Aftermarket Parts
In the auto industry, there are many, many companies producing aftermarket parts- you simply have to check out the nearest auto parts store to see that.
Many of these parts are of a great quality- designed to remedy the short comings of the stock parts and provide superior performance and longevity. On the other hand, many are…. to put it mildly… junk. Aftermarket parts are often called “will fit”, because they will fit (but whether they will last, or do what they are supposed to do…)
In the Recreation Vehicle industry, by and large, the market simply isn’t there for a wide variety of aftermarket parts- after all, even to build a cheap part takes a large investment in design and tooling.
But… there are a few notable exceptions, and because of market forces, they generally fall in to the superior category. Two manufacturers I can highly recommend are Dinosaur Electronics and Flight Systems.
Dinosaur designs and builds aftermarket electronics circuit boards for RV appliances and Onan generators, Flight Systems both designs and builds aftermarket electronics for Onan generators, and provides rebuilding services for generator boards (the rebuild usually will upgrade the boards- when you have a circuit board that exhibits a fairly common failure, a bit of redesign can “beef up” that failure prone part, resulting in a superior part).
Dinosaur started by repairing “Direct Spark Ignition” circuit boards, used in electronically controlled LP gas RV appliances. After a bit, they simply designed their own igniter board, using both the knowledge they had gained from seeing the “in the field” failures, and adding high quality “milspec” manufacturing techniques, such as fiberglass circuit boards, with “through the hole” doubles sided plating….. both of which, in plain talk, mean that the boards are much more reliable- physically stronger, able to withstand more extremes in temperature (important in some furnace designs). Dinosaur also builds replacement boards for Dometic refrigerators and older Norcold refrigerators (they actually build some Norcold boards that Norcold no longer provides).
Flight Systems makes a replacement Voltage Regulator for Onan RV generators which is also much superior (and much cheaper) than the Onan factory part- as well as making several service tools which make a repair man’s life much easier.
I should mention that there is another category of RV aftermarket parts- those that are actually built by the same factories and company, but marketed by a different company.A quick example that comes to mind is water heater pilot assemblies. Camco markets these assemblies as aftermarket parts- even though they are the identical parts to what Atwood and Suburban sell- made by White Rodgers, and spec’d the same. I will say I use the factory parts for these, simply because the price difference is quite small, and warranty issues are usually easier to deal with for factory parts.
So, will we start to have more aftermarket parts suppliers for RV specific parts? I don’t know, but if we do, I hope they follow the lead of Dinosaur and Flight Systems by providing better parts at a better price, and not the lead of some automotive suppliers, and simply provide cheap parts cheaply.
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