Autodoc review

[samisnake]

just wanted to do a little review on this site (there are a few more under their umbrella like buycarparts.co.uk onlinecarparts.co.uk autopartspro.co.uk which are essentially the same company) as there isnt a great deal of reviews out there on them, other than a lot of worrying looking reviews on sites like trustpilot.

so far have done 2 orders with them.
one for £108 including springs and top mounts and a bunch of relevant screws/nuts and another for £116 for a driveshaft.

positives
the prices can be crazy cheap. based on the orders above, 2 sachs springs for a sport model from eurocarparts is £149, carparts4less is £135. autodoc.....£50!
driveshaft on my last order. skf from autodoc was £108. ECP/CP4L £100 is getting you a q-drive branded shaft. J&R from birmingham is £70.

brand choice is huge, and the catalogue of parts is unmatched. the above driveshaft, if it had to be sourced from the uk, id be limited to either changing just the joint (not an option in my case) or having to get a no-name. couldnt find the same skf for sale here at all (vkjc 8204).

part numbers and oem part numbers clearly stated, which makes cross referencing simple. compare to ecp/cp4l who hide them and make it neigh on impossible to double check with etka (or price compare...).
they also list all of the models that particular part fits.

negatives
postage costs. its £8.45 under £140, so its not really useful for small orders. for larger orders, the cost is absorbed into the savings, but it must be a psychological thing because it still hurts.

delivery time. this is where a lot of the negative reviews focus. personally, as long as you accept it isnt gonna be next day delivery, its alright. first order took 11 days, second took 6. if you need it quickly, this isnt for you.

substitutions. i havent experienced this myself (touch wood) but i can see how it happens. what ive read is that you order brand x, and brand y gets sent instead. that wouldnt be such a big deal if they were equivilent eg. trw and lemforder, or sachs and boge, but from what ive read in negative reviews, they will send a brand called stark. they comically inflate the value of those parts (eg. a lemforder part is £20, the stark version will be £35) and say to you that the part you ordered was out of stock but have this more expensive part on us. this was my main worry, but as stated it hasnt happened (yet). if it does, that part will be going straight back.

safe basket selected by default. costs £4 and allows you to return an item within 200 days. not needed.








overall, its been a good site to order from. i see it as a way to keep tier 1 parts on an aging car.
i would just say know what you are buying, try and use the oem part number to search rather than use their parts finder as it can be hit and miss.
wouldnt buy service parts like filters as the saving arent great, and oil is more expensive, but for everything else its definitely worth a look.

 

[Nessy]

As a result of your write-up on here a few months ago I tried them last December for my Bilstein B4 shocks and some other suspension stuff and they were a lot cheaper than any stockist in the UK, the only negative is that from ordering to delivery took 12 days, but I guess this was because of the busy Christmas period.
Recently I had an advisory on the MOT of my car for slight wear in the front lower suspension arm small bush which is a nightmare to replace even with a hydraulic press (I know as a I have one and overhauled the other side arm last year when I replaced the small & large bushes) and so decided I wanted a Lemforder arm as this is the only brand I’ll use.
Anyway, the arm was £148 on the Euro Car Parts website and with “discount” the best price was something like £96 or 98.
The Autodoc site listed it as £47!
I also needed 2 front wheel bearing kits as I did the rears last month and want to do the fronts on a preventative maintenance basis and these were just over £50 each for German FAG ones, which again are OEM.
The two bearings and suspension arm including (free) delivery was something like £147 but I also had £8 “bonus” as a result of my last order, so real cost was £139, which I think is a bargain.
This order took exactly 7 days to arrive (by DPD who I think are an excellent courier) and I have to say in my opinion they’re great , as long as you are not in a hurry for the parts!
I’ll definitely be using them again, thanks for posting your review in the 1st place as I’d never heard of them until then....
I’ve never experienced any brand substitutions (everything I order shows as being in stock ) but can’t say I’d be too impressed if that happened ,and always de-select the Safe order option .
I agree it always pays to find out the OEM part number/ brand and work out what you need from that , I’d never trust the parts finder on the site!

 

[maxpayne]

My friend who owns an Alfa Romeo 166 swears by AutoDoc. It’s one site where you can buy parts for exotic/old cars that likes of ECP or even the main Alfa dealer can’t be bothered about.

 

[samisnake]

@Nessy glad that last review helped mate. did you use topcashback on your order? its 10% cashback on the pre-vat sale price on a new account, and 5% with an existing. i just made a new account for the 2nd order! i had that same 'bonus' on my last reciept, but it said it wasnt accepted on driveshafts when i entered it.

