5 Things to Know Before Buying Auto Aftermarket Parts category

When shopping for auto parts, you often have to choose between OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) parts and aftermarket options. Both have pros and cons, depending on your needs, and terms like “Factory original” or “Genuine” can cause confusion and make it more challenging to decide which parts you need. Discover the differences between OEM and aftermarket parts, what each offers, and how to decide which is best for your vehicle.

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What Are OEM Parts?

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) parts are specifically designed to match the exact specifications and functionality of components a particular automaker uses. For instance, an OEM air filter for a Porsche 993 is designed to be the same as the air filters initially installed in the car when it was first manufactured.

Some parts comparable to OEM might be labeled as “Genuine” or “Factory original.” Although these parts are essentially the same as OEM parts in function and design, a Genuine part is made by the original vehicle manufacturer and usually features its branding. For example, a Genuine McLaren part is produced by McLaren specifically for McLaren vehicles, offering consumers complete assurance about its compatibility.

The primary difference between OEM and Genuine parts lies in the branding. OEM parts might be labeled by various suppliers and not feature the automaker’s branding or logos, depending on the distribution channels. Whether you opt for an OEM or a Genuine part, you are guaranteed a product that functions like a factory original, offering precise compatibility and delivering the performance you expect.

Pros and Cons of OEM Parts

When you need new parts for your vehicle, choosing Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) parts provides several advantages and assurances, such as:

• Quality assurance. OEM parts are made to match the specifications, performance, and quality of the factory originals they replace. Choosing OEM ensures you receive a high-quality product that performs exactly as expected.
• Compatibility and fit. An OEM part is designed to replace a factory-original equivalent one-to-one, using the same materials and sizes. This ensures that the part you purchase for your vehicle is 100% compatible.
• Preserves your warranty. If your car is still under the manufacturer’s warranty, OEM parts ordered and installed by an approved collision center will not void it. It also ensures that trained and manufacturer-certified technicians handle the parts replacement process for added peace of mind.

While there are numerous benefits to choosing OEM parts, there are also some drawbacks to consider before purchasing:

• Cost. OEM parts are generally more expensive than aftermarket equivalents, especially if you opt for a Genuine or factory-original model.
• More limited selection. While OEM parts offer guaranteed quality, fewer choices are available, especially if you’re looking for parts that enhance your vehicle’s performance.

What Are Aftermarket Parts?

Aftermarket auto parts are made by third-party manufacturers and may not always perfectly match the performance of the factory originals they replace. While many aftermarket parts function well, they are available in a broader range of types and tailored for specific needs, using materials of varying quality.

Pros and Cons of Aftermarket Parts

Many drivers choose aftermarket parts, and there are several good reasons to consider them instead of factory originals or OEM counterparts, including:

• More cost-effective. Third-party manufacturers often produce parts at a lower cost than OEM or branded genuine equivalents. This makes them a cost-effective option for replacing faulty or worn-out car parts.
• Performance options. Aftermarket solutions are ideal if you need parts to improve your vehicle’s power and performance or simply want a different look and feel. Many third-party parts makers specialize in offering high-performance parts or enhanced capabilities, from air intakes and exhausts to tires, suspensions, brakes, or engine parts.
• Discontinued model support. If the original automaker discontinued your vehicle model, buying aftermarket parts might be the only way to continue maintaining and driving it. Many parts makers specialize in producing recent-manufactured parts for older or obsolete models.

If you’re considering aftermarket parts, it’s important to be aware of potential downsides. Here are some drawbacks you should keep in mind:

• Wide variation in quality. While the quality of the best aftermarket parts can match or exceed OEM, lower-quality components can degrade your car’s performance. Always research the reputation of the aftermarket manufacturer to ensure you’re buying a high-quality product.
• Compatibility issues. When purchasing aftermarket parts, there’s no certainty that the part will fit your vehicle as intended. While some may fit seamlessly, others might not, and this often depends on the reliability of the parts manufacturer.
• Warranty issues. Installing aftermarket parts on a vehicle can void the warranty. If your car is still covered, consider requesting the services of an approved collision center before shopping for third-party parts.

Schedule Professional Parts Installation Today

Whether you need new parts after a collision or want to upgrade your vehicle’s capabilities, you’ll need the services of qualified auto body technicians. Harry’s Auto Collision has been a trusted name in South California for over 50 years, proudly serving the Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks areas. Our team can recommend OEM or high-quality aftermarket parts depending on your needs and we also provide installation and replacement services. Book an appointment with us today.

FAQs

What is the difference between OEM and aftermarket?

