To answer mtmuley and Crowhunter, it may very well be a big city thing. On the other hand, I don't take my eggs to the Waffle House and ask them to cook them either. What also made the decision for me, is the unfortunate fact in our litigious society, if I accept your parts, I accept the liability to warranty both the parts and the labor as decided in a widely publicized (in the Auto Industry trade rags) test case in Maryland a year or 2 ago. Another literal PITA that I had to deal with in my shop was that the customer supplied parts were incorrect, which we discovered AFTER the transmission was removed, torn down, and the vehicle held up lift space for 4 days while the owner found the correct parts. As far as profit on the parts goes, the 10-25% that I make on parts goes toward overhead, rent, utilities and especially important, the cost of diagnostic software and training. Software updates on the cars we work on can run anywhere from $5k to $20 per year, which doesn't include the cost of replacement computers etc when the manufacturer phases out support for the existing ones.
So yes, IMO, installing customer's parts is like bobbing for apples in a septic tank.
It's just not worth it.
