What "Parts Ordering Paralysis" costs

yeah, typical homeowner... go find car, get car in shop, jack up car and place jackstands, try to find suitable drain pan, dont have one, make mess... spend half an hour cleaning up oil... then remove and replace pan, filter etc... since this thing dont hav e a dipstick fashion a method of filling transmission.... then wait until tranny warms up and recheck and ad fluid as necessary.... then make sure you didn't screw up and have a leak or forget something.. all in one hour.

I know at home those fifteen minute jobs turn into all day affairs after 6 trips to the parts store are included. :)
You mean days or a week plus, a lot of dealers don't carry common parts anymore, they need to be shipped in.
 
Last edited:
How much time or money does a transmission shop need to order a commonly replaced transmission part from his usual transmission part supplier?

A $230-$250 pan becomes $350? C'mon now.
Again, I can understand some premium for parts speedily delivered to a shop but this was a scheduled maintenance service, not a 'can o' worms mystery repair requiring diagnosis and possible repeated parts phone calls and deliveries.
It is all part of the revenue structure. If shops did not mark up parts, their labor rate would need to be 30-50% higher.
 
Not so much and issue as a surprise.
And just between you and me, I never could get my head around "mark ups" on parts.
My understanding of the "mark up in parts" is that if the part fails prematurely, the mechanic will be expected to make it right, including the cost of the labor fix it. So he pads the price a little to cover that possibility.

I don't know if it actually works this way, I'm almost 100% DIY.
 
To

I see a design issue with a one use transmission pan.
I'd bet money there is something equally ridiculous somewhere on your F-250, every vehicle has its quirks. The ZF8 is one of the finest transmissions you can get and nearly 100% of people agree on that. Knowing transmission service was going to be pricey wouldn't have kept me from buying it as opposed to an inferior transmission in another truck.
 
Parts prices are all over the place, I can buy a Genuine ZF 8hp oil pan for £124. This seller regularly has over 40% off that price. Down side is it takes 10 days for delivery usually.

If I buy this pan from Audi for a SQ7 and it’s about £500.
 
These pans are single use? Thats messed up. A ton of waste for absolutely no reason. Why cant governments be all over stuff like this instead of single use plastic straws?

Can you evac the fluid out the top or is there a filter change too?

It's only a waste if your over maintain the transmission.
 
I don't see an issue. Parts cost + markup + labor.
I was buying some bolts at Toyota dealer yesterday. Sign at the cashier said shop labor rate has increased to $176/hour.

I can almost justify buying some new odd tools for that cost and have them for next time.

I just had to get a 14mm magnetic spark plug socket so I could change plugs on my Accord. Now I have it for future. I bought 3 to try but didn't like the flex joint on 2 of them when trying to install and torque so returned them. $22 and will almost definitely outlast me.
 
These pans are single use? Thats messed up. A ton of waste for absolutely no reason. Why cant governments be all over stuff like this instead of single use plastic straws?

Can you evac the fluid out the top or is there a filter change too?
Though I agree it is unnecessarily wasteful, the highways and oceans are not littered with car parts. It is mostly cigarette butts, grocery bags, fast food wrappers and cups, and beverage containers.
 
if you can't do things yourself you should not expect anyone else to do it for free.
that is my take on how life works.
Yeah but don't engineer something for no reason. A disposable plastic oil pan is really pushing it. I see alot of high prices an repair work that shouldn't be so high. Is there anyone on here that can give a breakdown of rent, insurance, salaries, utilities, property taxes etc on a repair shop?
 
Yeah but don't engineer something for no reason. A disposable plastic oil pan is really pushing it. I see alot of high prices an repair work that shouldn't be so high. Is there anyone on here that can give a breakdown of rent, insurance, salaries, utilities, property taxes etc on a repair shop?
What if an employer thought you required too much compensation and wanted to see a complete breakdown of your month expenses in order to justify paying you less - how ridiculously unreasonable would that be?
 
You mean days or a week plus, a lot of dealers don't carry common parts anymore, they need to be shipped in.
There's reasons for that. Also the definition of a common part is different to different people.

