All right, the situation is as follows:
I need to buy a pair of strut cartridges for a 2004-6 honda civic. I'm mostly in Lahore so prefer to buy the equipment there.
I've already bought a used pair from bilal gunj and been screwed over. The used units cost about 7,500 rupees and lasted for about 10 days before one of them gave up a great big gush of oil and I began to hear and feel an extra bass beat mixed in the usual dhum dum of driving on the carpet-bombed streets of Lahore. Spoke with some guys from a machine shop and they gently pointed out a small nick near the inner seal of the cartridge that had died. Apparently some dirtbags are injecting oil into weak shocks to temporarily repressurize them. Okay, my bad for trying to save some money by going to bilal gunj.
I checked around at 3 honda dealerships in lahore and got quotes of around 17,000 to 18,000 for the struts (without coil springs). City Honda quoted the struts by themselves but insists that they won't sell the struts without the coil springs. Their price with the coil springs? 36,500 rupees! Ouch. I can bite the bullet and pay for the new units from one of the other dealerships that are willing to sell the struts without springs (honda fort or honda point) but...
I hear the shocks are being made in pakistan therefore there is no import duty on the parts. I'm a little bit leery of paying a steep USD 225 for parts made in this country (if atlas honda's quality control is any guide the reliability of those sub-contractors' shocks is questionable at best). Additionally I've got some disturbing news about shocks in the marketplace.
I'd heard from people in the car business that there are a large number of refurbished/repacked parts that are being sold as new. Afraid to buy these suspect parts myself I went to a couple of suspension shops in lahore and asked them to buy and install the shocks for me. Bottom line, they both refused to buy the parts for me. Both gave the same answer; they can't assure me that parts being sold as new (at montgomery road shops and even at the honda dealerships) are in fact new. And, rather than risk their own reputations as honest businesses they're asking their customers to buy the parts themselves. Stopped by a denter that i know and he showed me locally manufactured cardboard packaging for repacked shocks. The packaging looked authentic and new, it would have fooled me easily if I'd bought the parts myself. I've spoken with a couple of shops on montgomery road and they say that THEIR parts are authentic/new but EVERYONE ELSE is dishonest.
BTW, the independent shops don't warrant their parts at all. The moment you take the part out of the shop you are on your own baby. The dealerships warrant their shocks for 6 months, and only if they're installed by the dealership themselves. In speaking with friends and family I'm told that any and all warranty issues are solved by dealerships very simply; they simply say no to whatever you ask for until you get tired and walk away (or have the time and money to take them to consumer court).
So, what do you suggest I do? If you know of any independent shops that you can vouch for personally, please let me know. Someone suggested that i import the parts myself (from UAE for example). Even that sounds a bit risky, because i wouldn't have any recourse if the parts turn out to be bad (i will not fly to the uae just to do a return/exchange).
I hope someone in the PW community can give me constructive suggestions.
regards,
v