Where online can you get aftermarket parts for “Exotic Super Cats”? I can’t find any. I’m wondering if these type of manufactures like Lamborghini or Bugatti don’t allow third party manufacturers to make aftermarket parts, or maybe the market is just to slim for aftermarket manufacturers to make parts for “exotic super Cars” to make enough money from making parts?
I don’t have an “exotic super car” and likely never will, I’m just trying to learn more about the market for them as far as maintenance.
Why don’t you ask a local exotic vehicle shop this question . And why would Auto Zone even want to carry parts for something that sells in such low amounts ?
Why would anyone make aftermarket parts for “exotic super cars”? Aftermarket parts manufacturers make parts for cars which were sold in large numbers, because a certain size audience is needed to justify the tooling expense. Furthermore, people who own “exotic super cars” are wealthy enough to not have to worry about saving money versus the cost of OEM parts and dealer service.
Someone with a 25-year old Toyota Camry is going to buy aftermarket parts whenever possible. And millions of these cars were sold, just in the U.S. market, so even accounting for 25 years of attrition, there are likely more than a million of these cars still on the road. Similarly, someone with a 20-year old Kia or Buick, or other mass-produced car is going to use aftermarket parts for their maintenance and repair needs.
I imagine you can get some aftermarket performance parts (upgraded parts). But, yeah, not enough of a market for aftermarket replacement parts. Besides, I imagine most people that own super cars aren’t doing their own brake jobs and maintenance anyway (even if they could). They take it to the dealership (or a specialty automotive repair shop) who’d just as soon use oem parts.
Well see that’s the thing. I’m just trying to learn here, why I can never have a “exotic super car”, even if I got one for free. Impossible to maintain.
Not only are parts stupid expensive, $1000+ for a brake rotor for example, the part data seems to only exist on the after market along with sales of the parts. You can’t say for example go on the Lamborghini website like you would for a Honda, to look up diagrams for part numbers. Want to look up the part number for your brake rotor because it’s starting to get thin, you can’t look up the part number on the manufacturers website. Want to purchase straight from the manufacturer on their website (only option because no aftermarket parts exist), nope can’t. Not only that, if you somehow found the parts and part data on the after market you don’t have access to information on how to repair the vehicle. The cars aren’t even in AllData etc. So you have to look for service manuals on the after market. Can’t find the part your looking for, part data, or service manual, your out of luck.
Some parts on those cars are very specific to that model. Other parts may be the same as on many cars. That’s the case with many cars; the more exotic, the fewer are the parts that are the same as on many cars.
Things like light bulbs, gas caps, thermostats, etc. are more likely to be interchangeable with other cars.
If you are using a Lamborghini for racing or delivering pizzas, you might need to replace the brake rotors however most of these cars see light use fewer than 20 days each year and are kept inside a building. Most of these cars go through life with their original parts.
In your original post, I thought you were referring to collision parts, still not enough demand for competition in the market.
On one of the recent Car Talk podcasts, the caller has a Rolls Royce. Complaining about wind noise. He said he asked the Rolls dealership how much a new window gasket would cost, $275 I think they said, that’s just the parts cost … lol … unlikely to be any alternative sources, it just comes w/the territory.
Ray and Tom said what they’d do is try bending the window frame a little to see if that would mitigate the wind noise problem. Either that or buy Rolls and Rolls of duct tape … lol …
A company cannot prohibit other companies from making replacement parts for their products–or, at least they can’t do so in The US. In fact, courts have sometimes ruled that the company making the replacement parts can legally use the trademarked logo of the original manufacturer on the aftermarket replacement parts.
I think that it really comes down to a very minor demand for those parts as the limiting factor in their availability.
i used to check out goonzsquad since they tinker on exotic cars.
accident damage? new control arms? new struts? new formed coolant hoses?
all come from dealer network.
they have good intentions but limited skills
Besides a tiny number of cars needing these parts, many owners of exotics are fanatical about maintaining the originality of their cars, no way they’d want some Autozone brand replacement parts. So there is zero economic incentive for a company to go to the cost of developing and distributing parts that would not sell.
I was watching Fantomworks the other day and saw some Duralast packaging in the camera shot as they worked on the brakes of a 70’s Corvette. I thought…surely they wouldn’t…would that shop really put AZ store brand parts on one of their builds? Maybe it was for advertising purposes.