Dealer, Parts Store or Amazon?

My wife's Dodge Journey apparently needs the left rear wheel speed sensor replaced. The tone ring is part of the sealed hub assembly, the sensor can be bought separately but if you buy the hub, you get the sensor as well.

Installation is simple, remove caliper and bracket, remove rotor, remove 4 bolts, disconnect sensor and reverse procedure to install.

My question is this, The prices I'm finding for the hub assembly vary considerably. The dealer price is ~ $220, Parts store is ~$150 and Amazon is ~$60.

When I replaced the front hubs on my Ram, I ordered Moog parts from the parts store at ~$150 each. They were made in China.

I know the Amazonian parts will be Chinese, I would bet the parts store hubs will be as well, Duralast is the brand I was quoted, and I would say there's a 75% chance the dealer parts weren't made in the US of A.

This is our road trip car, and the only reason I'm considering the factory parts. On the other hand, the factory part only made it to 37K miles.

Thoughts?

TIA

Factory parts are likely made in the same factory with perhaps a bit more QC.

Where are you checking for parts store prices?  I usually go to RockAuto and get an estimate, then check the same part numbers on Amazon.  Usually you can pull up the same exact part being sold by different companies and get different prices.

Also, try putting the Dodge part number in Amazon, I've found a fair amount of FoMoCo parts on Amazon for the truck.

I just ordered a bunch of genuine FoMoCo parts from Amazon for less than the parts store wanted for their house brand junk.

I tried to buy from a dealer online, but I really couldn't find a good one or an Indy shop. I'm spoiled with the German cars between Pelican, FCP Euro, and ECS Tuning. I wish there were options like that for the domestic stuff (and Mazda too).

In order of quality

Dealer 1

Auto parts store 2 - at least they have to face the customer if they sell something made of cheese

Amazon 3 - absolute cesspool of poorly made garbage with no recourse if you spend your Saturday bolting on a part with worse tolerances out of the box than the wear limit for a factory part. 

bearmtnmartin said:

In order of quality

Dealer 1

 

Auto parts store 2 - at least they have to face the customer if they sell something made of cheese

 

Amazon 3 - absolute cesspool of poorly made garbage with no recourse if you spend your Saturday bolting on a part with worse tolerances out of the box than the wear limit for a factory part. 

This, except the gap between 1 & 2 is miles wide.  2 and 3 are fairly close in my experience.  :(

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

I just ordered a bunch of genuine FoMoCo parts from Amazon for less than the parts store wanted for their house brand junk.

I tried to buy from a dealer online, but I really couldn't find a good one or an Indy shop. I'm spoiled with the German cars between Pelican, FCP Euro, and ECS Tuning. I wish there were options like that for the domestic stuff (and Mazda too).

this. It pays to shop around, I ended up buying my brake cables OE locally because they were cheaper.

ProDarwin said:

bearmtnmartin said:

In order of quality

Dealer 1

 

Auto parts store 2 - at least they have to face the customer if they sell something made of cheese

 

Amazon 3 - absolute cesspool of poorly made garbage with no recourse if you spend your Saturday bolting on a part with worse tolerances out of the box than the wear limit for a factory part. 

This, except the gap between 1 & 2 is miles wide.  2 and 3 are fairly close in my experience.  :(

For Import brands, I would agree. For domestic.... not so much. I've purchased NAPA/AZ parts only to open their house brand box and recieve the part in the original brand wrapper for mopar and GM stuff. 

Man berkeley Amazon for anything car related. Sellers aren't held accountable for selling fake, faulty, or the wrong item than what is listed. The last two things I've ordered on there for my vehicles were incorrect or knock off parts. One was a fake RaceQuip window net, the other was a Honda oil filter - listing said it was an "A01" and I got the Fram made "A02" 

I like OE parts, but tend to never buy from the dealer if I can avoid it.  I have bought a lot of genuine Ford parts off of Rockauto.  For at least one Ford part the OE part didn't come up when I did a year/make/model search, but it came up under a part number search, so if you have the part number you can check that way too.   Just make really sure you have the right number.   

For our Toyota products, I generally view Denso or Aisin as OE equivalent even if the original part wasn't actually made by them.   Same thing with the GM's, I would consider AC Delco or Delphi to be as good as dealer parts and much easier to find.   

ProDarwin said:

bearmtnmartin said:

In order of quality

Dealer 1

 

Auto parts store 2 - at least they have to face the customer if they sell something made of cheese

 

Amazon 3 - absolute cesspool of poorly made garbage with no recourse if you spend your Saturday bolting on a part with worse tolerances out of the box than the wear limit for a factory part. 

