Sorry, can't watch the vid here on my Home Computer.

Places like NAPA will deliver parts to the shop but they only may come once or twice a day. Often the Shop has to send someone to pick the parts up and that persons time and the vehicle expenses have to be paid for.

Worse then the markup itself some Automotive Shops give the Mechanic a small percentage of the Parts markup (encourgaing them to replace parts) + the extra money they get if the do the flat rate time faster. This encourages Mechanics to look for more jobs especially if it is easy work like changing belts once they get a hold of your Car.

Then there is stuff like this: One of my neighbors took his car that had a miss to a Shop and they sold him a fuel injection system cleaning job. When they were done the Car still had the miss. The guy was told and believed that his car needed the fuel injectors cleaned any way.
The shop never attempted to trouble shoot the problem properly.

When I showed up the Car was parked on the Street and my Friend (who went to the same Diesel Mechanics Trade School as me) was standing there and the guy related the story in the previous paragraph.

I ask the guy some of the driving history. The History was that his Wife would jump in the Car, start it and immediately take of to work which was only one mile away. While I was telling the guy that it was likely that the Spark plugs are carboned up because his Wife did not warm up the Car and the drive was too short for the Engine controls to take it out of the excess fuel it gives you when the Engine was cold my Friend yanked off one of the Spark Plug Wires.

When he yanked off the Spark Plug Wire nothing happened! Nothing happened because that Plug was not firing.
They Car owner paid my Friend to change the Spark Plugs and the Car ran fine. After that they guy was told that he needed to get his Wife to warm the Car up or at least take it on the Freeway to keep the plugs from fowling up. I never saw him again so I don’t knew if he followed the instructions.

There is a book I read about automotive repair rip offs. It said that often the Servie Writer; the person that writes up your job order is not a trained mechanic but a sales person.

Another Story: my Girl Friend took her Car to a Transmission Shop saying her transmission was noisy. The Shop wanted to sell a transmission R&R with a rebuilt transmission. She did not have the Money nor a Credit Card so she said she could not do that.
This was on our first date. So I drove her car (the transmission place did not test drive the Car) no unusual noises. Then I ask her when she had the noise and where was she driving?
She and her Mother had been site seeing in a local hilly area. After that I speculated that driving slow in the hilly area had put them in 2nd gear and the Car is noiser in 2nd Gear.

On the next date we drove in that hilly area and what I said seemed to be the case.

So I told her that I could not find anything obviously wrong. I also told her that if there was something wrong let the transmission fail (she had AAA so she could get a free tow) because they were not going to rebuilt her transmission they would just install a rebuilt one.
The transmission never did fail even after 5 years. But, the Car got totaled in an accident.

In that Book they said Transmissions Shops have been know remove the original transmission and clean it off and re-install it or even do the cleaning without removing the transmission.

My Mother was told that they installed a New Carburator on her Car. The Cost of the New Carburator was 3 times more then a rebuilt. That had happend only 3 hours before I arrived on the scene. There was no practical reason to install a new Carburator.

I told her that under the state law she could demand her old part back. She went back to the Shop and did that and they admitted they had installed a rebuilt carburetor (they could not give the old Carburetor back because they had turned it is a core when they got the re-built carburetor) and refunded a lot of the money.

And this was a place she had gone to for years and trusted.

Anyway a percentage of parts mark up is the least of your worries. If you know what needs to be replaced go to the local Auto Parts place and ask the cost of the part. That way you at least have some idea to go by.

From the forum we also know that some people pay more for the same parts at their local Mercedes Dealer then others have at other Mercedes Dealers.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel