Thanks to labour costs, repairing a car is often an expensive undertaking, even when the part in need of repair or replacement is cheap. But some parts are very expensive right out of the gate, and those tend to come with particularly scary bills.
Want an idea of what some of the most expensive car parts are? Here’s a look at a few that are particularly pricey, and likely to cause a fair bit of sticker shock for those customers unlucky enough to need them replaced in their cars.
Auto Parts Specialists Know Broken Turbochargers Make for a Turbocharged Repair Bill
In many vehicles, a turbocharger will be used to increase power, reduce fuel consumption, and raise the amount of torque generated by the engine. It’s a part that offers a lot of value, in particular because it allows for a smaller engine to be used in a vehicle without sacrificing any power.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, specialized, highly useful parts like these can be very expensive to replace. A new turbocharger can go for anywhere from $500 to well over $2,000—and that’s before labour is factored in. It’s a part car owners really, really don’t want to see fail, and one that specialists in auto parts careers should never expect to sell for cheap.
EV Batteries Don’t Need Replacing Often, But Are Expensive When They Do
A big upside of cars that rely heavily on electricity—think plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars—is that their repair bills are often relatively low. This is because they rely less on moving parts than cars with combustion engines do, meaning they experience less wear and have fewer points of failure.
One major problem these cars have, though, is that when their batteries lose their ability to hold enough of a charge—and this is something that is unavoidable with modern lithium-ion batteries—they need a replacement. At the very least, a new hybrid or all-electric battery is going to cost $1,000, with batteries that have a larger capacity often costing several thousand dollars. With the trend toward EVs in the modern automotive space, a soon-to-be auto parts specialist can expect these expensive parts to become a more common—and very lucrative—ticket item.
Auto Parts That Are Computerized or Include Sensors Are Often Quite Costly
Cars today are basically mobile computers, and that’s only going to become more true as time goes on. Fuel injectors, air bags, and a whole bunch of other parts all rely on special sensors to detect how well they are functioning, and computers to relay instructions based on what those sensors say.
Here’s the thing: electronics are often pretty expensive, and it will always be more expensive to make a “smart,” sensing component than it would be to make the same product without giving it additional sensors. Even as sensors become more common and useful, expect parts that include them to remain stubbornly pricey. This includes engines, struts on some cars, cameras built into the body of a car, and more. Whatever the part, if it has a sensor, odds are pretty good that you can expect it to be a relatively expensive thing for your future customers to buy—as much as, or even more than, $1,000!
Are you looking to begin a career working with cars?
Find your niche at Automotive Training Centre auto service college!
