How to Buy Car Parts

If you buy parts for your car, whether it’s service items like oil, filters or even wiper blades, or major repair parts like clutches, suspension and running gear, they can get expensive so getting the best deal possible is rather important. Here in the UK, a lot of people buy from Euro Car Parts and it’s easy to see why. The convenience, warranty, and speed is hard to beat but it can get pricey. So here are some tips for that.

First, if you need the parts ASAP, go on their website and reserve the parts you need before hand. That means you can enter one of their countless discount codes and save a shed load on parts you’d otherwise have paid full price for. You can reserve parts with just 15 minutes notice, so if you order before you leave, by the time you get there odds are they are ready to go. Keep in mind they often have multiple offer codes, some may give a bigger discount than others on different items so try a few out if you can.

If you’ve got more time to spare, maybe planning a service at the weekend, ordering from their Ebay store is even cheaper. You do have to wait for delivery, but the prices can be even better, especially for regular service items like oils and filters, although they do sell some more specific parts on there too so have a browse.

If you’d rather not buy from Euro Car Parts, buying on Ebay is a great shout. I got 7L of LiquiMoly oil for my S4 for £58, vs around £100 if I bought Castrol Edge from ECP, even with a discount. And it’s not just service items, specific parts for your car are likely in abundance on Ebay including niche items you won’t find anywhere else but the dealer.

Some tips for buying on Ebay are to find the model number of the part you want and search for that instead. Searching just for your car make, model and part name often doesn’t return a great deal of results, but the part number almost always will. You might also find the part is used on a number of other makes and models, for example VAG cars (VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat) often are almost identical and use the same parts, but the parts listed as Skoda might be cheaper than ones listed as VW or Audi even though they are the same exact piece.

If you can’t find a part number, calling your local dealership and asking to speak to the parts department normally works. Some won’t give out part numbers, but will quote you on a price direct from them which I’ve found can be even cheaper than buying new on Ebay.

I’m sure there are plenty more tips, so if you have any feel free to leave them in a comment!