Where to get spare parts? All possible options considered

What is going on?

The biggest difficulties in obtaining the necessary for the car will arise for those who are used to contacting an official dealer for whatever reason. They have one channel for obtaining parts – approved by the manufacturer and its representative office in the country. Even if your car is one of those brands that have not suspended operations in Russia, problems cannot be avoided: the supply chains have collapsed for everyone. Reduction of the number of items in stock and unpredictable delivery times are guaranteed.

With independent services, the situation is simpler. They are not limited in the choice of suppliers. If you need to repair the car in the shortest possible time – to a good person – they will quickly find the part by calling the stores like regular outside buyers.

The nuance of the new reality: some services have stopped selling takeaway meals. You can only buy with the installation here. Official filling stations were the first to put this approach into practice. For most motorists, such a restriction is not an obstacle, but for many it will still cause a nuisance.

Ordinary car dealers haven’t come up with tricks yet. Everything is the same as before: came (or ordered), paid, took. Only the prices have gone up, and very significantly. Over the past two months, the ruble has collapsed by up to 50-60% against the dollar and the euro. New car dealers raised prices by about the same amount. But the spare parts were added two to four times! Then the ruble returned to its previous positions, and spare parts did not fall in price at all.

You can understand the sellers to some extent. The current favorable situation with the ruble exchange rate is largely artificial. No one knows how long it will take, to how deep the national currency may collapse in the future and, consequently, at what prices the next batch of spare parts will have to be bought. Plus the inevitable rise in delivery costs. In general, it is not clear whether it will be possible to import spare parts from some brands. Selling cheaply now means you will run out of resources to continue working in the very near future.

Even used parts sellers have adapted to the new reality. Sometimes it comes to absurdity. I was looking for a mirror for the editorial Vesta in disassembly – and saw how especially greedy sellers prescribed prices in dollars and euros for half-dead spare parts of Lada cars.

Where to run?

If you’re used to trusting an authorized dealer, it’s not time to forget your way there. In previous years, their prices were overwhelmingly higher than in independent stores and services. Now everything is mixed up, and sometimes their deception turns out to be more modest. Even if they don’t sell you a part without installation (and they most likely will), you will still benefit from it. And at the same time get a guarantee and “quality standards” from the official.

Unfortunately there are no promotions or sales. Jaguar and Land Rover dealers, for example, no longer provide a full supply of engine oil for free replacement when a car older than three years arrives for service. Previously, this was a good argument in favor of the official service: at least 7,000 rubles were saved. Even the illiquid ones, notorious for the dealer – spare parts for older models that will never get to them – can hardly be found these days at a gratuitous price.

Unofficial gas stations and parts stores still offer almost the same range. For two months, Russian motorists failed to clear all supplies. Excessive demand was short lived – until prices rose. Now it makes no sense to buy anything for the future, because the price increase has stopped. And reconcile that delivery times have become noticeably longer at best. And even completely unpredictable.

Disassembly helps those who need it urgently and in stock. The assortment at the showdown will also be retained. And it seems that in the near future this kind of business will flourish, since even those who are willing to pay tens of thousands of rubles for a new body part will go to the denouement: if there is no such part physically in Russia, and you have to wait an unknown how long, you will have to search between used.

So in the future we are waiting for even more expensive and decent cars with traces of body repairs that do not match their status. This will not be done by overbids out of greed, but by the owners themselves – out of hopelessness.

How would it be cheaper?

In the internet age, everything has become simple and convenient. You don’t have to go shopping or sit on the phone. I found the number of the necessary spare part in the online catalog and drive it on the websites of major stores in the search box, note the prices for a piece of paper for comparison. Over the years of a prosperous life, many have, I am sure, even stopped comparing costs. They just found a seller suitable for themselves and ordered from him on the machine.

In order not to go bankrupt, we need a different approach. The easiest way is to compare the prices of several stores at the same time.

One of the most interesting options is purely automotive aggregators that combine the offerings of so many stores and suppliers.

The best known is Zzap. With regard to the largest and most popular spare parts sites (in Moscow, these include Exist and Autodoc), he used to be able to suggest an advantage of up to 20-25%. Now you can sometimes find the same part for half the price. Not the fact that you will definitely catch luck, but the possibility is there.

Comparison of minimum prices for some spare parts, rub.

Spare parts and consumables at the old prices can no longer be found. There is a chance that one of the mid-sized players will be giving away obsolete illiquid assets at the old price. Must search. Consumables do not fall into this category: they are needed most often. And yet, don’t be lazy to spend more time searching – you will always have time to overpay.

• You can discover here which parts of parallel import are not yet worth buying.
• Via this link you can pick up spare parts and consumables “Behind the wheel” for your car.
• “Behind the wheel” can also be read in Telegram.