry has reached Volkswagen UK Head Office; our role is as an importer of Volkswagen Group vehicles to the UK and to provide sales and after sales care, we have no input to the pricing for parts. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

I have forwarded your feedback to the factory who will be able to investigate further and action, if necessary.”

I guess most of the cost is as Lutz suggests and possibly transport costs from the factory in Eastern Europe.
Ironically the diesel glow plugs only cost £12.03 each. Weird when you think about high-tech engine parts versus plastic mouldings. Live and learn.

Bulk shipments actually result in minimal transport cost per unit. When we were shipping windscreens to our factory in Spain, well below £1 was added to the piece price.
Diesel glow plugs don't take up much floor space in the warehouse so storing them is relatively cheap compared with a big body panel. Besides, I would also think that there is a bigger demand for replacement glow plugs than a wing moulding, so glow plugs can be purchased by the car manufacturer in much larger quantities, resulting in volume cost benefits.

 

[RogerL]

There's always pricing differences for common parts in multi-brand groups - Kia service parts seem to be cheaper than Hyundai - Skoda parts may be cheaper than Audi but Saab were cheaper than Vauxhall so there's no logic in it.

 

[Lutz]

Car pricing is a nightmare. No rhyme nor reason. I’ve got to have a front drive shaft replaced. Repacking it with grease last July worked for a while in quietening the slight knock but it’s coming back and have only done 2300 miles. The supplying car dealer quoted £650 last July. Subaru Franchise quoted £422 today. No competition.

I would imagine that supplying car dealer had a different source for the replacement part than the Subaru franchise. Unlike the Subaru franchise the supplying car dealer may not have purchased directly from the factory, but through a wholesaler who also wants to cash in on the deal.
I believe that dealers can no longer be compelled to source replacement parts from the factory. If they can get them cheaper from China it's up to them, but they do have to ensure that non-factory parts are not substandard.