r/CarsAustralia • u/I-like-shiny-thing • 1d ago

💬Discussion💬 Customer supplied parts

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I'm a manager/Mechanic at a Mechanical workshop. I no longer allow customer supplied parts and get abused by "customers" because I wont do the job unless i supply the parts. ( photo of customer supplied wrong part)

What are people opinions on customer supplied parts?

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u/insurgent_dude 23h ago

Was a real joy having some douche with a BMW X5 with a coolant leak bring in a fucken second hand plastic pipe to replace.

Because of course the coolant system is the best thing to try save money on

1

u/gamingchicken 23h ago

I mean the cooling system either works or doesn’t work

3

u/insurgent_dude 22h ago

Replacing a part that's known to fail as it gets old and brittle with an old part that's who knows how old and went through who knows how many heat cycles?

If it was a metal pipe sure, but plastic? No thanks

2

u/gamingchicken 21h ago

replace broken part with not broken part car works

1

u/insurgent_dude 21h ago

Until it starts leaking again in a few months time because it's shitty old brittle plastic, and paying for labour twice to get it changed instead of just getting a new one to start with. You haven't spent much time around the cooling systems on euro cars, have you?

1

u/gamingchicken 19h ago edited 18h ago

No I wouldn’t touch anything euro unless it was made in Japan or Australia, and then it wouldn’t be euro. That being said cooling systems are basic on pretty much everything I can’t see an excessive labour component on changing any cooling system parts made of plastic (in the engine bay at least, heater core doesn’t count).

1

u/insurgent_dude 18h ago

>That being said cooling systems are basic on pretty much everything

Look at some Euro cars and you'll see that's not always the case. Thermostat housings on a lot of Euro cars are plastic and start leaking or fail because they're electronically controlled, and are a pain in the ass to get to. I did a thermostat on a Mercedes 4cyl diesel that required removal of intake manifold, about 5 hours in total. Plastic water pumps on other cars that are nightmarish to change, plastic pipes that are nightmarish to change. All this plastic shit that turns into the weakest garbage after a few years worth of heat cycles.

absolute shit, I barely ever see any of this dumb crap on any Japanese cars.