You Get What You Pay For!

Recently, I've had a couple of customers tell me that they can buy older style (1970's era) Delco starters at the local parts stores for $39.00.  One of them had already purchased a marine sealed one for that price with a one year warranty.  How is this possible?  How can parts stores purchase these, in today's prices, for a low enough price to sell them for that amount and still make a decent mark up?

I'll tell you!  They have to cut quality and are rebuilt in third world countries, where they pay probably less then a dollar an hour for the work.  The problem with this is that both quality and workmanship suffer.  Quality suffers by way of using inferior parts, used parts that should not be reused without rewinding or repair and new parts of very low quality with inferior metals and plastics that work fine when new, but after being in the extreme temperature changes and vibrations under the hood, will eventually fail, sooner rather than later.  Many won't make the one year warranty.  Workmanship also suffers in that many of the workers are unskilled and don't really know how to watch for problems, when assembling or stripping or leaving bolts and screws loose, which will also cause problems.  How many of these units have you taken on and off, for warranty after warranty, until you finally get a good one?

How do I know this?  I've worked on many of these units and seen first hand the poor quality!  I stood there and told my customer I couldn't believe how much they are charging for these units because I know how much I have to put into one, to repair it. 

Speaking about this particular starter, on average if the unit comes in dirty and needs a standard rebuild, using quality wear parts like brushes, bushings, drive and solenoid, the parts alone cost about $25.00 and labor would usually average around $42.00.  That's a total of $67.00!  Now If I have to replace the armature and/or field coils, that substantially increases the repair cost.  To order a 'quality' rebuilt or new starter including shipping, cost me around a hundred bucks!  Add my markup of around $40.00 and you see that I can't even begin to compete cost wise with the parts stores.  I can however compete on quality, so if you only care about cost, then you get what you pay for!  If you want a unit to last and be trouble free, you should take it to a qualified and trusted rebuilder and pay the additional cost to repair yours or get a quality unit!