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The Great Online Auto Parts Fail
This is the story of my actual experience ordering online auto parts. Life lessons are everywhere, and this is a lesson in systems, quality control, and what happens when you try to save a little money on an old car.
Oh, have I mentioned that I am a former member of the Society of Automotive Engineers? I also have spent time as an ISO auditor in the places that make this stuff. (here’s a useful link). A little knowledge can be dangerous.
Back Story
Since I shipped my Mustang to its spawning grounds (Michigan) I’ve been driving a boring white car. This is because I drive a lot, and because it is good at hauling. It recently rolled over to 100K miles. As they so often do, the check engine light came on shortly thereafter.
PS: I keep my cars for a long time. This is the 9th car I’ve had that rolled over to 100K, which used to be kind of a big deal. Cars are better now than they ever were, so it is not a big deal.
The Initial Diagnosis
The typical first order of business when the engine light comes on and it seems harmless is to drive it to the local auto parts store. There, a minimally trained technician read the OBD system with his little gadget. Note: If the “hot” light comes on, do not do this. Pull over and call somebody.
After doing so, the determination was printed out on the little strip of paper that my catalytic converter was dead. Since my brain works like this, I immediately asked three unanswerable questions: 1. Who trained the technician? 2. Was his gadget calibrated properly? 3. Was the problem with the converter or the sensor system which is supposed to collect data and spew it onto the little piece of paper?
The Second (More Authoritative) Opinion
Based on these three unanswerable questions, I decided not to accept risk, and instead consult a supposedly more reliable person for confirmation. The repair shop around the corner from me is supposedly “ASE Certified”.
More unanswerable questions: #4. Is the technician’s certification current? #5. Did the certified technician actually run the diagnostic or did the new guy that mopped the shop floor get the job?
After an hour or so I did get the call, yes the catalytic converter was “dead”, and for the price of $1300 they could fix it for me. The line item for the part was $650 which seemed a little pricey, so I paid the $75 diagnostic fee and drove it home for some additional research.
Unanswerable question #6: How the hell is a catalytic converter worth $600? The last one I replaced was about $75. I have an answer to this one, which I will share with you below.
There are always Options
After some research, I came up with the following options as to how to deal with my problem: Ordering online auto parts was a potential option.
| Option | Diagnostic | Part Cost | Labor | Total |
| Take to shop | $75 | $625 | $700 | $1,400 |
| Auto Store/DYI | $75 | $500 | $575 | |
| Online/Outsource | $75 | $275 | $130 | $480 |
| Online/Outsource | $75 | $225 | $130 | $430 |
What a normal person would have done is left it at the shop, had the guy fix it in a couple of days, and the price tag would have been $1400. Keeping in mind that this was 14% of the value of the car, I was very hesitant to do this.
What the “me” of about 1985 would have done is gone to the auto parts store, bought an after market converter, and installed it in my driveway on the basis of this You Tube video.
This job did not seem technically complicated except that I know that if I I don’t get the manifold bolts tightened down properly, or if I bust them off by getting them too tight (this has been known to happen) I will have a much bigger problem.
The third and fourth options were to outsource a local guy to do the job. We know a guy around here with some automotive experience, that has done work on our junky cars before. He might or might not be certified, but he is experienced. I called him, showed him this video, and he said he would do the job for $130 which based on a two hour job comes to about $65 an hour. All I had to do was come up with the part. The experiment in auto repair was down to the online auto parts. Let the chips fall where they may.
More Unanswered Questions
Unanswerable question #7: Why is it that the shop on the corner wanted to charge me $300 an hour for labor, and this guy would do it for $65? I suppose if you were to ask them, they would tell you “overhead” so that question is actually answerable. They have to pay to run the phones and lights. Eliminating the middle man to get to the service provider directly is known as “block chain.”
To me, $130 seemed a tolerable amount, because the “me” of today will gladly pay a few dollars to keep from skinning up my knuckles.
The Online Auto Part Experience
The web search linked me to a supplier of these things. In a few clicks I was able to order my part, and it arrived a day or two later looking like this:
I, the former member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, took exception to the big dent in one of the manifold pipes. For those of you unaware of auto parts, suffice it to say this is bad.
Unanswered question #8: Was it like this when it was shipped, or did it get damaged in transit? The box was in pretty good shape. You have to drop these things pretty hard to dent them. I am saying it was shipped like that.
The Return Process
To their credit, the people that took the order were very responsive (here is their link). No problem, we will ship you another part right away. Don’t worry, you may toss the old one because you don’t have to return it.
Unanswered question #9: Are we really living in a world where it costs this company less to just replace the part than it would to have the consumer to ship it back? #10: What must their defect rate be to justify this as a business decision?
Actually I knew better than to toss the part.
The Replacement Part
Here it is, right next to the original one. Isn’t it cool? It is damaged in exactly the same way as the first one. So what started out as a one-off is now a systemic problem.
I had an email exchange with the friendly customer service department who were very apologetic. They sent me a couple of prepaid shipping labels, and asked me to ship the parts back no problem.
Question #11: Knowing what they did, did they then impound the rest of their similar parts and do a containment? #12 Were they still selling these things to some other poor jerk with the same problem?
After a day or two I got a friendly email from the company, who said “sorry, we can’t sell you this part anymore.” I was gratified to hear that, at least. Maybe they wisely made the decision not to sell these until they got a new shipment.
