Parting Thoughts

Most of the major marine engine manufacturers have a group within their organization that rebuilds parts.  Each manufacturer decides what parts to rebuild.  The decision is a combination of what they think the market will bear, older parts that are no longer available new and parts they believe they have some advantage in rebuilding over other suppliers.  For example, Volvo Penta has a large number of remanufactured parts and drives, but has decided not to rebuild SX drives while Mercruiser has relatively few parts it rebuilds at all.

Since a substantial number of remanufactured parts are those parts that are not new any more, all of the manufacturers need spare parts to rebuild.  To insure that they have a constant supply of these parts, all manufacturers charge a core charge.  This core charge is to encourage customers to return their old damaged parts once they receive the remanufactured parts.

When Marine Parts Express sells a remanufactured part to a customer, we charge the customer the price of the remanufactured part and we also charge the customer the core charge.  Once the customer sends back his old part  (often in the same box that the remanufactured part came in) , we reimburse the customer the core charge immediately and then send the old part back to the manufacturer.  Eventually the manufacturer will reimburse Marine Parts Express the amount.

We have found that the remanufactured parts from the engine manufacturers are very good and are covered by a limited warranty.  Marine Parts Express often recommends remanufactured parts for our service customers as we have had good luck with them and they are often approximately half the price.

However,  Marine Parts Express does not recommend using remanufactured parts from the independent companies that rebuild parts.   It is just too difficult to insure that the independents know what they are doing, have the special tools they often need to do the work, and will stand behind any remanufactured parts that fail.

One final thought on cores.  There are some companies that charge a core charge on the purchase of new parts (drives particularly). Companies do this so that they can take these cores and either remanufacture the part themselves or sell the part to an independent remanufacturing company.  This seems unfair to us as the customer’s old part has some value and the customer shouldn’t have to return a core when he purchases a new part.  In effect the customer pays three times:  once for the new part, once for a core charge that should not apply and once for the cost of shipping the old part back.