This, except the gap between 1 & 2 is miles wide.  2 and 3 are fairly close in my experience.  :(

Though it's worth noting that sometimes amazon does have the same parts you'd get at the parts store, but for better prices. What's important is the brand (and the seller to be trustworthy that they're real parts and not imitations) moreso than the website they come from. And country of manufacture has little to nothing to do with it. You can get crap parts made anywhwere in the world if your QC standards are low enough. Everyone just picks china because it's the cheapest as well.

I use Worldpac for non domestic stuff.

You all convinced me to stay away from Amazon. I have bought parts from them before, rotors for my Ram, from Detroit Axle. No issues with them almost a year later.

I had looked up the Mopar part # and tried finding it on Amazon, but no luck.

I went to Rock Auto and found Timken and SKF hubs available for ~$90 so I ordered one. 

No more than finished the order and the dealer called and said the repair was covered under the extended warranty. I just pay the $100 deductible. Got back on Rock Auto and was able to cancel the order, no muss, no fuss.

I'll consider that a win, factory parts at Rock Auto prices. 

Thanks for the input everyone!

dps214 said:

Though it's worth noting that sometimes amazon does have the same parts you'd get at the parts store, but for better prices. What's important is the brand (and the seller to be trustworthy that they're real parts and not imitations) moreso than the website they come from. And country of manufacture has little to nothing 

Yes, absolutely.  Really it should be 1) OEM Brand 2) Aftermarket brands* you have heard of and 3) no-name brands commonly found on Amazon & Ebay.

*common repair part aftermarket brands.  Obviously there are brands that I would consider more enthusiast/performance oriented that make very high quality parts, often better than OEM.

In reply to SaltyDog :

I wouldn't avoid amazon at all. I used it almost exclusively as long as I can find what I need. Just make sure you're ordering parts off the Prime listings and not the indvidual sites. This gives you the super easy return options. All my rotors come from there now adays because they're just cheaper. 

In my experience at least for german parts amazon usually doesn't have great prices. I have bought a few motorcraft parts from amazon though, so maybe it's more common for american brands. Also as bobzilla says, cheap brake rotors for some reason. I got a pair (one front, one rear because that's all they had left in stock) of centric rotors for my boxster from amazon for like $9 each then had to buy the other two from rockauto for $20-30 each after shipping. They came in slightly different boxes but were the same exact parts.

On Amazon, you really need to pay attention to the sellers as well.  I just recently bought a Land Rover mirror from Atlantic British through amazon. OEM part from a reputable seller. I could have called AB but amazon is the easy button.

Amazon Prime is roughly equal to RockAuto in terms of accuracy and quality in my history. Stay away from non prime, as returns and shipping time can get icky. Local stores only for generic stuff or if I am in a hurry. Dealer for new car stuff, confusing or super important stuff only.

In reply to tuna55 :

for me Rock auto got 1 out of 5 orders correct, screwed me on 3 of them outright. So they're not my go-to anything. amazon has gotten 1 out of 100 orders wrong and immediately send me a return slip and had a refund to me the next day. 

Now that I am back to work, I'm going to be buying the timing belt and associated parts for my WRX. Every inquiry I've made about sources has directed me to ebay.

There's sure a big difference in prices. RockAuto doesn't seem to have the parts from sources that I'm recommended to use, same with Amazon. All generic stuff from unknown / Chinese sources.

Appears to be a choice of massively inflated dealer prices, or eBay.

Mr_Asa said:  I usually go to RockAuto and get an estimate, then check the same part numbers on Amazon.  Usually you can pull up the same exact part being sold by different companies and get different prices.

This is generally the system I use. I personally have had good luck with Amazon stuff, especially "Amazon Warehouse" stuff; I know not everyone has had the same experience, but I am a Prime member and try to stick with stuff sold by Amazon.

Used to use Rockauto almost exclusively, but have grown weary of their unruly shipping/return polices.

I will also try to find OEM parts, sold by dealers, through eBay. Searching part numbers is needed.

Most of maintennace parts and  for my subie is from [link removed by moderator] and most exterior or other mods is from amazon

Moog hubs used to be supplied by Iljin.  Maybe still, I'm not sure.  Iljin is a very good OE supplier.  Made in Korea, usually.  Bought at www.advanceautoparts.com, using code RMN25 for 25% off.  Picked up in store 10 minutes later.  

https://www.tascaparts.com/auto-parts/dodge

Kramer said:

Moog hubs used to be supplied by Iljin.  Maybe still, I'm not sure.  Iljin is a very good OE supplier.  Made in Korea, usually.  Bought at www.advanceautoparts.com, using code RMN25 for 25% off.  Picked up in store 10 minutes later.  

Moog was the go to back in the day. Now they are E36 M3. Well this is according to all the guys who buy their lower ball joints for the 1st gen sequoias/tundras that fail within a year