Question #12
Were these things imported from some exotic location? Well, it turns out that they were. These things came all the way from the People’s Republic of Canada. Question #13: Are these guys ISO9001 or TS-16949 certified? It appears not. Question #14: is it basically okay for me to replace my OE converter with one that was not produced in a certified factory? Here is the box. You know who you are, Canadians.
Unanswered question #14: Do these Canadians “make” the manifolds or just “assemble” them out of parts that might have been imported from someplace even more exotic. Question #15: How did these manifolds get out the door?
The Second Supplier
I ordered a replacement from a different supplier.
One would think with the word “geek” in the name this company could have sent me the right part, but you can see that they didn’t even though I provided the VIN for this magnificent vehicle. This particular part was “made” by a different company in the people’s republic of USA. Unanswered question #16: How often does this happen? (here’s the link) Whoever Manuel F. Santiago is, the apparent welder did not do a beautiful job of welding. The seams are thick, and there is splatter. Some companies might have rejected this part for being ugly.
Annoyingly, despite it being clearly their mistake, this outfit did not provide the return label,. So I had to pay a few dollars to send the part back. They were cooperative about giving me the credit however. I did look up the apparent manufacturer, and this company was not ISO certified either. This was oddly comforting.
Finally….
I drove over to the Famous Auto Parts Store. I gave them the VIN, They had one in stock. It came from a “reputable” auto parts aftermarket supplier. Even though I ended up spending an extra couple of hundred dollars on the price, I still got this job done without skinning my knuckles.
The car also passed the local emissions test, and I am apparently good to go until it goes out again. Walker Exhaust is a child of Tenneco Corporation (here is a link). There is no suggestion that the exhaust division is ISO certified, but the fuel division (carburetors, etc.) is certified to both the ISO9001 and TS-16949 standards. This is a world-class outfit.
Can you see how tidy the welds are compared to the one above? And there is no dent in the exhaust tube. Annoyingly I had to buy some new bolts and a gasket over and above the manifold.
What is Happening
We did a funny video on this topic awhile back. I could use a few more subscribers to my Video channel, by the way.
First of all, the question of the $1300 catalytic converter: Because the car companies are under constant pressure to reduce costs, the company that assembled mine had to look for innovative ways to cut smog at the lowest cost possible.
So, they invented this combined manifold/catalytic converter which was cheap to make and install but expensive to replace. They made someone in Tier 1 Hell make these. The good news is that they could charge an arm and a leg in the replacement market. If I were in Tier 1 Hell, I might be tempted to accept this business for this reason. These reliable cars will outlive the converter and I will hopefully make money in the replacement market.
But, the price of these things is high enough that someone might be motivated to try to copy these. They might even do a pretty good job of it, thus short-circuiting the Tier 1 company’s nice plan of fattening up.
Online Auto Parts Fail
Question #17: Do do either of these two online companies actually make these replacement parts? Of course not. In fact I could, and I might, sell this product myself by being an “Amazon Affiliate”. These two operations evidently are doing this stuff on a big enough scale that they can work directly with the “gray market” producers of these cheap parts. They run the order entry, the company runs the production and inventory. Needless to say part of the cost savings is to cut down on quality and/or inspections.
The California Problem
This is only a problem if you have anything to do with California. Because of the intense smog problem out there, they’ve put a lot of restrictions on everything that have to do with hydrocarbons. This goes double for emission control parts. Even the online ad at the Famous Auto Parts Store says that these parts can’t be sold in California, presumably because they want the OE quality.
Question #18: In a chaotic place with a lot of other law enforcement issues, who is going to audit and enforce this? Question #19: If I try to sell my junky car to someone from California, will I have an issue?
Even more questions about Online Auto Parts:
Question#20: Will this replacement part, reputably bought, last as long as my original one did? Catalytic converters are, after all, something that gets used up over the life of the vehicle. Question #21: Will this affect my decision the next time I have to replace this, which presumably will be when the car has 200K miles on it? Will my junky little white car be worth spending another $700 or $1400 on a new catalytic converter? I might be ready for another Mustang by then.
Question #22: Did I do anything illegal or unethical? Well in the eyes of the State of GA who is less fanatic about smog, I may have done fine. My car passed emissions.
Question #23: Did the little mechanic guy who did the work do anything illegal or unethical? I accepted the risk of his non-certification (this is an educated decision on my part). He may be under some sort of non-compete agreement with his regular employer (who might well be an auto shop). I will leave that up to him to figure out.
I would probably not have paid him to do a valve job or replace my transmission, but on the basis of the above video, the critical operation was the tightening of the bolts.
Even more questions:
Question #24: If I had to do the same thing tomorrow what would I do? Well, I am ready to say I eventually arrived at the correct decision. 1. Buy reputable parts from someplace that will take it back. 2. Hire someone who has experience. 3. Get validation from the state. 4. Let it be.
Question #25: What stops the auto shop at the corner from buying the knockoff parts, and installing them into my car? I would never know the difference unless I unscrewed the heat shields, which I could do. This is what is known as a can of worms. Who audits this?
Question #26: Would I do the same thing on a Mustang? Maybe not. Putting cheap parts in this junky little car is fine, but it doesn’t deserve as much respect as a Mustang. It depends on the age and condition of the Mustang though.
I would love to hear some comments from the internet dwellers.
