Last week we had a snow storm, it caught our Ford Flex without the snow tires mounted..totally my fault. Youngest son slid on a low speed turn and hit a curb, no damage to the alloy rim, but the wheel hub is now making a resonant humming at 80 km/hr of more. Normally I would repair myself, but I have other work issues and a plumbing project going on, so my wife offered to take to local muffler / suspension chain that is close to where we live. I've used this shop before for other jobs that I don't have the tools or time to perform. It's a Canadian chain, pretty small, but has a good reputation.
The manager of the store called me and said the RF wheel bearing needs to be replaced, $387 CAD for the Moog part, and 1.5 hours labour, plus shop supplies & taxes = $ 590 CAD. I declined an alignment.
I asked the manager why the Moog part was so expensive? I told him I did all the wheel hubs myself within the last year, in fact the 2 rear hubs were done in July using Moog parts sourced from Rock Auto, and I paid $ 125 CAD for each Moog wheel hub. $ 387 per each is over 3x the selling price of RA !!
His response: "well, Rock Auto is just putting junk Chinese parts in Moog boxes and shipping them out" "ours come with a 3 year warranty" I said that so do the Moog parts that RA supplies, in fact 1 of the front wheel hubs that I installed failed early, and RA paid for my return shipping and gave me a full refund. He had no answer.
I could accept that this chain would mark up their parts 80-100 % but 300% higher than RA or Amazon.ca is insane! And RA and Amazon.ca are also making money on their selling prices.
I am doing the repair myself, I accept it won't be convenient, I have other things I would prefer to do, but enough is enough. I ordered the Moog hub from Amazon.ca for $144 CAD and it will be delivered by 9pm Tuesday. RA wanted $120 CAD plus $21 CAD shipping, but it would have been 3-4 days at least.
Rant over.
The manager of the store called me and said the RF wheel bearing needs to be replaced, $387 CAD for the Moog part, and 1.5 hours labour, plus shop supplies & taxes = $ 590 CAD. I declined an alignment.
I asked the manager why the Moog part was so expensive? I told him I did all the wheel hubs myself within the last year, in fact the 2 rear hubs were done in July using Moog parts sourced from Rock Auto, and I paid $ 125 CAD for each Moog wheel hub. $ 387 per each is over 3x the selling price of RA !!
His response: "well, Rock Auto is just putting junk Chinese parts in Moog boxes and shipping them out" "ours come with a 3 year warranty" I said that so do the Moog parts that RA supplies, in fact 1 of the front wheel hubs that I installed failed early, and RA paid for my return shipping and gave me a full refund. He had no answer.
I could accept that this chain would mark up their parts 80-100 % but 300% higher than RA or Amazon.ca is insane! And RA and Amazon.ca are also making money on their selling prices.
I am doing the repair myself, I accept it won't be convenient, I have other things I would prefer to do, but enough is enough. I ordered the Moog hub from Amazon.ca for $144 CAD and it will be delivered by 9pm Tuesday. RA wanted $120 CAD plus $21 CAD shipping, but it would have been 3-4 days at least.
Rant over.
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