@maxpayne your friend has good taste lol. my last car was an alfa brera 2.2 (may it rest in the scrap yard in the sky). parts are a nightmare for them

 

[maxpayne]

@Nessy glad that last review helped mate. did you use topcashback on your order? its 10% cashback on the pre-vat sale price on a new account, and 5% with an existing. i just made a new account for the 2nd order! i had that same 'bonus' on my last reciept, but it said it wasnt accepted on driveshafts when i entered it.

@maxpayne your friend has good taste lol. my last car was an alfa brera 2.2 (may it rest in the scrap yard in the sky). parts are a nightmare for them

My friend is an Alfa nut. He had two 166 at the same as recent as last month!

 

[desertstorm]

I Have probably had 5-6 deliveries from Autodoc over the last 2 months whilst I have been rebuilding the engine on my TT. Never had any issues with any of the parts I have ordered. They do come from Germany but DPD tracked delivery usually takes around 6-7 days. I have ordered on a Monday morning and had it delivered Friday morning.
You can get some very good discounts and choice over anything you can get in this country.
I fear that when Brexit happens ordering from Europe will probably not be worth it. I pretty much get all my tyres from Tyre Leader.co.uk another German company.

 

[Nessy]

@Nessy glad that last review helped mate. did you use topcashback on your order? its 10% cashback on the pre-vat sale price on a new account, and 5% with an existing. i just made a new account for the 2nd order! i had that same 'bonus' on my last reciept, but it said it wasnt accepted on driveshafts when i entered it.

Thanks for the info but no, was unaware of that!
What I didn’t post above was that I’d already bought the bearings via Amazon and had paid £60-odd each (which until I checked with Autodoc had seemed a good price) , so returned them for a full refund and bought the bearings plus arm from Autodoc!
This meant that I only had to spend an extra £17 or so with Autodoc to get a suspension arm that I couldn’t buy in the UK for much less than a hundred quid , crazy!

 

[samisnake]

Thanks for the info but no, was unaware of that!
What I didn’t post above was that I’d already bought the bearings via Amazon and had paid £60-odd each (which until I checked with Autodoc had seemed a good price) , so returned them for a full refund and bought the bearings plus arm from Autodoc!
This meant that I only had to spend an extra £17 or so with Autodoc to get a suspension arm that I couldn’t buy in the UK for much less than a hundred quid , crazy!

give it a go next time you order.
thats silly money for an arm. this thread starting to look like were paid shills lol. need someone with a horror story to chime in to balance it out.

 

[SootySport]

I’ve ordered a couple of parts from them so far and received the the right brands. Prices are somewhat cheaper than other parts shops and online stores so that made me a bit hesitant when ordering, so far so good. They had an extra discount period around the New Year when I bought some shocks and springs, so pleased with another 8% discount on top.
There is a big choice of brands for any given item and not familiar with some so I only ordered the brands I know.
I have the ‘Mister Auto’ app and order through there. The company is registered in France and a subsidiary of PSA group so seems well backed. The Acid test will be when a part doesn’t arrive or is wrong , let’s see.

 

[Simon50s]

Yesterday I ordered two rear inner tail lights for my 2006 Sportback from the equivalent Autodoc here in Finland Autodoc.fi. I too was very cautious at first and couldn't really find any reviews about their service.

Yesterday they had a 'Black Friday' offer so I decided to use them. At first I was tempted by the cheap Van Wezel tail lights on offer. I decided to go for the slightly more expensive OE by Magneti Marelli. I spent quite a lot of time checking the part numbers since the search results were throwing up some dubious results as others have noted. In the end I went to the Magneti Marelli's own product catalogue and cross checked against there own part numbers to identify an exact match with the ones already on the car. The offer price was €42.25 each and total cost including postage was €95.45. I checked today and the prices have gone up to €53.26, supposedly down from €67.42 so looks like I got a reasonable deal. I'm often skeptical of how genuine these offers are.

The only reason for buying these was because the original ones had faded so badly. I tried all the tips about polishing etc. but it didn't work, they were too far gone. Not surprising considering the age of the car but it was the main thing that let the car down. I checked prices from other sources locally and even second hand ones were not much cheaper than I paid Autodoc.

I'm not expecting them to arrive quickly which isn't a problem for me. I just hope they send the actual ones I ordered.

I'll provide an update when they arrive.

 

[Simon50s]

My rear inner lights arrived today so it took 11 days. The lights are as per my order so all looks good. I'll fit them this week.

 

[Simon50s]

Another update. Only after fitting the lights did I notice one of them had the very tip missing from one corner. I’ve added details on ’what you’ve done this week’ thread. No fault of Autodoc as it was already like that in the makers sealed boxes.