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Ray,IN · 05-28-2015, 07:21 PM

I had to replace the purge valve assembly in my Meritor WABCO 1200 air dryer because it was sticking. I first phoned a local HDT repair shop nearby, I was quoted $189 for the "kit". I balked, saying a new 1200 complete system is $300 so they dropped the price to $110, still too much money. Looked it up online and anythingtrucks.com has it for $44+shipping and 4 days till ship time. Phoned the local Freightliner dealer and bought one for $66 today.
What valid reason could there be for the price being doubled by the first shop?

BTW, if your purge valve begins sticking, it may be removed and cleaned if none of the parts are damaged or scratched. Just lightly grease the "O" rings and lightly coat both cylinders in the body when re-assembling. Download mm34 from the Meritor WABCO website for complete assembly instructions.

dadej · 05-29-2015, 06:59 AM

Try finditparts.com. I got a haldex filter set from them for 122.00 plus free shipping.Shipped the next day.

Dan

BeachDude · 05-29-2015, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

...
What valid reason could there be for the price being doubled by the first shop?...

Capitalism and the Free Market economy! You gotta love it!

89sandman · 05-29-2015, 04:41 PM

Greed, they probably have a new 45 foot diesel pusher they have to pay for

You don't think people get rich by being honest do you?

the_vfox · 05-29-2015, 04:44 PM

Always pays to shop around, that internet thingy can be really handy

LeeOts · 05-29-2015, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

...What valid reason could there be for the price being doubled by the first shop?

Factor in differing overhead, one company may work out of an apt while the other has $10K in monthly rent plus inventory carrying cost. Likewise, a large company has employee salary plus benefit expenses while an online business has no one but him/herself. Freightliner can buy parts by the truckload while a small "mom & pop" buys 1 or 2 at a time. Big companies can spread margin over many products as long as the average meets goals but small companies are forced to maximize margin on every order. Sometimes, small companies don't want to tell the customer they don't want the business so they jack up the price.

Successfully operating a small company is like being inside a balloon and trying to keep it inflated by running from point to point to add pressure without poking a hole it it or allowing any point to collapse from lack of pressure.

The flip side of the free market is that you, the consumer, don't have to buy from a company (as you didn't) but simply find another source. Even if there's no other source, there's always a different solution such as buying a whole new assembly for just $110 more. It may be a weird system but it's the best available unless you want the "gubmint" to set prices.

TQ60 · 05-29-2015, 05:50 PM

Part of the price is the service you get.

Our dryer is a Bendix AD9 (me thinks...)

Called Gillig with vin and ordered "Factory part kit" to service and it was not even close and about $250 ish and Gillig could not explain why it was not close...no service there.

Called local place and was told to just bring it in.

For $150 ish we got a Bendix rebuilt that the service kit would not have included about 1/2 the parts to do along with a lot of advice regarding installing it and verifying operation.

Great price combined with great service.

One needs to do their homework to get the best value for their needs.

Took a bit of time and work to get the gilig stuff returned.

nothermark · 05-29-2015, 06:17 PM

FWIW and somewhat generalized. With car parts and I assume a lot of other stuff the norm is to double the price each time it passes through one's hands. In your case the repair shop offered it at what it would charge for the parts if they did the install. When you balked they offered it at something over their cost. If you went for it they probably would have ordered it from the Freightliner dealer or someone similar. Unless they are using them every day most shops no longer keep things in inventory as inventory represents unproductive money. Everybody else is somewhere closer to the manufacturer in the food chain thus has a lower cost and lower sale price. As far as the internet goes I have heard of manufacturers setting up backdoor internet sales divisions just to capture the DIY market share. They pull from the same stock as the distributor who sells to the repair shop or maybe even the big distribution warehouse who sells to the distributor who sells to the repair shop. All those steps have a significant cost structure and markup.

Ray,IN · 05-30-2015, 12:13 PM

All you guys made me remember economics 101 from high school, thanks for the memories_.
northermark, Winnebago is doing that exact thing now. They have a store-front on Amazon for older MH parts, manuals, etc. I'm familiar with "just-in-time" inventory control, it's been the death-knoll for many businesses. It does reduce capital investment by large corporations, at the expense of the small business suppliers.

That same purge rebuild kit costs $44.71 from anythingtruck.com but I elected to spend the extra $22 to install it the same day, instead of waiting a week for delivery.