OEM Parts

[H3ALPHA]

Anyone know a good source for OEM Hummer parts?

Thanks!

 

[DFW Spartan]

Any of the online GM retailers, Rockauto.com and/or Ebay (believe it or not, Ebay is a licensed distributor).

If you're lucky enough to have a GM dealership in your town that has an online presence (i.e. GMPARTSCLUB.COM = Friendly Chevrolet, Dallas, TX), you get the savings of online pricing, which is cheaper than if you were to walk into the dealer's parts department, and you save on shipping by picking your order up at the dealership. You still pay the sales tax, but that's often less than the cost of shipping, and you're supporting a local business.

As far as OEM Hummer accessories, good luck. Most if not all of that is long gone. Every now and then I see New Old Stock (NOS) pop up on Ebay. I got the GM Performance exhaust for my H3T there.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[H3ALPHA]

So far been lucky.

Looking to replace the seat covers on the H3, still available, at least online.

 

[alrock]

parts.com is a good source as well since the parts come from dealers or GM distributors.

 

[Jeepwalker]

The parts from Rock Auto or even GM Online are usually not far from what you'd pay at a dealership with a parts account discount ...other than of course shipping. I'm not saying it's a hard and fast rule, but that's what I've generally found. I've had accounts at a couple dealerships parts dept and Chrysler too ...and get the discount.

If you know the counter parts guy you can ask if he'll run you under a different jobber account and give you the discount even if you don't have an account. Often they will, sometimes they'll say they can't. If you're buying a $5 part, I wouldn't even ask, but if you're looking at a $200 part, it's worth it to ask for the discount. If you buy it from them, it's their revenue, and they need to show revenue, even if it's a discount. If you plan to buy regular parts purchases locally, you might consider opening up an account at their part's dept. But honestly, the online prices are close to GM Parts Store account prices, and usually less, sometimes significantly less. I've checked several times. And often you can find a part on ebay cheaper still .....way cheaper than at RockAuto. I'm talking general parts here, not Hummer-specific. If you were looking to buy a BUNCH of parts, say $1,500 worth of parts, then I'd give the parts dept a chance to work out a 'best price'. They may sharpen their pencil a lot to get your business.

If you plan to be a regular part's purchaser, opening up a parts charge account which will give you a 20% discount may be a consideration. Especially if you open a part's account with a large dealership group that has maybe Chevrolet, Chrysler and Ford dealerships, even in different towns/cities (and you own some of those other vehicles), then typically you can get the discount at the other dealerships parts dept too, and they often courier the parts between dealerships and can get a ford part to a GM dealership close to you. So, then you get GM, Ford, FCA parts discounts from one parts account, which can have tremendous benefits. One of my accounts is that way. Bear in mind, charge accounts cost the dealership a little time to manage. The biggest concern they have is spending time to collect $$ from bad businessmen who don't pay (or pay on time) ..so there's a certain amt of reluctance to open up onsie-twosie purchase accounts.

You should also factor your time it's going take to go to the parts dept, park and walk to the parts counter, wait there for the other mechanics to finish, he might have to take phone calls, print out and grab a few orders ...then get back to you. Then he's got to look the part up, groan about how slow his system is ..then hopefully he can find what you're looking for. Then he's got to cross-check why the number has been super-ceeded to a new number, etc. It can take a while sometimes ...whereas I can usually find it online a lot quicker. Some parts guys are a treat to work with, most are so-so ....a few are outright jerks. I'd rather pay shipping than work with a jerk.

I find I buy more stuff online in the last few yrs than through the dealership unless I need it right away (which is somewhat rare). The parts guy at a Chrysler dealership parts dept for many years was super-fun to work with. He was great! Confident ..could find what you were looking for 1-2-3 ..didn't complain or hem and haw and blame the computer system, very conversational. Made getting parts a joy. But he left a few months ago and the new guy's a dud. I'm bummed!!

 

[jakesz28]

parts.com is a good source as well since the parts come from dealers or GM distributors.

I lost a bolt and the dealer had them discontinued. But this place has them. Never heard of this one before.
GM using a m12-1.5 is just crazy.

 

[H3ALPHA]

Thanks for the input.

Locally, there are GM dealers (Cadillac, Chevy) but they do not maintain online parts, just an email form. Yes, I can walk in, but the service in my area is horrible. Plus 10.25% sales tax for the privilege.

Spoke with a GM parts place in PA, they have most of what I am looking for plus free shipping, which is amazing.

They have an aversion to selling seat covers as they have been burned by Corvette owners over the years. I believe the process is they do not have these in stock, they make the buy from a distributor, which is final, then the buyer says these are not what I wanted or they are not perfect and they get stuck with it. So that is a hurdle.

The other hurdle is deciphering these online illustrations for the part I want to replace. Really looking to refresh, certain parts or those exterior plastic parts that I am sick of brushing every 5-6 months.

 

[Jeepwalker]

Part of the issue with seat covers is leather itself. On the face of it you'd think it was a simple process to get the same color over and over, just spray on the stuff. In reality, leather coloring and processing is a very intensive process involving many steps. And, different leathers can take tints differently.
#1) it's not a spray on paint process (would be easy if that were the case),
#2) Hides obviously aren't spun on a mill and have the consistancy or even a large size of a manufactured product. If you go to a leather place, they have large stacks of hides an experienced person hand-selects for leather conditioning, those hides they believe (from experience) will take the conditioning process and turn out about the same. The poorer hides ...some may have just a small nick in them, different texture, etc, get de-selected perhaps for another run.
#3) Then there is a multi-step process and a few different machines they go through. Chemicals are added, leathers are buffed, etc.
#4) Afterwards, as stated above, different leathers take on the process differently and then they are inspected again for quality, especially how well they took on the tanning process.
#5) If the mfgr ask for durability and color tests, pieces need to be tested, which involves putting small swatches into durability machines which will wiggle and bend leathers and water tests for a certain number of cycles (this takes some time to do)
#6) Once everything passes they'll be shipped to the seat cover mfgr and made into seat covers to matching vinyl (and that's another process to ensure matching to the vinyl)

Leather is expensive b/c of the steps and process and colors don't always come out consistant. That's the challenge with seat covers. There's no matching paint they can use over and over ..it's chemicals. So, some variation is expected (they match the seat covers). Turns out that the leathers used for things like tennis shoes and seat covers (according to a science buddy I used to know who worked for BASF at a leather factory), these leathers are among the most highly treated and best leathers b/c they are expected to last a long time under the most rugged conditions (UV, moisture, time, heat, etc), I've been to the factory where they do this. AND the mfgrs have a low tolerance for failure and high expectations (and will send back rejects for credit). Leathers large enough for seat covers are pretty expensive. If you sat on most leather jackets the way people sit on seats, getting in and out, sliding around, minor spillage, pets walking on it ...the jacket leather on your seats would look terrible quickly, vs a seat cover which may look good (with care) for 20 years.

Sooooo.... to bring it all to your point, if joe-blow dufus customer saunters in to the dealer, buys a seat cover and it's off by 10% and they Walmart it back for a replacement ...the replacement seat cover is off by, say, 8% ...we can see why dealerships get tired of dealing with them. And we haven't even gotten to the part where joe-blow screws up his own installation between 8 beers and 2 football halftimes (and blames it on poor fit)! :no:

Cloth seat covers are way easier to dispense. If you have a zero-tolerance on seat color, you might be better off having yours professionally remade. If you have some tolerance then you'll be happier the day your new ones DO arrive. Or maybe you can buy a set of used seats.