Price Gouging?

[bobbywalter]

I like our small town Carquest. I'll look online at Advanced parts, find what I need, call the parts store and give them the part number. They usually will sell it cheaper than the online price. They are unpopular with the parts stores in the small city 10 minutes away as people will drive over here to get parts because they are cheaper. If only they were open Saturday afternoon.

i hear that...

these places will soon be extinct.....so enjoy it.
small price to pay for that kind of service.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Generally on gaskets nobody in my little town will touch O'Reilly's either for price or inventory.

But you have to deal with O'Reilly's "help"

For your price difference on your two I would ask for the part number and do a little digging to make sure they are not pricing an overhaul gasket set...

They are cheaper but you make up for it in headaches. They did save my bacon today though, our normal parts truck had too much snow somewhere so I didn't get a cat converter gasket for a Cherokee. For reasons unknown O'Reilly's had one. I bypassed all the gibberish with them wanting to know what trim level and color it is and just gave them the OE part number though.

It was amusing for awhile, call to price a front half shaft for a truck or a Charger.
8 times out of 10: "is that RWD or 4wd/AWD?"

 

[Josh B]

Actually my post was looking at one specific rebuild gasket set and 3 very different part stores.

Suddenly two stores were out of the sets and the other had plenty, @ $100.00 over what the others charged for theirs, when they were still allowed to have them

 

[Josh B]

After several days of consideration and newscasts, Argentina is currently passing 100% inflation, I'm wondering if we here in USA are really far from that. Between Europe, Britain, France, Germany, Argentina has been astride for decades, hek, they took on Britain in the 80's I think, or was it 90's. Was that the Spratley Islands they had the dispute over?

I'm wishing now I could change this title to "Price Gouging? or Hyper Inflation?", because now it sure seems to fit :/

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Dealing with parts daily I think they have recently kinda plateaued if not come down a little.

 

[Josh B]

Dealing with parts daily I think they have recently kinda plateaued if not come down a little.

A little? But...they went up a LOT! There are more items that's doubled in the last year or so than anything in my life, then they knock 2% off and call it a sale :/

 

[rusty ol ranger]

I think alot of the issue as far as parts go for these older trucks is that demand just isnt that big. So we end up with parts that have either sat on a shelf for 20 years or are produced in such small amounts because the profit margins arnt there for the producers.

So they make a few and charge massive prices to keep their profit margins in the same percentage realm as stuff that sells.

Like, i doubt it costs any more to make a set of brake drums for a 93 ranger as it does for a 2010 escape.

Difference is the escape will sell 10 to the rangers 1, because theres less of them out there, and they are driven less.

As far as engine parts and things that consitute major repairs, its only going to get worse, because if a 93 ranger blows a head gasket or chews up a main its going to the junkyard, generally.

This dont apply to enthuisast groups like us obviously, but it does in general.

Unless Rangers reach collector status its unlikely we'll ever see better prices or availabilty.

its literally eaiser for me to get parts for my 77 F250 then it is my 87 Ranger. Why? 77 F250s get fixed/restored, 87 Rangers generally dont.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Spot-on. "Inflation" tries to measure the way every dollar becomes generally less valuable over time. Separately, we can talk about reasons the price of whatever "thing" might rise specifically. If that thing is important to entire industries (say, steel), its price increase becomes part of inflation, and we say the underlying reasons (worker shortages in the steel mill, shipping costs) are also reasons for inflation.

30-year-old niche truck parts don't underpin entire industries. At the manufacturer level, those prices are economies of scale (or lack thereof) all day.

At the retail level, for parts already on the shelf, something gets marked up because whoever sets the price thinks they can get more money for it. If they're right, people with money burning a hole in their pockets will support the higher price. If they're wrong, and need to move the product, they'll mark it back down.

 

[RobbieD]

If they're right, people with money burning a hole in their pockets will support the higher price.

What sucks, though, is when you actually "need" the said parts, and not just "want" them.

 

[oldgeek]

Alternate Inflation Charts

www.shadowstats.com

They chart inflation as it was figured decades ago as a lot more was used to figure it, like food and energy.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

What sucks, though, is when you actually "need" the said parts, and not just "want" them.

Applies to everything, unfortunately. Take gas prices last Summer:

People with money didn't stop taking summer vacation just because gas was $4+. They could afford it, demand stayed up, price stayed up, and people who had to buy the same gas to commute for work had a real bad time.

Wasn't until $5-6 did start to matter to wealthier people, and/or "vacation season" ended, that demand finally fell off.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Alternate Inflation Charts

www.shadowstats.com

They chart inflation as it was figured decades ago as a lot more was used to figure it, like food and energy.

I got the following when I clicked the link;

/big/dom/xshadowstats/www/Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL.

 

[Roert42]

I've noticed a lot of our supplies are simply stopping legacy support for older platforms. I work with industrial machinery, the tech advances every few years and there are new platforms. Normally a company will support an electrical component for 5 years after they discontinue it. Now, most company's are not building any parts that are not considered the latest version.

They couldn't keep up with the demand for new parts and support the older systems so they just stopped supporting the older systems, and they can still can't keep up with the demand for the new components.

Oh, your PC failed on your 5 year old machine? Sorry, we stopped making those, you'll have to completely convert to this newer system and there is a one year wait for the parts to convert to the newer platform.


I'm sure it's the same story over in the automotive world. Parts manufactures are trying to keep pace with the demand for parts to build new cars, forget about getting replacement parts for new cars let alone 30 year old stuff.

 

[dvdswan]

Supply and demand is all they have to quote apparently... my usual deodorant Mennen Musk, just took a screen shot. FU if you think I'm paying $90.00 for a stick of deodorant. Before Corona it was $3.00.

 

[RobbieD]

FU if you think I'm paying $90.00 for a stick of deodorant.

But you do get FREE shipping.