Do you allow a customer to supply their own parts for an install? If so, or if not, does it matter what kind of install - simple or complex?

Just wondering... thanks!

I don't think you can ask any reputable vendor to warranty work done with user supplied parts unless they are new parts and the same parts the vendor would install himself

From a business point of view, shops usually do not install parts supplied by the customer. There is a profit margin that is made by installing a shop supplied part, so by taking a customer supplied part, the profit margin on the job goes down because the shop is no longer making money off selling the part. Also, warranty for the parts and labor becomes an issue if the part is bad. The combination of lowered profit margins and potential warranty issues usually is enough reason for most shops to shy away from taking outside parts. There are exceptions though... if the shop is just a normal maintenance and repair shop, and you want to mods that the shop does not have suppliers for, the shop might take on the job if you don't mind forfeiting your rights to a warranty on the parts and the labor.

This is exactly how it usually works, IF a shop will install customer supplied parts.

On a job like yours, the minimum required parts for a rebuild (bearings, seals, gaskets, chain and tensioners) may cost $3,000-$3,500 if you can buy direct. A shop will charge retail and the same parts will cost you about 5-6K. If the shop does something wrong and has to go back in...this is their cushion. Many will not give up the cushion, but many will. I usually supply my own parts to a shop I know well - with the understanding that if I supply a defective part, I am eating the labor to do it again, as they are just charging labor.

I have never had a problem with shops installing parts I supply. Obviously I don't expect them to cover anything except what they provide - labor.

That is the entire reason we do packaged builds. We know exactly what is going on the car and what each part does and how it works together with the others.

So called "franken-cars" made from a collaboration of parts from different sources take the longest to sort out and fix if a problem arises.

I haven't had any trouble from shops installing the parts I provide either. It should be common sense that, if a part I provided is defective, I can pay the shop again to replace it. That's the "cushion" for them. They don't care if the part turns out to be defective because they know they are not responsible for it. Win - Win.

We do.

Even though we are not responsible for the part, you have to pay us to do it over again the correct way and we have a car that ties up our resources for much longer than expected. Lose-Lose.

Unfortunately, not all of us have access to shops like your's and John's close by. We are forced to find our local mad scientist..............IT"S ALIVE!

I hear what you are saying, but if you look at this in a business perspective (without sentiments about the client's feelings about buying a crappy part in the first place), you are getting paid for the work and more work is more income for you. Most businesses would love to be in a position where they have more work than they have capacity for. The client got a better price for the parts and knows the risks up front. I have done this with shops also, but in my case the shop would have charged me more for the exact same part (from the same manufacturer). Enough more in fact that even paying twice for the install would have left me ahead.

I have some Porsche factory parts sitting a few feet from where I sit. I had planned to install them myself but have decided to pay someone to do it instead. These aren't crappy knock off parts, they're Porsche parts. If my mechanic won't install them without also supplying them, he won't be my mechanic anymore.

We have no issue installing parts that are supplied by the customer. However, we do have a disclaimer on all our invoices that basically states that we can make no warranty on the parts themselves.

But, like Neil said, we generally try to discourage it whenever possible because we would always rather have the customer install parts that we have some experience with. I hate seeing customers have to pay 3 times the labor at the end of the day, because of parts that don't perform or install the way they're supposed to.

Good, friendly debate fellas...

Just to add a bit of detail to this "hypothetical" scenario, the parts provided are from the same manufacturer, and in most cases from the same distributor even. To that end, the question simply remains, does the shop HAVE to profit off of the parts to make the install worthwhile? And let's say that a nice quality connecting rod fails later on down the road... does my cost to tear the engine back down to replace it change any if the rod came from me or the shop?

+1 on this....unfortunately...

Obviously, I would never go to RUF for example, and bring my parts LOL...The same applies to any of the world-known shops IMO.

Parts do fail but more often then not they simply do not fail as quality control for proper manufacturing processes are in place from the makers of said part, assuming it's a genuine or high quality reputable outfit. This said I think it depends on the situation, if it's a part that is body, brakes, or suspension or something like this I am more likely to supply my own part...on things like engine, tranny I may be less likely unless it's a component that is modular and has a much larger savings margin...

just my $0.02