Faced with one or two items to replace on the old girl (2008 4/4) I am dismayed by the MMC pricing of parts.
For example a simple rubber boot for the Quaife rack & pinion from the factory £88 each. Price of a perfectly good PAIR of boots that fit and do the job of keeping out the road grit: £17.
Curious to see if other more expensive parts are so pricey I see that ONE stainless polished wire wheel is over £900 so the five wheels of my vehicle including the spare: almost £5,000.
At this rate I could achieve more than current market value by breaking for spares. Not that I would ever do so.
Having run a motorcycle spares retail and trade import business for 20 years its entirely normal and indeed necessary for the collection of spare parts that make up a vehicle to cost far more than the sales price of the new vehicle. Maybe three times more as a minimum but could be up to ten times. The inability to buy in spares at the mass production cost savings afforded to the manufacturer, stocking costs of supplier and retailer particularly of low turnover parts which may sit on a shelf for years in extreme cases, expected trade discounts etc. all take their toll. In my case sourcing high turnover spares directly from the vehicle manufacturers suppliers mitigated to a degree purchase costs but invariably involved buying in far greater quantities than the three month turnaround model my business was run on. Out of desperation we once stripped a brand new motorcycle into its component parts in order to satisfy customers that had been waiting months for spare parts back ordered from the sole manufacturing source.
