The high Price of Parts and dealer differences
 

I bought 2 Smartkey's This week for my 1998 E300. At MB of San Diego I paid $158.60 plus tax and $31.05 +tax for the steel key. Today I ordered the same 2 items at MB in Carlsbad (about 25 miles north of San Diego) and paid $122.50 and $22 for the steel key.
Simple math tells me that 158.6/122.5 means I paid nearly 30% more at MB San Diego. The premium for the steel key is just over 40%. In Carlsbad I also purchased a TURBODIESEL trunk emblem for $45 that I balked at buying for $58 at MB of San Diego because of the nearly 30% higher price.
Is it common for dealers to have 20, 30 or even 40 percent difference in pricing ? I guess I already know at least part of the answer but thought it might be worthwhile to open up this topic for some discussion because even with the best pricing these parts can be very exspensive. My hope is that using dealers with the best prices will in some way discourage the highest price dealers.
What do you think?
Paul


1998 E300

Oh..trust me they will be as greedy as the local market will bear.............

Yeah, I have noticed dealers tend to do that.

My regular place is actually not much more then the online venders. By the time I pay shipping and get the parts sometimes it is just better to buy it from the dealer. It has never taken them more then 2 days to get anything for my car and I have ordered some odd crap.

Also it is nice installing parts with the Star on them, usually World Pac stuff is pretty good but sometimes the quality isn't as good as the OE stuff. This is especialy true of seals, like trunk and door seals. The aftermarket stuff is crap.

I rebuilt my 1975 115/300d last year. I got a list of parts that I needed and priced them through various web sites. I took the list to my local MB dealer and asked the parts man if he could beat the prices. He matched most, beat some and couldn't beat others. The difference wasn't much and I saved postage. The other advantage was that if the part didn't work there was no problem sending them back, plus I got a lot of helpful hints about repairs.

To get these low prices the parts man called me a repair service-Foss Restorations or some such. I didn't need a tax no. or any sort of paper work. Now ever time I go in there I get the same discount pricing. I think it is about a 40% savings.

Hit up your parts man for the same deal. Tell him that you would prefer to buy local and if he can give you a dealer's discount you will buy from him. Remember, if you don't ask he won't offer.

Oh yeah, I never pay list for parts at the dealer. If you by like one filter from them you are getting charged list. But if you buy enough they can be quite competitive.