Bringing Your Own Parts/Fluids to Mechanic

Drake

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I don't have the space/tools in my current living situation to much of my own maintenance, but I'm wondering what your experiences have been if you've tried buying regular maintenance things like oil, brake pads, filters, etc. yourself and bringing them to a shop to do the labor. Do many refuse to use stuff you bought yourself (even if it's high-quality, brand-name items)? If they are willing, do they still charge you an arm-and-a-leg, negating any savings you may have hoped for by buying the parts/fluids yourself? I anticipate independent shops may be more receptive to this than dealers.
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Time4boost

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In my experience, yes they will let you and just charge you labor. You should call and ask before you do, so that you don’t waste and your time and I think it’s a nice thing to do anyway.
 

calonzo

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In my experience, yes they will let you and just charge you labor. You should call and ask before you do, so that you don’t waste and your time and I think it’s a nice thing to do anyway.
I have done that with a local mechanic. Never tried to do it with a dealer.
 

xcoreflyup

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It depends on the shop, some allow it, some dont not. I do it regular with my current mechanics.
 


Gherbo23

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I called a local shop about installing a few parts before I decided to do everything myself instead. They said they won’t touch my aftermarket stuff because “you wouldn’t bring your own steak to a restaurant” so I said “well if all you have is a 50$ chuck on the menu and I want a New York strip, then I’m not gonna go to your restaurant”. Besides, most cooks will cook your steak for you if you pay them to so his analogy didn’t even make sense lol.

I think it depends shop to shop, but around me it’s either dumb expensive or they won’t touch it. I was told they only carry parts that match oe standards, or can order something that they think exceeds it for me. I’m not playing that game, you install the part I want or you don’t install it at all.

IME, shops taking on your parts won’t be cheap, and they’re going to have an attitude about it since they profit less and probably think you have no idea what you’re talking about at first since it’s a “commuter car”. I think your best bet is to post in the regionals and find someone who’s got a spot to work on a car and help you out for a little money for their time and some beer. You’ll learn about how the car works and it’ll be nice knowing your car has your blood sweat and tears put into it. and in my case a small chunk of my pinky in the rotor
 

disgraced.fk8

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I called a local shop about installing a few parts before I decided to do everything myself instead. They said they won’t touch my aftermarket stuff because “you wouldn’t bring your own steak to a restaurant” so I said “well if all you have is a 50$ chuck on the menu and I want a New York strip, then I’m not gonna go to your restaurant”. Besides, most cooks will cook your steak for you if you pay them to so his analogy didn’t even make sense lol.

I think it depends shop to shop, but around me it’s either dumb expensive or they won’t touch it. I was told they only carry parts that match oe standards, or can order something that they think exceeds it for me. I’m not playing that game, you install the part I want or you don’t install it at all.

IME, shops taking on your parts won’t be cheap, and they’re going to have an attitude about it since they profit less and probably think you have no idea what you’re talking about at first since it’s a “commuter car”. I think your best bet is to post in the regionals and find someone who’s got a spot to work on a car and help you out for a little money for their time and some beer. You’ll learn about how the car works and it’ll be nice knowing your car has your blood sweat and tears put into it. and in my case a small chunk of my pinky in the rotor
I second this, there are a lot of people that would be willing to install parts for lower price than a shop. Of course, if anything goes wrong they are not going to be held liable unless you sign something, which I doubt they would want to do. I'll install parts for people for like 20 or 25 an hour all day, but I'm certainly not going to sign anything legal.

I'm actually trying to get people to know I'm willing to do this and bring in a little side business, I freaking love modding and working on newer cars. Older stuff is a pain but if its less than like 5 years old it's usually pretty easy. I'm sure you can find people like me in your area lol.
 

CTSteve

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Any well run business has a business plan. In an auto repair shop that usually includes making a profit on both labor and parts. So, you shouldn't be surprised that they will not let you bring your own parts on which the profit has already gone to the source from which you have obtained them. Perhaps with an independent shop you could negotiate a surcharge on the labor to compensate for the loss of margin on the parts. Perhaps you can find an individual independent mechanic that will be willing to work this way just to get the labor rate, and you may be get as good a job, or better, or not, but probably not guaranteed. On simple things such as brake pads and rotors perhaps you can do it yourself with a little help from a more experienced friend. However, even seemingly simple things such as oil and filter changes are not as simple as they used to be. The likelihood that a dealer is going to let you supply parts is slim. In addition to the loss of revenue, there are legal liability, contractual, and warrantee issues on both the job and the car in general.
 
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CVTsport18

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I've never had a dealer or independent shop decline to use anything I've brought. The oil changes I've had done on the Civic were with the oil and filters I bought ahead of time and supplied. Just charged labor.
 

Mrbadwrench

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The shop I go to has a big sign that says absolutely no carry in parts.
 


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Drake

Drake

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So far I'm gathering there is not one clear answer to this question, which was not totally unexpected. It looks like calling ahead is the best course of action and it could be anyone's guess what their policy would be. I appreciate everyone sharing their experiences
 

jlamb30

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It's not much different from buying tires online, and going to a shop to have them mounted and balanced. Some shops will gladly do it, others will not. Independent shops are going to be more likely to work with you as opposed to a dealership.

I find face-to-face to be better than calling. Explain your situation, and that you have particular fluids/filters that you like to use. It's harder for someone to tell you no face-to-face than over the phone, especially if you are friendly and respectful.
 

DRUSA

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So far I'm gathering there is not one clear answer to this question, which was not totally unexpected. It looks like calling ahead is the best course of action and it could be anyone's guess what their policy would be. I appreciate everyone sharing their experiences
Dealership here.

Our dealership doesn't give 2 sh!ts if you bring your own parts. This is because we have our own parts department. At a dealership, we are completely separate departments. Service makes all their money off of labor and parts obviously makes their money from parts sales. You bringing your own parts to a dealer only screws over the parts dept, the service dept (techs) get paid the exact same but you get to save money on the parts. So you get the same job without the markup. I would recommend this to all our customers if they could to be honest.

The only problem you will run into here is with warranty work due to the repair. If it's a genuine Honda part, you will get 100% of the warranty. You bring in some autozone part we won't warranty the job if the part fails. So for example, you bring in an autozone alternator and it fails 2 weeks later, we won't replace it again for free just because you brought it to us, you'll pay twice since it's a non-Honda part.

Where you are seeing these shops say "no outside parts" is for a couple reasons. First being that they are buying the parts at wholesale pricing and marking them up to sell back to you. They are making money off the parts sale and the labor of the repair, so they are losing out on money. Second reason being is that they don't want the quality of the repair to now be dependent on your discount shed part. If you bought some shady part and it fails 2 days later, it makes the shop look bad, so it's quality control. Another is they may have had so many customers bring in the wrong parts they are tired of it. Lots of reasons here.
 

DRUSA

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Pro move here would be to buy OEM parts online and have it installed at a dealer. Then it comes with the warranty, you get the highest trained people doing the repair, and you got it cheaper than anyone who walked in the door. And FYI, you can totally request a technician of your choice to work on the car. I have several customers that specify they only want me (master tech) working on their S2000 or Type R or just their 97 Accord. Tell them you only want one of the higher trained technicians working on the car, you can do that.

Working at a dealer who charges $150/hr, I get it, we aren't cheap. But man....if you only knew how many jobs I do a day because the other shop was $50 cheaper and they screwed up, so now the repair has to be done twice for more than it would have been if they just went to the dealer the first time around.
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