[Number 3]

GM has tried for many years to offer aftermarket accessories. The potential advantage it is to be able walk in to your dealer and buy a Camaro and add several or many accessories that differentiate your car in appearance and or performance that maintain warranty and can simply be added to the negotiated price of the car and included in any necessary financing. These accessories would then be included in the warranty of the car for either the 3 year 36,000 mile warranty or the 100,000 mile PT warranty.

Now the flip side is to believe that aftermarket parts meet any of GM requirements. No disrespect to any vendor here on Camaro5, but they don't run the same durability tests that GM does and simply don't incur the costs to bring these products to market. So anyone can bring an accessory to market for less than GM if they don't simply run one car on the durability test that GM does and the environmental tests that GM does, and the component and subsystem tests that GM does. Some do some great work, I know this for a fact. But I also know the requirements GM has and I know that it is hard for any vendor to run all the tests required to meet PPAP requirements.

So the battle is simply cost and GM will not bring a product to market that isn't tested and validated to meet all the requirements.

I recall many years ago GM bringing an aftermarket sunroof to market for the S-Truck. It was available in the aftermarket for a very reasonable price. But when GM added all of it's environmental and test requirements, the piece price nearly doubled. It doesn't mean the supplier part was necessarily sub standard, but the cost to simply verify they met the GM requirements drove the price way up due to the testing and evaluation required to confirm their part met GM requirements.

It's a tough business for sure. Just ask our vendors that have tried to supply GM directly .