Hopefully, by now you will have read my post titled ‘Why buying cheap car parts online makes sense‘, in summary you will save both money and time.  I have owned Citroen cars for over 17 years now and have received all manner of service from the very good down to the very bad! Online there are certainly the same variations in quality and service that you find offline, however if you check your search results against the following three criteria, you should be fine buying parts online.

First off, is your online supplier offering value for money? I always tell myself that shopping online has to save  least 10% on buying form my local supplier, otherwise you might as well keep it local. At least you’ll know who to go and see should there be any problems! Most good online car parts websites will save you around 20% from offline retail. I’ll always cross check prices from three online Citroen parts suppliers.

Secondly, how easy is the website your browsing to use? Not everyone knows there brake pads from their oil filters and most good online car parts suppliers make their websites easy to use for everyone. All you should need to know is the make and model of your car, the website direct you to all the parts you need from that information only.

Thirdly, when you have found what you believe to be a great price from a well designed website – give them a ring, drop them an email. How quickly and politely do they respond? The websites that offer the most efficient and polite customer service I have found generally turn out to be the best to buy from in every sense.

If you look through your potential online suppliers with the above three reference pints in mind, you’ll be well on your way to reducing the costs of servicing your Citroen. Out of the 600K results Google UK offers us when we search for ‘citroen car parts’, I am sure you could find many suppliers who pass all three of our checkpoints above.

Citroen Car Parts Mechanic Search Tips

Hope it proves useful! Next time, my tips on sourcing the right online dealer to buy your Citroen car parts from, plus I’ll name my own favourite dealer.

If you’re lucky enough to have some mechanical knowledge, then buying car parts online means you can probably save even more money by fitting your new car parts yourself. Now, I wish to point out here that I am a mechanically minded soul! Additionally, I have neither the time, nor capability, to become one. At first, this fact made me believe that buying car parts was not a good idea for me, as an avid internet user I was fairly confident I would be able to find cheap Citroen car parts – but then how on earth would I ever fit them?

The answer came from the sudden rise of Google Local. For those of you who use the internet often, you will no doubt be aware of Google Local Listings. These are search results that come up when we search for a keyword followed by a location, for example ‘mechanic, york.’ Local listings also often bring up small, localised business above their larger (and more expensive) main dealers. Locality is the key to a good Google Local listing as all entries have to be verified by phone or post.

By using Google Local, I quickly discovered three sole trader mechanics located within a short commute. One of these three was even a mobile mechanic and with a cost per hour lower than the other two, and far lower than the main dealers, I suddenly had a local mechanic who could fit my parts sourced online at discount price.

Google Local is growing at an alarming rate, smaller, local businesses are becoming well aware that Google Local offers them the opportunity to compete for business in and around their postcode base. I am willing to bet that almost every area within the UK has at least one or two sole trader/perhaps even mobile mechanics. I will soon be posting a video on how you too can search Google Local for a cost effective mechanic close to you.

To give you an idea of how ‘cost effective’ this can be, I estimate to have saved over £600 last year on car mechanic costs alone – based on the average main dealer charging £25 per hour for labour.  Of course, this figure does not take into account the additional savings I made on sourcing my car parts over the internet.

I hope this post has begun to demonstrate the potential savings that can be made by sourcing cheap car parts online.