Serious question, is a $12 thermostat really worse than the $40 one, or am I just cheap?
Had a 2009 Corolla come in last Tuesday with a stuck open thermostat, and I grabbed the cheap one off the shelf because the customer was paying cash and in a hurry. It opened fine on the test drive, but I got to wondering if I just set him up for the same job again in 18 months. The parts house guy swears the cheap ones fail at twice the rate, but I have seen the expensive ones stick too. Do you all just eat the cost and put in the better one every time, or is it really the same part in a different box?
When you say the parts house guy swears they fail twice as often, is that actual data from his returns or just something he's heard forever? If he's tracking cores coming back with the same part number, that's worth something, but I've never seen anyone actually pull those numbers.