Have wear parts really gone up?

The conversation comes back with every quote. "A set of pads was half that five years ago." Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's a tidied-up memory, and most often it's a comparison between two things that aren't the same part. The feeling that prices have gone up is real, but it comes from specific places, and it doesn't hit the same items depending on whether you run a motorcycle, a bicycle or a chainsaw.

What follows contains no percentage change. Deliberately. Any headline figure of the "parts have risen by X in five years" sort lumps together part numbers that have changed, ranges that have moved, invisible trade discounts and exchange rates: it's an average of things that aren't comparable. What can be done is to describe the mechanisms precisely, give today's ballpark figures item by item, and hand you enough to judge for yourself whether the quote in front of you stacks up.

Trap number one: the superseded part number

This is the most common explanation and the least well known. A manufacturer's part number rarely lives ten years. It gets replaced, often several times over, by a superseding number: same function, but a technical revision, a change of supplier, a different material, sometimes a complete kit where a single part used to be sold.

Three very concrete consequences:

• The price is repositioned at every supersession, based on the cost of the new part, not the old one uprated for inflation.
• The contents change without warning. An oil seal part number that becomes a kit of seal plus bush plus circlip costs three times as much, and yet the price of "the part" hasn't gone up: it's a different part.
• Online comparison becomes treacherous. The price you find on a 2021 invoice often corresponds to a number you can no longer order.

So before you conclude there's been a rise, check the part number, not the description. Two items both called "front pads" can be two different articles.

What a wear item costs today

Ranges observed for quality parts, labour excluded. They are there to place a quote, not to haggle over pennies.

Two things follow. First, the spread inside each line is often wider than any year-on-year movement: the choice of range weighs more than the calendar does. Second, labour frequently accounts for half the final bill or more — a chain and cassette change at a bike shop mostly lands in the range detailed in our article on what a chain and cassette change costs.

Genuine, OE supplier, pattern: three prices for one function

This is where most of the budget is decided, far more than in any movement of list prices.

• The genuine part, sold under the manufacturer's brand, is very often made by a supplier who sells exactly the same thing under its own name. You are paying for the packaging, the dealer network, the warranty and the traceability.
• The OE supplier's own-brand part is the same function, often the same factory, in a different box. It is the best value on filters, pads, bearings, belts, spark plugs and chain kits. The gap against genuine commonly sits between 20 and 50 % of the price.
• The pattern part is designed by a third party to look the part. It is sometimes excellent, sometimes out of tolerance. On a cover or a hose, the risk is low. On braking, steering or a load-bearing component, the saving is a bad one. Our article on telling a genuine, pattern or counterfeit part apart gives the visual markers.

Simple rule: OE supplier wherever the function is commonplace and standardised, genuine wherever the part is calibrated to its surroundings (electronics, sensors, internal engine parts) or carries a type approval.

What has genuinely pushed budgets up

The mechanisms are identifiable, even without putting a figure on their effect.

• On-board electronics. An ABS sensor, an ECU, a coded ignition switch, a battery pack with its management electronics are no longer mechanical parts. They aren't repaired, they're replaced, and rarely with an OE supplier alternative.
• Materials and energy. Anything containing a lot of copper, aluminium, cast iron or treated steel, and anything that goes through a furnace or a press, is subject to the same swings as the rest of industry. Wiring looms, discs, rims, radiators.
• Small runs and end-of-life parts. A part re-run in small quantities for a fifteen-year-old model is structurally expensive: the tooling is amortised over a few hundred units. It's the item where price gaps are most violent, and where a used part off a donor machine makes the most sense.
• The logistics of bulky items. Tyres, batteries, fairings, covers: transport and storage weigh proportionally more than they do on a filter.
• Type approval. Lights, mirrors, emissions components: compliance costs money, and rules out unmarked pattern parts.

What has barely moved

Conversely, everything made in very large volumes and sold in a competitive market has stayed stable or remarkably cheap: oil and air filters, conventional spark plugs, cables and outers, standard bearings, entry and mid-range bicycle chains, mass-market oils, O-rings. On those items, the idea of a price explosion is mostly a contrast effect with the ones above.

The list price is not the price paid

A catalogue shows a recommended retail price. Between that figure and your invoice sit the trade discount, the supplier's promotional pack, the workshop's negotiated price, and the professional's own trade-off between margin on parts and margin on labour. Which is why two quotes for the same job can differ by 30 % without either of them being dishonest.

Always ask for parts and labour itemised separately. It's the only way to know what you're comparing, and it's also what lets you say "I'll supply the part" when that makes sense — even if plenty of workshops refuse, and rightly so, because they can't warrant what they didn't buy.

How to actually bring the cost down

The effective levers aren't the ones people reach for.

• Change a part before it ruins another one. A worn chain eats a cassette. Pads worn down to the backing plate score a disc. That's the biggest saving there is, far ahead of the choice of brand.
• Group jobs together. Making an oil change, pads and tyres coincide divides the number of strip-downs you pay for.
• Buy consumables in bulk at the end of the season, once you know your annual usage.
• Reserve genuine for the parts that deserve it and take the OE supplier's own brand on the rest.
• Keep a cost log by item. After two years, you know whether your budget is drifting, and where. That is infinitely more reliable than a gut feeling. Our article on the annual servicing budget for a motorcycle gives a tracking structure you can reuse for bicycles and garden machinery.

When the parts coming up add up to a significant fraction of the machine's value, the question stops being a mechanical one and becomes a resale one — and there the free motorcycle valuation and bicycle valuation give you the reference point.

To find out which exact part number applies to your machine, and whether it has been superseded by another, L'Atelier's technical assistant pulls the manufacturer data from the make, model and year.