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I find my local dealer always helpful and quite reasonable for parts. I always ask what the best price is for spares. Sometimes it works.
Goes back to the argument about supporting your local dealer, mine is 15 miles down the road so not always that easy just to pop in.
However they know me and they know I go to them first before buying anywhere else - they get the first bite at the cherry and I get good prices on everything now.
It also means support is usually very good too.
Its worth paying full whack at the start to build the relationship as down the road it pays dividends.
Mine is 8 Miles across town which can take 30 mins :( their head office is 18 miles away and takes about 20 mins. Both stock all regular spares and will generally be able to get things in quickly if they don't. My nearest branch is fantastic and they just bring my stuff to the counter for me to pay. No faffing, honest staff, look after their customers to :)
Agree with you might pay a higher price at the start, but once you start to buy from them they suddenly start knocking more off.
Got to agree with the others here. You ned a good relationship with one local dealer, so saving a fw £s over a year by buying cheaper online is a false economy.
Add in that you end up with the wrong parts, what are you saving?
I'll go along with the above. I learned a lesson many years ago. We were a few years into a large maintenance contract and I had always wondered why they didn't employ a full time gardener, but as one of the directors told me " we make precision optical equipment - we are not gardeners" and that got me thinking 'so why do I spend many unproductive hours trying to repair a machine, knocking lumps off my knuckles and quite often buying the wrong part..........I'm a landscape gardener, not a fitter'. Since then, a quick phone call, the machine is picked up on a Friday, returned a week later and annual repair costs factored into our labour charge.
The problem Ive had is an endless stream of parts from my otherwise brilliant dealer which all DO NOT fit... from needle barings for stihl tools which are not a perfect fit (so disintegrate) through to briggs starter pullys which are simply the WRONG size... costing a glorious #40 in spare parts. and the guys at the place becoming adamant that they're giving my the right part, even when iots obviously not. Ive decided to buy parts online and do the work myself.
As I said above David, you do what you do best and let the mechanics do their stuff.
I never buy bearings from the original manufacturer. I take the old one to a local bearing supplier & he usually has it in stock at a fraction of the Stihl or Honda price.
Bearings are made in pretty standard sizes so they are usually available.