When purchasing farming or agriculture equipment, maintenance and repair are something that need to be factored into the whole-of-life costs of a machine.
With the nature of the work they’re doing, it’s unavoidable; gear breaks or needs maintenance to keep it running. It’s just the nature of the game we’re in.
Webbline knows this, so provides excellent back-up service and a vast array of spare parts on hand in order to keep our customers moving and working efficiently.
However, we have noticed a recent trend towards some operators opting to fit cheaper aftermarket parts to their equipment in order to keep costs down….but is it worth it in the long run?
We’d suggest not, and we’ve seen a couple of instances through our workshops recently that have reinforced that.
In basic terms, aftermarket parts are essentially poor quality reproductions of the ‘real’ thing, but they’re often made with inferior materials and without the same considerations applied to quality assurance and technical tolerances. These parts are manufactured by third party companies and often run a higher risk of failure.
This can cause a wide variety of issues, ranging from a lack of durability and increased wear (on items such as knives, tines or blades) through to an even worse case scenario of fragments fracturing and breaking off. Imagine that happening in a Mixer or Loader wagon, with those fragments then making their way into a feed mix that’s delivered to your stock. The outcome could be extensive and, potentially, lead to the loss of stock.
The more rapid wear that comes with inferior aftermarket parts also leads to more frequent replacement, which means more downtime, lost productivity and, hence, increased whole-of-life cost of the machine, not to mention the direct impact on your bottom line.
Apart from the cheaper upfront cost of an aftermarket item, there aren’t too many positive points there.
And if (when) something goes wrong, what are your options? With genuine parts, there’s a certain contractual or ethical responsibility on behalf of the manufacturer (in most cases) to see what can be done to put it right but, with aftermarket parts, their liability is either limited (at best), or entirely non-existent. And if further equipment damage has been caused by the failure of a cheap, non-genuine component, then there’s only one person left paying for it – you!
Conclusion
Cheap aftermarket parts are financially attractive in the short term, especially if budgets are tight. But the related costs down-the-line almost always end up costing you more overall, making the original cheap choice a false economy.
You should always choose genuine replacement parts, and Webbline has a range of them ready for your equipment to ensure you can continue to work as efficiently and effectively as possible.
