Biggest parts markup/ discrepancy?

eljefino

eljefino

Joined
Jun 15, 2003
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Location
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Shopping for an ABS sensor for my 19 Prius, RF. Snapped the head off doing a wheel bearing. Anyhow I try to shop around and will pay a little more to get something sooner in this sort of situation.

O'Reilly's wanted $474, available tomorrow, while eBay sold it to me for $16, taking a week to come from a Chinese warehouse in CA.

Aside from airplane, submarine, and medical parts, has anyone seen a greater spread?

Screenshot from 2025-09-17 13-22-02.webp
Screenshot from 2025-09-17 13-21-38.webp
 
I have no idea about the quality of application of either of these two items but that Standard Ignition part is just a pricey item. It's $242.79 over at the Rock. Why it's so pricey is beyond me but it's priced about typical for the big box stores (way too high for my liking).

A better question to ask might be why the $15 item is so incredibly cheap.

I did a search for the Toyota part number for this item, 89542-47040, and it retails at a dealership for $314.68. My local dealer wholesales it it for $215.68.
 
That O'Reilly part just seems way out of whack, especially compared to the OEM part that FowVay listed. Looks like the same part works on Prius models from 2016 to 2022 and across multiple trims, so it's not an oddball part. Odd.... the front right part of this is close to 1/2 the price.

I've seen that with O'Reilly at times too but it's usually parts they don't stock and have to order. This one says you can pick it up within a day (??) so that tells me it's either in stock at a nearby store that they'll transfer it from or it's at their local/regional warehouse. Actually says no stores within 50 miles of me have it so it's not that common for them after all.
 
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When removing a knuckle (typically to press out a wheel bearing), I learned the hard way to remove the fender liner (if required) and disconnect the ABS sensor wiring at the connector.

These sensors, even with their plastic bodies, tend to get rusted into the knuckle and cannot be removed without being damaged.
 
I would be surprised if the 16 dollar part actually works out of the box let alone for any length of time. If the car was in my shop I would be selling a genuine Toyota sensor. As this isnt a very popular part, Standard Motor Products likely isnt making it, they are sourcing it from the OE and reboxing it and the resultant price you see from Oreilly is the result of mark up from every hand it passes through.
 
ABS sensors are oddly expensive for many applications. While a whole wheel bearing/hub assembly with integrated sensor is way cheaper sometimes. IDK why!
 
What's in these things, a magnet and coil of wire? The tech's been out for 35 years. I stand by my statement that there's some gouging going on. Will follow up if the ebay part is garbage.
 
Hey look on the bright side! If it doesn't work it's only a $16 loss. I'll take that any day. 16 bucks doesn't get you much but maybe a couple of lattes at the local coffee house. But ID grasp because I happen to know that a lot of these Chinese knockoffs are good and some are very cheap. The Chinese folks know how to copy stuff very well, they are the biggest perpetrators of phony items out there. But a lot of them are copied to exact specs and work well and Auto Part warehouses by them and then Rebrand them.

I personally think that whole RockAuto Warehouse that everybody on this site swears by is a bunch of cheap Chinese crap anyway. I'm out.
 
mikeduf said:
Hey look on the bright side! If it doesn't work it's only a $16 loss. I'll take that any day. 16 bucks doesn't get you much but maybe a couple of lattes at the local coffee house. But ID grasp because I happen to know that a lot of these Chinese knockoffs are good and some are very cheap. The Chinese folks know how to copy stuff very well, they are the biggest perpetrators of phony items out there. But a lot of them are copied to exact specs and work well and Auto Part warehouses by them and then Rebrand them.

I personally think that whole RockAuto Warehouse that everybody on this site swears by is a bunch of cheap Chinese crap anyway. I'm out.
Click to expand...

I don't think Rockauto even has any warehouses of their own, they are just a drop-shipper than use similar suppliers to many other online automotive places. So yes, you can buy cheap Chinese crap, but you can also get name brand stuff. It's your choice.

Sometimes cheap eBay parts can be fine. I needed a transmission speed sensor for mom's old Accord. I work at an auto parts store and my employee price was still a lot more than a random generic one off eBay. When it got here, I compared it to our part and they were identical. I suspect they came out of the same factory. I told myself if the cheap one ever stopped working I'd put our more expensive one in. Well, here we are probably almost a decade later and it's been totally fine.

It just depends on what the part is, and how easy it is to change. For a mission critical part that takes hours of labor to put in, buy the best part you can. For an old car with a lot of miles that gets driven once a month, the driver is never more than an hour from home in a safe, populated area and has AAA membership just in case, and the part takes 15 minutes to swap out, it's almost silly to spend extra on the more expensive part.
 
No I don't really care because I don't do business with them, but the other poster talked about how they basically drop ship and there is no Warehouse.

Which makes me wonder even more about the validity of the parts that they ship out.

Yes some might be OE quality and others might not.

My first and only experience with them happened about 25 years ago when I purchased a set of Bilstein shocks that came to me all bashed up as probably a return item.

There are good parts that are bad parts, you really have to inspect and understand where these parts are made and most of them all are made in a third world.


I bought a pair of end links from a reputable name and as soon as I greased the balls up, the little rubber caps just popped right out and I did not put a lot of pressure of Grease.

Looked a little further and they were made from some tropical Paradise.
And these are just my thoughts on it.
Not here to offend anybody, but I will say it appears that a lot of people have faith in online sales.
 
Hall said:
You clearly have no idea how RockAuto operates
Click to expand...
If you do, please share with the rest of us.
I've had good experience with them, but I do question their shipping charges as well as being charged for additional shipping from separate warehouses on any given order.
Maybe Rock really is no more than an integrator for drop ships?
 
eljefino said:
What's in these things, a magnet and coil of wire? The tech's been out for 35 years. I stand by my statement that there's some gouging going on. Will follow up if the ebay part is garbage.
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Its either a magnet and a coil, or its a magnet and and IC. You would think it would be easy, but in the industrial world a similar sensor tech is called an inductive proximity sensor. You can buy a Chinese one for $20 and it will last a few weeks. Or you can buy a German one for $50 and it lasts forever or until you physically destroy it. I don't know why this is true, but it is true and it has been forever.

Now having said that I put a $25 clock spring in the Xterra this summer instead of a $200 Nissan one - and it is holding up so far - but its only a few months.
 
fdcg27 said:
If you do, please share with the rest of us.
Click to expand...
Read the part I quoted. The other poster seems to think they're an Alibaba type outfit selling stuff drop-shipped from China. I certainly don't know specifics other than knowing that they re-sell parts from regional auto-parts distributors, the same places that the non-chain auto parts stores get their parts from.

Regarding their shipping, honestly, their prices are very reasonable compared to many other places. And yes, when you order different parts, that's where they get stupid. I'm 100% convinced their system is designed to "share" parts allocation from their distributors within certain regions. When they choose to do that, we as the customer shouldn't be forced to pay twice for shipping. Plenty of other online sellers have a single shipping charge even if parts come from multiple warehouses or an item is back-ordered and ships later.
 
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