Hey folks,
I have a question about OEM parts and who manufactures them. This may not be the right forum so, please excuse me if this is not the right place. Anyway, we have a 2004 RX330 that is well overdue for the timing belt/waterpump service. Now, my brother in-law is a certified Toyota Master mechanic so, he does all of our service work(which has been none on this Lexus) as we own several Toyotas. Anyway he claims that it is not necesary to buy parts from the dealer. He says the parts are not manufactured by Toyota but from OEM manufacturers and that he can get parts from a distributor that are the exact part just not in Toyota packaging. Does any of this sound legit? He claims he uses these parts on all "side work" he does at home and that he trust them in his personal cars. Would you trust these parts or would you just by from the dealer and pay about twice as much?

Thanks,

Mike

 

From my experience, anything not from dealer is not OEM. There are only OEM aftermarkets. For example, OEM aftermarket for timing belt would be from Mitsuboshi and water pump would be from Aisin. If you take a water pump from Aisin and compare it to a dealer OEM water pump. The dealer water pump will say toyota AND it will look slightly different. It will still fit no problems but it's not 100% identical. But you won't have any problems with the OEM aftermarket brand that I listed above. As for quality, only time may tell. Although, I only use Mitsuboshi and Aisin brand for Timing belt/Water pump just because I can get a good discount. So far so good no problems.

 

I really think this comes down to individual preference. I myself do not use dealer parts. I can get denso plugs and an Aisin water pump anywhere. I refuse to pay the insane dealer mark up!

My neighbor is a parts manager for a dealership. He used to work for a Toyota Dealer, now Kia. When he told me the % of markup on "dealer" parts I had to start wearing depends undergarments!

 

I'm not so sure about that... Not all, but many aftermarket parts I get are absolutely identical to the OEM... most OEM parts don't even say Toyota on them...

And even then, many aftermarket parts are engineered to fix problems with the OE design, not quite so often on Toyota's, but on many other models.

 

Do you guys know how to order from sites like discount parts and amayama withouit paying 500$ in shipping...

 

I had to laugh a bit when I got an OEM oil filter from the dealer for a new made in Japan Kawasaki I recently bought. It said Made in China right on the label! You'd think that Kawasaki Industries, a Japanese corporation, could manufacture such a tiny item cheaper than farming it out to another country but....

 

I know this super old. But Aisin, Mitsuboshi are OE manufacturers for Toyota, Lexus.