As a bit of a recent convert to US makes from Japanese makes I think this should be clarified.
US makes (big 3, not Tesla) are just fine selling you parts. Not only are they fine with it they aren't marked up as insanely high as I remember with decades of Honda and Toyota ownership. In fact you can go to AC/Delco, Ford, or Mopar's website and just buy parts directly with lots of diagrams and cheap prices sent right to your home. If you go to the dealer parts dept desk its usually right behind the sales area and they share the same space for the most part. Displaying lots of fancy part upgrades and options you could be purchasing from their parts department.
Its a pretty different experience after 25 years of Japanese vehicles.
Completely agree, Japanese parts are more expensive than Western parts ... but then, having driven Toyota for most of my adult life, and now having switched to a domestic brand: They just do not seem to NEED as many replacement parts.
My Toyotas were built like tanks, they were virtually indestructible, in over 15 years, I had one major repair that I needed a shop for (and that was related to the seatbelt). Now, with my Ford (and arguably in homeoffice, meaning I do not drive that much anymore), it feels the car's more in the repair shop than on the road.
For part costs, depends what part of the world you are in. Toyota is far cheaper than European or US parts where there are a higher concentration of Japanese car owners.
While some Honda parts are not exactly cheap, many Honda dealerships have these nice parts websites with diagrams and ship direct. https://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/ is one of the most popular ones, but many other sites seem to be based on the same parts search and diagram system, though each dealer sets their pricing.
Actually not sure about pricing for more common vehicles, I've just got 2x first-gen Insights, no not exactly as many of them out there as Civics.
True, those sites are great but they aren't official. I think most of them come from 1 or 2 companies (Southern CA and FL IIRC) under a bunch of domains skinned a bunch of different ways. I used to work for a nissan performance parts place and they were asking me to make them their own site from the parts diagrams they got from disk through some agreement they had with Nissan as a service department IIRC. (a little over 10 years ago)
I'm not sure how all of them work but mopar the dealerships decide if they want to be part of it. If they do then the website is already made and maintained. If somebody buys parts off of it they will direct the sale to a given dealership based on some criteria I don't know. Maybe just whats closest and in stock according to their inventory.
Most of them actually sold off or spun off their parts departments into separate companies, and then were really pissed off when what used to be a dedicated in-house proprietary system started serving parts for other makers.
It’s like rockets. The cheapest bidder gets the contract, and they make the worst quality stuff that they possibly can, just enough to get them across the line.
If you want actual good quality parts, you have to go elsewhere.
The problem is that the industry works very hard to hide where that “elsewhere” might be, so that you can’t find them and work your way around the system.
US makes (big 3, not Tesla) are just fine selling you parts. Not only are they fine with it they aren't marked up as insanely high as I remember with decades of Honda and Toyota ownership. In fact you can go to AC/Delco, Ford, or Mopar's website and just buy parts directly with lots of diagrams and cheap prices sent right to your home. If you go to the dealer parts dept desk its usually right behind the sales area and they share the same space for the most part. Displaying lots of fancy part upgrades and options you could be purchasing from their parts department.
Its a pretty different experience after 25 years of Japanese vehicles.