When we do maintenance or repair of cars, most of them choose to go to 4S shops. But the price of accessories in 4S stores is really expensive, generally several times that of the outside. Ask them the reason, they will tell you with a high sound: our 4S store uses original parts, the quality is guaranteed, so the price is expensive; The outside are all analogues, and although the price is cheap, the quality cannot be guaranteed. With the support of this theory, although the majority of car owners and friends are distressed, they still choose expensive original parts. But there are still doubts in my heart: are these 4S stores really using original parts? Will it lie to me with analogues? What is the difference between this original part and the analogue part, and how to distinguish it? Also Is the quality of the original parts the best? Let’s discuss this below.
First of all, let’s talk about what is original parts. The so-called original parts refer to the parts produced by the automobile manufacturer itself or authorized to be produced by professional parts manufacturers, which can be marked with the vehicle manufacturer’s logo and original part number for assembling the car, or supplied by the exclusive after-sales channels of the vehicle manufacturer (such as 4S stores). Under the existing automobile sales system, automakers sign agreements with parts suppliers to restrict suppliers from selling the same parts themselves, so original parts can only be purchased at automobile manufacturers and 4S stores. Of course, there will also be some original parts flowing out of the gray channel, which is another matter.
Many people think that the original parts must be produced by the automobile manufacturer, otherwise how can they be called original parts! That’s not the case. As you know, cars are made up of tens of thousands of large and small parts, and automakers do not have the ability to develop every component, so most of the parts need to be purchased. In fact, 90% of the world’s car companies are just an assembly plant, almost all parts are purchased externally, and they just make a car shell to assemble them; The remaining 10% can not do everything, but most of them have some core technologies that can produce core components such as engines and gearboxes, but they will still purchase some electrical components, decorative parts, audio, etc. For example, the electronic control system of many car companies is Bosch, the gearbox is Aisin and ZF, the glass is Fuyao, the audio and tires are purchased from different brands according to the grade, and so on.
Since the original parts are purchased by car companies, they may not necessarily buy the best out of cost considerations, but buy the basic use requirements of the car, and even some car companies engage in bidding every year and only buy the cheapest. In fact, many original parts are actually bought by automobile manufacturers from spare parts suppliers, and after marking their own LOGO, they are called “original parts”. This spare parts supplier may be a state-owned factory, or it may be a family workshop, but as long as it can enter the procurement system of car companies and obtain the production authorization of car companies, the accessories produced can be called original parts. Now in order to reduce costs, some models use smaller and smaller batteries, the quality of tires is getting worse and worse, brake pads are less and less wear-resistant, and so on. Although these are also claimed to be original parts, the quality is really not great, and the quality of some brand parts is much better than them. There is also the quality of the original parts is also divided into three, six and nine, the best quality is sold to the main engine factory for loading and use, the poor quality is sold to the 4S shop for maintenance spare parts, and some of the defective parts are sold to the auto parts city with a sign, which has become the so-called analogue parts.
From this point of view, the quality of the original parts is not necessarily the best, but it must not be fake, and it must be the best match with the original car, and there will be no problems in use. In addition, it has another biggest advantage: it has a powerful car company behind it to endorse it, even if there is a quality problem, there are people to take care of it. Just like state-owned banks, which are guaranteed by the state, there will never be any fake money taken out of these banks, even if it has poor service and low interest, but everyone is still willing to deposit money with it.
Let’s talk about what is a by-factory. Analogue does not refer to an accessory, but a collective term for parts (original parts) outside the channel of the OEM, regardless of the quality should be called analogue. There is only one original part of the car, while there may be several or even a dozen analogues. Analogue parts are one of the most complicated in the auto parts market, it is a big basket, everything is loaded in, and sometimes it is summarized as a collective term for all counterfeit and inferior. Its biggest disadvantage is “unreliable”, occasionally a good one may be better than the original car, but more often it is of poor quality, installed on the car you don’t know when it will break, so that you are always worried.