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) parts are auto parts designed to match the specifications and performance of a car maker’s factory original. OEM parts can be made by the automaker or one of their suppliers. Aftermarket auto parts are built by third-party manufacturers that are not related to the automaker.

Why are OEM parts more expensive than aftermarket parts?

OEM parts are typically sold at a higher price point than their aftermarket equivalents because they are built to the original automaker’s tolerances and quality assurance standards. For example, when you buy a Mercedes-Benz OEM part, you will receive a product that has passed Mercedes-Benz quality control. An aftermarket part doesn’t come with this assurance. While it means they are cheaper, they offer fewer guarantees of quality or compatibility with your car.

Are aftermarket parts better than OEM parts?

It depends on your needs. OEM parts are reliable and offer predictable, factory-like performance. They can be the better choice if you need to restore your vehicle to its original specifications after a collision, especially if it’s still under warranty. However, aftermarket parts can be a more suitable solution if you’re looking for cost-effective replacements, customize your car’s looks, or improve its performance.

How do I know if an OEM or aftermarket part is high quality?

OEM parts are designed as direct replacements for original parts produced by a given manufacturer and offer the same level of quality. If the factory-original part is reliable, the OEM replacement will also be. The quality of an aftermarket part depends on its manufacturer’s quality assurance. If you intend to buy an aftermarket part for your vehicle, research the part maker’s reputation and look for product reviews and professional assessments before making your decision.

Aftermarket parts are components for your vehicle made and sold by a company other than your automaker. These parts can range from small things like windshield wiper blade inserts to critically important engine components. Aftermarket parts are used in vehicle maintenance, in body repairs after an accident, to repair your vehicle in the event of a breakdown, and as a way to improve the look or performance of your vehicle.

When your crossover, SUV, truck or car breaks down or is involved in an accident, you want the vehicle to be made right again. One concern many vehicle owners have is that the parts used in the repair will be substandard. In this context, aftermarket parts is a term that conveys a suspicion that the part is sub-par. By contrast, many vehicle owners who want to increase the performance or look of their vehicle opt for parts that they feel are clearly superior to the parts originally chosen by the manufacturer. Our point is that the term “aftermarket part” need not always have a negative connotation.

What are Aftermarket Parts

In a general context, an aftermarket part is one that you don’t purchase directly from your automaker’s authorized dealership or retail network. We wish we could extend the definition to be more all-encompassing, but the fact is, many parts one buys from a dealer that are considered “original equipment manufacturer” parts, a.k.a. “OEM” parts, are clearly labeled as having been made by another company other than your automaker. In other cases, the part is “private labeled,” meaning the automaker’s brand is applied to the part, but that part may also be used by other automakers, or perhaps even sold directly to the consumer by that parts supplier.

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The most important aspect of any part is that it meets the demands of its application. The automaker, also called the “OEM,” goes to great lengths to select or design parts it feels meet the required budget (often the very first consideration), desired life expectancy, manufacturability, and aesthetics in some cases. Aftermarket parts are no different in this regard.

The fuzzy area in this conversation comes from the fact that automakers don’t actually make many of the parts you will someday replace. They use suppliers to make everything from belts and hoses, filters of all types, pumps, starters, suspension components, brake components (often stamped with the part maker’s name proudly on the outside of the caliper), infotainment systems, and pretty much everything else. Honda does not have a wheel bearing factory operated by Honda employees using raw materials made in Honda factories. It buys wheel bearings from a bearing manufacturer (usually a company called NTN), who itself uses multiple key suppliers in the creation of that wheel bearing.

Many of the parts that OEMs use are made by suppliers who also sell replacement parts or even upgrades directly to the consumer. In other cases, the aftermarket parts provider is a massive company making parts for thousands of individual applications. The idea that aftermarket parts are made by a shady fly-by-night operation someplace in a part of the world seen as less desirable is no longer valid, if it ever was.

What's the Difference Between Aftermarket and OEM Parts

The way that an OEM part is different from an aftermarket part is that the automotive manufacturer played a role in its design and selection, and perhaps its manufacturing. Following this participation, the manufacturer assigned that component a part number of its own and set up a distribution network to sell it or use it in dealer repairs. All of this comes at a very high cost to the consumer.

Aftermarket parts, by contrast, are engineered, tested, and manufactured to serve the same purpose as the original part. They are then marketed by the parts manufacturer, or a retail company. One part sold by an aftermarket supplier, let’s call them Acme, may in fact be made by multiple parts manufacturers to Acme’s specifications. And those specifications are very likely identical in all meaningful ways to the original automaker’s. Part of Acme’s overall business may include making OEM parts that they supply to automakers who call them their own.