Case in point, we just did our monthly RIM return to Ford for parts that have had no movement in 12 months. Included in that is the oil filter cap for a 6.0 and 6.4 Powerstroke diesel. I didn't believe it until I checked and sure enough those parts had sat for over a year with no sales. So guaranteed someone will come in today or Monday and want one and go on a rant about how much we suck as a parts department because we don't have something so common on the shelf. We get penalized financially in that our return allowance and some back end discount earned money is greatly reduced if inventory on hand is 12+ months no sales over a certain percentage. Also parts on the shelf have to be viewed as stacks of money slowly shrinking. You want those parts constantly being turned over so that the theoretical stack of money on the shelf grows.
 
Yeah but don't engineer something for no reason. A disposable plastic oil pan is really pushing it. I see alot of high prices an repair work that shouldn't be so high. Is there anyone on here that can give a breakdown of rent, insurance, salaries, utilities, property taxes etc on a repair shop?
One of my very good wholesale customers had to close and look for a new location. They were paying $5K a month in rent for a 2 bay shop and the landlord increased it to $10K a month with no warning. Also their 2 post lifts became the property of the landlord as soon as they were bolted to the concrete.
 
The pan isn't a single use....exactly. The problem is that the filter is built into the pan. So to replace the filter, you have to replace the pan.

PPE is making an aluminum pan with replaceable filters for the application. Not sure what filter it uses though, probably proprietary to them.
Lol god i really dislike Chrysler/stellantis
 
Yeah but don't engineer something for no reason. A disposable plastic oil pan is really pushing it.
It makes sense from a packaging standpoint. And honestly, it is a very clean design for servicing, just more expensive.
 
Are we complaining about the price or the environmental impact?
I've been a bit baffled by how we as a society focus on environmental impact myself.

We're seemingly obsessed with getting every household to have an LED bulb in every lamp, and concerns on emissions from vehicles are high and getting more so every year.

But then we're ok with a transmission pan you have to throw away? And even the sealed transmissions basically REQUIRE you waste ~1/2 qt or more of fluid 'cause you gotta overfill only to drain some. And you have to idle for ~10 minutes to reach operating temp to check that fluid level. What about those emissions??

I'm not saying any of these designs are good or bad. And I don't have the answers. I just find inconsistencies and lack of logic amusing.
 
I've been a bit baffled by how we as a society focus on environmental impact myself.

We're seemingly obsessed with getting every household to have an LED bulb in every lamp, and concerns on emissions from vehicles are high and getting more so every year.

But then we're ok with a transmission pan you have to throw away? And even the sealed transmissions basically REQUIRE you waste ~1/2 qt or more of fluid 'cause you gotta overfill only to drain some. And you have to idle for ~10 minutes to reach operating temp to check that fluid level. What about those emissions??

I'm not saying any of these designs are good or bad. And I don't have the answers. I just find inconsistencies and lack of logic amusing.
You mean a transmission pan which will be replaced maybe twice during the lifetime of the vehicle? You're not serious are you?
 
[QUOTE="I Lol god i really dislike Chrysler/stellantis
[/QUOTE]
Isn’t just them… Aston Martin, BMW, Audi, Bentley, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Land Rover, Porsche, Rolls Royce, VW, and even Toyota among even more all use the ZF 8 speed with this style of pan.
 
You mean a transmission pan which will be replaced maybe twice during the lifetime of the vehicle? You're not serious are you?
Not the point at all. What's the difference between a single LED bulb vs incandescent used in a bedroom lamp for three hours per night? Or the difference in rotational effort for a crank in 0W-20 vs 5W-20?

The point is in certain areas we scrounge for every scintilla of reduction in emissions or waste or "carbon footprint" and in other areas it seems nary a concern. It just doesn't make sense.

And what do the OEMs reco for service interval? If, say, 60k, and you follow the guidelines it's way more than twice per vehicle. Now if EVERY vehicle on the road required a disposable pan every 60k, seems to me the green movement could start doing some marketing campaigns about how many times those pans would stretch around the earth, etc....all the usual tactics
 
Back
Top