# Parts Markup Changes At One Hundred Dollars Parts at or under $100 carry a 100 percent markup. Parts over $100 carry 35 percent. The break exists because the cost of finding, ordering, receiving and checking a part is close to fixed no matter what the part costs, and one flat percentage would misprice the small ones badly. ## Where the two markup bands meet and what changes there Parts at or under $100 carry a 100 percent markup. Parts over $100 carry 35 percent. Both numbers are posted, which means an owner holding an invoice can work backwards to what the shop paid, and that is intentional rather than an oversight. The break sits at $100 because that is roughly where the cost of handling a part stops dominating the price of the part. A small clip and a $1,200 slide motor take a similar amount of desk time to identify, order, receive, verify and stage. On one of those the handling cost is trivial against the item. On the other it disappears entirely. Stated as one flat percentage, the arithmetic breaks in one direction or the other. A flat 35 percent across everything means small parts are handled at a loss, and shops pricing that way recover it by refusing to supply small parts, by inventing a handling fee with no published basis, or by quietly lifting labour. A flat 100 percent across everything means a $5,000 hydraulic assembly doubles on the invoice, which is indefensible and which nobody would pay. Two bands is the least dishonest available answer, and it is the one that lets an owner predict the number before the invoice arrives. ## Sourcing cost is close to fixed per part, not proportional to price The work attached to a part is mostly independent of what the part costs. Somebody has to identify it correctly, which on a coach often means a chassis number, a build sheet, a photograph of a label inside a compartment and a phone call, because the same model year shipped with two different suppliers. Somebody has to find who still stocks it. Somebody has to place the order, track it, receive it, open it, confirm it is the right thing and undamaged in transit, and put it somewhere it will still be when the technician wants it three weeks later. That sequence takes about the same time for a lens as for a compartment door. There is one exception worth naming, which is that expensive parts carry more risk rather than more work. A wrong order on a small part is an annoyance. A wrong order on a large one ties up money, blocks a bay and moves a delivery date. If an owner can source the same item for less themselves, that is often genuinely true and we will fit an owner supplied part on customer pay work, but the sourcing risk travels with it and the bay time is still billed when the wrong thing arrives. ## The work between ordering a part and fitting it Parts for recreational vehicles are the least reliable element of any coach repair schedule, and that is a supply chain fact rather than an opinion about anybody. Coach builders are small relative to automotive manufacturers, discontinue components without notice, and frequently the original supplier sells the identical item to the aftermarket under a different number at a different price. Half of parts work is establishing which of four listings is actually the item bolted to the vehicle. The other half is deciding what to do when the answer turns out to be that it no longer exists at all. When it no longer exists, the options are a superseded part needing modification, a comparable part from another builder needing a bracket made, or fabrication from scratch. All three are more labour and all three should be a conversation before they become a line on an invoice. The failure mode costing owners the most is a shop that substitutes quietly and does not mention it. Ask what is on order, ask whether it is the original number, and ask what happens if it arrives wrong. Those three questions head off most parts disputes before they start. ## Where used and aftermarket parts change the arithmetic Markup bands apply to what the shop pays, which means the source of a part moves an invoice as much as the percentage does. An aftermarket compartment door bought from a supplier who still tools it costs a fraction of a builder sourced one and fits about as well. A used cap pulled from a salvage coach saves an enormous amount on a job where the alternative is fabrication, and it can equally arrive with a crack under the paint that nobody sees until it is stripped. Both routes are legitimate, and both belong on the estimate by name rather than by assumption. The honest position is that a used part is a gamble the owner is taking, not one the shop can absorb. A salvage cap inspected, accepted and then found unusable after teardown becomes a delay and a second sourcing exercise, and both of those cost money that was never in the original number. Owners who want the saving should want it with the risk stated in the same sentence. On a job running through insurance, the carrier usually holds a position on aftermarket and used parts already, and that position is worth reading before the parts conversation rather than after it. ## What a special order deposit protects and who it protects Special order parts require a full deposit at the time of order, and it is not refundable. That reads harsh in isolation and deserves explaining rather than defending. A special order part is bought for one vehicle and cannot be returned to the supplier or sold to anybody else. A sidewall panel cut for one floor plan, a colour matched cap, a slide component for a discontinued mechanism. If the job is cancelled after the order goes in, the money has already left the shop and there is nothing to send back. What the deposit protects is the schedule for every other vehicle in the building. A shop ordering special parts on speculation either stops doing it, which means the discontinued jobs get turned away, or it carries the risk inside prices that every customer pays. Neither outcome is better for the owner standing at the counter. On larger jobs the deposit structure is separate and staged: 50 percent at authorisation on work over $2,000, a further 25 percent when parts arrive on work over $10,000, with the balance due at pickup. ## Sales tax lands on parts and materials but not on labour Sales tax of 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials. Labour is not taxed. That one sentence resolves most of the confusion an owner has when an invoice total does not match a mental sum of the lines. On a labour heavy coach repair the taxable portion can be a small fraction of the job, and on a parts heavy one it is nearly all of it. Two jobs with identical totals can therefore carry visibly different tax, and neither of them is an error worth calling about. The other line arriving at the end is the card surcharge, 3.5 percent on card payments over $1,000, which passes the merchant fee through on high ticket work rather than spreading it across every customer. It is avoidable, the way to avoid it is to pay by another method, and that is worth knowing before pickup day rather than at the counter. Both of these belong in the same category as the markup bands. They are numbers published so they can be predicted rather than discovered. ## Reading the parts block on an estimate line by line A parts block on a coach estimate rewards a slow read, because it is where the most information hides in the fewest words. - Whether each line is new, reconditioned, aftermarket or used, which changes both the price and the fit - Whether a part number is the original builder number or a supplier equivalent - Which lines are marked special order, because those carry a deposit and drive the schedule - Whether hardware, gaskets and seals are itemised or assumed, since assumed ones become a supplement later - Whether tax has been applied to the parts and materials subtotal and not to the labour subtotal ## Seals and fasteners are the line most owners misread The last item on that list is the one that catches people. Seals, clips and fasteners are frequently left off at the estimate stage because nobody yet knows which of them will break on removal, and on a coach that has sat in coastal air a good number of them will. An estimate that itemises them is not a more expensive job than one that does not. It is the same job with the supplement written in advance instead of discovered in week three. Prefer the sheet that tells you early, even when the early number looks worse beside the other one. The comparison an owner is usually making is between a complete estimate and an incomplete one, and the incomplete one always wins on paper. That is the whole reason it gets written that way. Ask both shops the same question, which is what is not on this sheet yet, and the answers separate quickly. A shop that names three likely additions is describing the job. A shop that names none is describing the sale. ## Related - [/prices/](https://ocrv.guru/prices/) - [/services/roof-slide-awning/slide-out-repair/](https://ocrv.guru/services/roof-slide-awning/slide-out-repair/) - [/insurance-help/supplements/](https://ocrv.guru/insurance-help/supplements/) - [/the-center/our-process/](https://ocrv.guru/the-center/our-process/) --- Source: https://ocrv.guru/blog/shop-and-rates/parts-markup-changes-at-one-hundred-dollars/ OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887. (949) 799-3387. Serving Laguna Niguel, California. All work performed in shop. No mobile or roadside service. Licences: California Bureau of Automotive Repair ARD00288521; EPA CAL000367879. Published ranges are ranges, not quotes. Every figure traces to https://ocrv.guru/prices/.