Disappointed in Peterbilt Dealers and Prices

I have read both of your posts and I feel like there is a real issue here that needs to be discussed that may help with your problem.

First and foremost, I work for a Peterbilt dealer. I do not mean to berate you at all, however, I see customers like you on a weekly basis. When I say "customers like you", I mean customers who hold the attitude of "I don't want to learn something because I did not like it" in reference to you not wanting to use any amount of understandable grammar.

Second, regarding your wiper motor - depending on the motor you purchased, some of them are around $500 at OUR cost, which means reselling them for $693 to you is at most $193 in profit. That may sound high, but dealers have high operating costs. Not to mention that, but it sounds like you expect them to cut you a huge deal on price, thus lowering their profit. From what it sounds like, you are likely a cash-customer who has never been to that dealer before and will probably never be at that dealer again. With that being said they do not have any incentive to give you a discount. They will never see you again regardless of how much they charge you. Repeat customers get discounts, not one time customers who purchase one or two parts. It may sound cruel, but it's the way it is. When we have customers spending $25,000 with us a month, they're the ones we are going to go out of our way to help - not the guy who came in to buy one part and was pissed off over the price of it.


Next up, you could purchase an aftermarket wiper motor for far cheaper, I'm sure. I'm sure you could even purchase one on eBay! However, I would not recommend that. All Paccar purchased parts from a Peterbilt (or Paccar-dealer) come with a warranty. If you purchase an aftermarket component, or a Paccar component from a non-Paccar dealer, you will not have any warranty should that part fail. So while you may feel the need to complain about the price, the moment that part fails you will be looking at a replacement (and likely labor) free of charge.

Again, I'm not trying to insult you - I'm only trying to give you insight into how dealerships work. We are businesses afterall. The end goal is to make money, and while we'd all love to have the most customer satisfaction possible, it isn't always feasible. If we aren't ever going to see you again, we aren't going to give you discounts. We have to pay our bills and our employees as well, while making money. That's the world of business.

Hopefully this helps explain why, and for future reference, making a double post about your disappointment really is not necessary. People did not take your complaint seriously because we were barely able to understand it. If you spent a couple minutes using punctuation, capital letters, spell check and a little bit of grammar, people would take you far more seriously.

Hope the rest of your day is nice

 

Belials that was a very respectful reply. Thanks for explaining a view from a dealership. I have always assumed Peterbuilt parts are more expensive at least for the parts I needed when I owned one.
When non-oem parts are bought off the internet there always seems to be "one bolt, flange or bend" that just doesn't fit.
For truck specific parts I almost exclusively buy from the dealership. I may pay 10% more but I don't have to return to get the right one, "most of the time"

 

I have found the local Paccar dealers here in Alberta to be very, very helpful and All I buy is parts, my Pete is old and when I add trucks they will be old, but these guys treat me the same at the parts counter a million dollar a year fleet accounts (except for the volume discount) Paccar tends to use better parts, so they cost more, high volume aftermarket parts are often cheaper at the Paccar dealers. when I give my vin, the parts guys usually say oh that's an old one how is it holding up ?

 

Thank you, xsetra. I won't say that ALL OEM parts are reasonably priced - there are certainly some that are just outrageous. As in, two identical parts, one with a Peterbilt logo & the price is more than double. However, we don't set the price on those as a dealer. We have to pay our costs, and our costs are higher on those Pete-logo'd parts which means we have to charge more for them, so it isn't just customers that it happens to - it's just that customers are the end of the line.

Of course, every dealer is going to have different pricing as well - but our "Cost" pricing is going to be pretty similar based on what Paccar charges us, which means we have to charge customers based on what our cost is.

With that being said, if your local dealership price seems high - call dealerships far away! Call out of state! Get their pricing. Dealerships will absolutely ship to your home! You'll have to pay shipping, of course - but you might find a dealership in Florida that will sell you that part for less WITH shipping than your local dealership.

It's always worth shopping around.

 

I did not tell you that you don't matter - I told you that you do not provide the dealership any incentive to provide you a discount. They have a business to run to keep their doors open. If dealerships offered discounts to EVERY walk-in, non-repeat customer, they would close their doors within a year.

You are expecting to be treated differently than 99% of the rest of the walk in customers, which is not the case.

Edit: You said you've had your truck 5 months and it is still under coverage. This confuses me - why are you paying for your wiper motor? If it is 5 months old, you have warranty and it would be free. Something here does not make sense.

Not to mention that, if your truck is under warranty, I can guarantee nearly every repair that has been done on your truck under warranty, the dealership has lost money on that repair. Warranty repairs LOSE dealerships money. It is VERY rare for us to break even or even make money. What happens to that excess time and parts? We eat the cost, instead of charging the customer. So you can complain about the cost of a part you bought, be thankful you weren't charged for the excess hours warranty did not cover.

 

If it is a new truck, with the proper amount of months in service, and are only the second owner - the original Peterbilt warranty could be transferred to you, as well as extended warranties.

 

I'd like to add my 2 pennies too. 1st, I couldn't care less what the grammar looks like, as long as I can make out what you say, and 2nd, Truth be known, I don't know how a dealer, or ANY business can make it nowadays. Trucks are and always have been high dollar items. When you stop and think of what they do, they have to be OVER engineered. I did just about all the work myself on my trucks, so there was very little reason for me to go to a dealer, and I saved a lot of money doing so. If you are the kind of person that can't do that, you are at the mercy of the dealer. When I did need parts, (bearings, clutches, water pumps, brakes, etc) I was a regular at a truck parts supply house, and had an account, and got a special price, because they knew I wouldn't go anywhere else for my parts. Trucks are probably 90% off the shelf, meaning, they are assembled from outside manufacturers, and if you need a "genuine" dealer specific, in this case , the wiper motor, sometimes you have to bite the bullet, and go to the dealer. I think the OP should shop around if they are that upset, but it's not the dealers fault.