Buying guide
TVH vs. the competition: an honest look at where to buy forklift parts
We are an authorized TVH supplier, so read this with that in mind — including the four situations where we tell customers to buy OEM instead.
Herb Grady Company 9 min read
Every parts buyer eventually asks the same question: who should I actually buy from? The honest answer is that there are four kinds of supplier in this industry, they are good at different things, and the cheapest one is not always the cheapest one. Here is how we think about it — including where our own supplier, TVH, wins and where it does not.
The four kinds of parts supplier
Before comparing brands, it helps to see the categories. Almost every parts purchase in material handling comes from one of these four channels:
- The OEM dealer parts department. Toyota Material Handling, Hyster-Yale, Crown, Raymond and their franchised dealers. They sell the manufacturer's own parts for the equipment they sell.
- Large aftermarket distributors. TVH is the biggest; there are several other serious national players. They manufacture or contract-manufacture replacement parts across many brands.
- Regional independents and rebuilders. Smaller shops with real depth in a specific niche — hydraulic rebuilders, mast specialists, battery houses.
- Online marketplaces. Amazon, eBay, and the long tail of drop-ship storefronts with names that did not exist eighteen months ago.
How they actually compare
| What matters | OEM dealer | Large aftermarket (e.g. TVH) | Regional independent | Online marketplace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Catalog breadth | One brand, deeply | Every major brand — TVH publishes 37M+ part references | Narrow but deep in a niche | Enormous but unverified |
| Fitment confidence | Highest — it is their machine | High, when cross-referenced by serial number | High in their niche | Lowest — listings are frequently wrong |
| Price | Highest | Typically well below OEM list | Varies; often excellent on rebuilds | Lowest sticker, highest hidden cost |
| Availability | Good for current models, poor for discontinued | Strong — TVH reports 930,000+ products in stock and 95% same-day shipping | Limited stock, fast on what they have | Unpredictable |
| Support for older machines | Drops off as models age out | Continues long after the OEM stops | Often excellent | Random |
| Who you talk to | A parts counter, sometimes a queue | Depends entirely on your supplier | Usually the owner | Nobody |
| Recourse when it is wrong | Strong | Strong through an established supplier | Strong | Weak to nonexistent |
Where TVH is strong
We are an authorized TVH supplier, so treat this as an interested opinion — but the reasons we chose that relationship are concrete.
Catalog depth that a small shop could not otherwise reach
TVH publishes more than 37 million known part references and over 930,000 products in stock, spanning forklifts, warehouse equipment, aerial platforms, telehandlers, sweepers and scrubbers, ground support equipment and golf carts. For a company our size, that is the difference between "we can probably get that" and "we can definitely get that."
Multi-brand coverage in one place
Most operations do not run one brand. A typical warehouse has a Toyota, two Crowns, a Raymond reach truck and four pallet jacks of uncertain parentage. Sourcing all of that through OEM channels means four accounts, four minimums and four lead times. One aftermarket catalog collapses that into one call.
Support for equipment the OEM has moved on from
This is the underrated one. A dealer's obligation to a discontinued model fades. The aftermarket keeps producing parts for old machines because those machines are still working. If you have a twenty-year-old lift truck that runs fine, the aftermarket is what keeps it running.
Same-day shipping as a norm, not an escalation
TVH reports shipping 95% of orders the same day. Downtime, not part price, is the real cost of a broken machine — a $180 part that arrives Thursday can be far more expensive than a $260 part that arrives tomorrow.
Where TVH is not the right answer
We would rather tell you this than have you find out on your own.
- Warranty-period equipment. If your machine is still under manufacturer warranty and the failure is a warranty item, go to the dealer. Do not give them a reason to deny a claim.
- Safety-critical structural components. Mast weldments, overhead guards, fork structural members. We source OEM for these and we recommend you do too.
- Proprietary electronics and software. Late-model control modules that require dealer programming are a dealer job.
- Truly obscure single-source components. Sometimes only the OEM ever made it. We will tell you when that is the case instead of selling you something close.
What actually separates good suppliers from bad ones
After fifty years of doing this, our view is that the catalog matters less than people assume and the counter matters more. Two suppliers can source the identical part from the identical factory. The difference shows up in:
- Whether they ask for your serial number. A supplier who does not is guessing. Manufacturers change component suppliers mid-production run; the model number alone is not enough.
- Whether they will talk you out of a purchase. If you describe a symptom and the response is immediately an expensive part, be careful. The right first question is usually diagnostic, not commercial.
- Whether the lead time they quote is real. An honest four-day answer beats an optimistic two-day answer that becomes five.
- Whether anyone answers the phone. Sounds trivial. It is not.
The short version
For wear items, consumables and the everyday failures that keep equipment down — hydraulic seals, filters, brake components, squeegee blades, load wheels, solenoids — a large aftermarket catalog like TVH's, ordered through a supplier who cross-references properly, gives you OEM-equivalent quality at a lower price with better availability on older equipment. For warranty work, structural safety components and dealer-programmed electronics, go OEM.
The mistake is not choosing the wrong channel. It is choosing a channel without asking which one this particular part belongs in. That is the conversation we have with customers every day, and it is free.