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Part Supersession – RPL/Replacement Parts – And New Part Numbers
Marine engine and transmission manufacturers often supersede their part numbers.At times, it is because there has been an engineering change or some improvement to the part. Other times, it is due to a change in the vendor that actually makes the parts (or supplies components to the manufacturer). And sometimes, though not very often, it appears to be a way for a manufacturer to have an unannounced price increase on a certain classification of part numbers.
Many manufactures will have multiple changes on a single part number. While we attempt to show these replacements in our system by marking it as a “RPL” part along with the new part number, often the part numbers change so frequently that we don’t always catch the supersession. As an example, for the month of May, Volvo Penta had approximately 3,500 part number changes alone.
On the issue of keeping the old original part numbers on the web site, we have had many discussions on this issue. On the one hand, we don’t like to mislead people that we have parts when we don’t have them (or at the original low price), but on the other, if we don’t keep the part numbers on the site then when people try to find their old part number, it won’t come up and they won’t know that the part has superseded. Often a part will supersede into multiple parts or multiple different parts depending on the engine.
And on the other hand (third hand, I know), we often have the older, rarer parts in our stock (or have had them recently) or can find them at reasonable prices. Again, it is difficult to express all these options on the system as there are so many variables.
So the policy we have established is the follows:
1) We keep all the older part numbers on the site so people can find them and attempt to keep up-to-date with all the supersessions (there are hundreds of them every couple of weeks). The part numbers that have been replaced are indicated with “RPL xxxxxx (the new part number)”.
2) If we have the original part number and have paid the original cost for it, we charge the original retail price or perhaps a little less.
3) If we have purchased the original part number from somewhere we use our actual purchase price plus our standard mark up.
4) And finally, if we can’t find the part under any OEM part number, we will attempt to find an aftermarket version that might work.
In any of above cases, the customer will be notified of the changes before the order is processed.
Below is an example of what a RPL item will look like when you add it to our cart:
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info@marinepartsexpress.com.
Marine Parts Express is a division of Water Resources, Inc., a privately held Maine Corporation.
For all your marine engine parts needs, call us toll free at 877.621.2628, or outside the U.S. at 207.882.6165.June 16, 2014 / JD Neeson / 0
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