Dealer parts - why aggravate myself and the parts guy?

My willingness to pay more for a part is directly proportional to how bad I want/need it.

I need bar risers for the Murdercycle for this weekend. The dirt cheap ones won't be in my hands until next week. I'll pay more if I can find them locally.

I've never had a dealer parts counter guy get annoyed with me, though I've never tried to haggle with them. Usually they're apologetic if anything when I walk in there out of curiosity for some boring part and find out the company is really proud of it. Like how Chrysler wanted something like $7/each for their crappy 2 piece chrome capped lug nuts that eventually swell up with rust, or lose their caps if you use an impact gun on them, leaving you screwed on the side of the road when the factory equipped lug wrench doesn't fit half the nuts. At the time I could get the same nut with the same problems from Dorman for ~$1 on rock auto.

While not auto related, I was looking for an item for my kitchen. Found what I wanted for $15 on the internet. Next day, while at Ace Hardware to pick up a furnace filter I found the very same item I was looking for fore only $11 an I had it TODAY.

So the internet is not always the answer.

Most the time it is though. Many items I use in my business I source online for 50% or more LESS than what the supply houses want to charge me. That turns into substantial savings for me to the point where my supply guy threw a hissy fit.

Henry Ford was suppose to have said, "make $1.oo on each car, sell a million and have made One Million Dollars."

Keith Tanner wrote: You obviously don't know how the new economy works. It was key to the 2000 tech bubble - lose money on every sale, but make up for it on volume!

That sounds like the business model for Medicaid

Mazda Motorsports is selling stuff basically at wholesale to promote racing, which has been good for their brand.