The use of after-market parts for auto repair has long been common in the U.S. car insurance industry, but a recent article from Consumer Reports suggests that vehicle safety may be suffering because of the practice.
The chief research officer from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, David Zuby, told Consumer Reports that "there's a lot of engineering that goes into making a crash-protection system. You can't willy-nilly change those parts because the system may not work the way it was designed."
One example found by the magazine was reported by Ford earlier this year. The carmaker said that replacement bumper bars for some models were manufactured out of the wrong kind of steel and a support for the part was made out of plastic instead of the required magnesium, leading to a difference in timings for the air bag deployment system. Mark Warwood, Ford's parts marketing and remanufacturing manager, told Consumer Reports that "the air bag might deploy earlier than it should or later than it should. Or it might deploy when it shouldn't or not deploy at all when it should."
The magazine found that, although the cheaper parts are much more acceptable to insurers looking to save money, they might cause real compromises in vehicle safety. Consumer Reports urges motorists not to let their car insurance company push them into using an after-market part for an important repair if they have any concerns about safety, and even says they can ask that previously installed off-brand parts be replaced with factory standard ones. Safety is a much more important concern than saving a few dollars on replacement parts.