So what are the source channels of analogues? One is some small factories or family workshops without production qualifications, see which model is selling hot, and produce the corresponding accessories in order to get a piece of the pie, such a quality of analogues is the most unguaranteed, usually three no products, it is also the most common of analogues; There is also a kind of accessories manufacturers are originally the suppliers of the main engine factory, but for some reasons did not win the bid, was excluded from the purchase list, but its production can not be stopped, but also continue to produce this kind of accessories to supply to the market, it has become a by-factory parts, the quality of such accessories is still guaranteed, but due to the absence of the supervision of the main engine factory, the quality has declined; Finally, there is a kind of OEM supporting suppliers outflow, this kind of accessories are usually the OEM inspection unqualified culling out or their own excess capacity, the supplier itself secretly sold to the market, but it has an agreement with the OEM, dare not mark as the original parts, can only change the name into a sub-factory, its quality is the most reliable, the price is much lower than the 4S store.
There is also an accessory that we call “brand parts”, and some people attribute it to analogues, such as Bosch, MAN, Denso and so on, which everyone often hears about. These accessories are produced by some well-known large enterprises, the quality is very reliable, and the price is relatively high. Some car companies do not choose them as their suppliers due to cost considerations, but it does not mean that their quality is poor, on the contrary, the quality of many brand parts is even higher than that of the original parts. Many people start to modify after buying a car, generally choose this brand parts, or choose to use brand parts in the later maintenance, which can not only ensure good quality, but also reduce maintenance costs.
So how to distinguish original parts, analogue parts, and brand parts? Some people will say that look at the packaging, look at the workmanship, look at the appearance, look at the anti-counterfeiting label, etc., but now the parts manufacturers, even some family workshops, the appearance and packaging are very good, the anti-counterfeiting label is also a non-pull, for the majority of car owners without professional knowledge, it is difficult to distinguish from this aspect. The quality of accessories is more guaranteed by channels. Original parts have fixed sales channels, it can be said that except for car companies and 4S stores, other channels cannot have original parts; Brand parts generally have agents in various places and fixed sales channels, but there are too many copycat products, and it is difficult to get authentic brand parts outside the sales channels; As for the analogues, they can be seen everywhere, the quality is uneven, and the price is also very different. As for the choice of the owner, then it is up to you. However, there is one piece of advice that is common all over the world, that is, money does not lie, you always get what you pay for, do not expect to buy a Mercedes with the money you bought Shari, that will only disappoint you more.
So are the 4S stores all original parts? Of course not. Last year, a satellite TV did not break a video, a 4S store departing employee broke the news that a large brand 4S store replaced the original parts with analogues, used its own filled engine oil to impersonate the original engine oil, and used two sets of systems to deceive the main engine factory, and so on. In fact, this is only the tip of the iceberg, it can be said that there are many 4S shops are doing this, in the case of selling cars without making money, they can only make huge profits from after-sales service. However, 4S stores only dare to use auxiliary parts in some insignificant parts, such as bumpers and other exterior decorative parts, and they still dare not make secondary products for the three major parts involving core technology and safety devices. It’s hard for us to tell the car owner friends, and if no one shows you, you may never know.
In addition, there is also a kind of dismantling parts on the market, which mainly comes from accident cars and scrapped cars, and the quality is difficult to guarantee, but its price is very cheap, and you can also buy some rare parts; There are also refurbished parts, which are generally parts that have been replaced due to some faults on some cars, and have been disassembled, cleaned, repaired, and assembled. Some of these parts have reached the wear limit, some have reached the fatigue limit of metal, and the assembly process, equipment, etc. are not as good as regular manufacturers, so the quality is very unreliable.
So how do we choose when replacing accessories? In the case of not poor money, of course, the original parts are preferred, followed by brand parts; If we want to reduce the cost of maintenance, then in some irrelevant parts, such as bumpers, four doors and two covers, interior decoration parts, etc., you can choose better quality sub-parts, and for some core parts, such as three parts, suspension system, electrical components, brakes, steering and other safety-related accessories, it is better to choose original parts or authentic brand parts.