Quality control is an important part of any manufacturing process. If there is any evidence that automotive manufacturers have superior quality control by comparison to the parts suppliers who make and market aftermarket parts, it’s hard to understand how that could be true. Let’s remember that OEMs often make mistakes. There were 53 million vehicles recalled in the U.S. in alone. Almost all of those recalls involved the failure of an OEM part that the automaker designed, specified, and took responsibility for the quality of.

Here is a great example. Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Subaru, and other manufacturers are presently struggling with a recall related to failing fuel pumps in their top-selling models. The reason that there is more than one manufacturer involved here is that these manufacturers didn’t make this critically important component. A huge parts manufacturer named Denso made the part they all shared and all applied their own “OEM” part number to. It gets better. Denso used to be owned by Toyota. Now only 25% of the company is owned by Toyota and Denso supplies components to multiple brands of automobiles. Is Denso in actuality then considered an OEM in their own right? The line is often blurred.

If you need another example of an “OEM” part failing and causing a major market disruption, search for “Takata airbag recall” in your browser. This component manufacturer supplied most major brands with OEM airbag inflators. OEMs don’t actually make that critical safety component. When it all went wrong, the OEMs didn’t call the failed part their airbag inflator. Instead, they pointed the finger at the supplier. It became the “Takata airbag recall.”

The point is, automakers want you to think their parts are superior to aftermarket parts. But when their “own parts” fail, they sometimes point at the supplier and name them as the cause.

Aftermarket Parts Pros and Cons

How Do Aftermarket Parts Work

If you have your vehicle serviced at the brand’s authorized dealer, you would assume that only original parts made by your automaker will be used in its maintenance or repair. Of course, this is not true. The single most expensive maintenance item on any vehicle is tires. And no automaker manufacturers tires. They don’t even bother to private label them. There are no “Ford SuperRound” tires or “Volkswagen GreatTread” tires. The OEMs buy the same tires from the same companies you do.

Oil is the lifeblood of the modern gasoline-powered vehicle. When you have the oil changed, the oil the dealer puts in is not made by the automaker, though it may well be available at the parts counter in a bottle labeled with the brand’s name and logo. Thus, the two most common and likely most costly components you will change in your vehicle are aftermarket parts, and are openly sold by your automaker inside their own dealerships.

Should you need a replacement alternator, the one the dealer installed may not be the same part number that the brand originally specified. We recently had an original alternator fail in our Subaru Forester. The folks at the Subaru dealership covered the replacement at no cost. Interestingly, the dealer didn’t use the original OEM alternator because the original OEM part was found to have a lifespan of just a few years and was causing trouble with the engine’s performance before it would ultimately fail. As you can see, original parts are sometimes even substituted by the automakers themselves.

One part you will almost certainly change before your vehicle turns five years of age is the 12-volt battery. This is true even if you own an electric vehicle. In the United States, two companies dominate the 12-volt battery business, Johnson Controls, Inc. and Exide Technologies. If you buy a replacement battery from your car dealership it may well have the name of the car brand on it, but they didn’t make it. It was made in the same factory that built all of the aftermarket batteries you could have bought for less from AAA, a local auto parts store, or have installed by a local mechanic.

Aftermarket parts like an oil filter, alternator, starter, AC compressor, wheel bearing, brake rotor, or other commonly-replaced parts are typically the first choice of independent repair shops. These shops know and trust various aftermarket brands because they use them every day to make affordable repairs on cars owned by lifelong customers. These shops know which brands make a quality part for that specific repair. Most importantly, they know that in many cases, the aftermarket parts perform as well or better than the OEM parts that they could source and this will save money for their customers. No shop wants to use a part that will have a distraught customer come back a week later with a car on a flatbed. Don’t assume aftermarket parts used by your trusted local shop are of low quality.

Most of our overview thus far has centered around late-model vehicles and their parts. It’s important to be mindful of the fact that OEM parts for older cars may no longer be available. In many cases, parts with superior performance made by aftermarket suppliers replaced the original part somewhere along the timeline of that model’s existence.

One thing to keep in mind whenever one is purchasing an aftermarket part to repair a vehicle is that the OEM part failed. Had it not failed, the replacement part would not be needed. If you are a fan of the show Wheeler Dealers you may have noticed that many of the problems with the vehicles the show returns to good condition are often solved by the substitution of an aftermarket part that works better than the OEM part did.

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