bjeong1381

arrrmand

my take on the whole parts/car scene is that the main demographic is young, and sometimes uneducated males who don't have good career/business acumen/etiquette, and therefore, cause lists like these to be created. there have been so many times when i'd see someone 'ghetto' lowball another and won't have the decency to treat the other with any sort of mutual respect (vendor AND customer)

i've encountered this at meets and photoshoots in the past (none of the s2k members) where people would try to bargain heavily on my price or even flat out say that it's too high to charge, which is pretty insulting, considering the fact that it's a service i'm providing.

anyway, all in all, i don't think that any of this can be changed just because of the nature of the scene.

stooken

it is what it is...

Frshnsokln

^ Well put Ken, Hows the Bimmer?

bjeong1381

I'm workin on your prices. Give me til monday at the latest and I will have them for you.

Ben777

The car parts business is what it is, it's always been that way. A long time ago, in another life, I was in the car parts business, and you are constantly dealing with people who expect everything, but aren't willing to pay for anything. Lots of dreamers and tire kickers, but few who actually had and were willing to spend the money to get what they wanted. The "quality" of many of the people you have to deal with on a daily basis, from suppliers, distributors, customers, etc. leaves much to be desired.

In short, the car business is a dirty business. You're gonna deal with crap every day. I decided it wasn't for me, and got out.

If you're in the business, everything that was mentioned in the original post and more comes with the territory. I can understand where the original author of the article is coming from, but I don't see it changing anytime soon. That's the nature of things.

wantone

Ben, funny you should mention the parts biz. In 1983 we were Momo, BBS, Recaro, Hella and Fuba's West Coast Dist. We later sold the business in 1985 with all our inventory to Performance Techniques in Sacramento. That guy closed his business after he built and sold the whole NOPI franchise.

The parts business was good back in the 80's when you could make 25% min on everything. This was possible because not everyone on earth knew where we were getting our supply from. It's a whole new animal now that you have 1. Internet, 2. Young kids who start off getting parts for themselves and friends and blowing out parts to meet quotas with reps, 3. Distributors competing with you in the same market eg. Tire Rack.

So now there are really just 2 groups of people making money on car parts- 1. The people delivering the parts to you (UPS), and 2. the installer (tuning garage). Again Tire Rack identified this long ago and now delivers the tires to the shop you like and the shops makes it off tire mounting/disposal...

Even now manufacturers aren't making money either. Most of their performance cams, exhausts, headers, everything are being knocked off. The money really isn't in the parts. Hiro said it best in that it's now all about the tuning. Speed Element, an EVO tuner in Fremont, charges $900 for ECU flash and tuning. No parts. Just labor and know how. That's the money!