Replacing some front end parts on my Yukon XL 2500 (2002 3/4 ton with 8.1L) Seems that AC Delco has three tiers of quality. OE blue box which are very expensive, and Gold which are half the cost and "next best", and Silver, which are the budget line. I am planning to buy the Gold line. Any GM experts here have comments? Thanks in advance.

I buy my suspension parts from Moog. I don't know about ac delco silver vs gold parts.

https://www.moog-suspension-pa...zbJQs_xoCptkQAvD_BwE

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My mechanic uses only the Original Equipment parts. I guess he’s had experience that’s caused him to be biased that way.

I have long had a suspicion that most of the different tiers of auto parts by a particular vendor are the same parts with a different warranty...particularly the aftermarket reman stuff. I like to buy OEM if I can, unless the OE part has known issues that I'm looking to upgrade away from.

Hi, I know quite a bit about GM

AC Delco is OEM for GM.

AC Delco has always been a part of General Motors.

AC Delco builds GM parts and even other companies parts as well.

"Gold/Silver" parts would be better quality/better warranty but I haven't checked lately.

You may find the cost is proportional to a warranty on the parts.

I like your Goldilocks approach.

AC Delco OEM is the same part that gets used on the assembly line when the vehicle gets built. It meets all the requirements for that environment.

From there I suspect Gold parts didn’t make the cut for a production environment, but still met specs for quality. And Silver are the parts that were just good enough to not be scrapped.

All three are probably made on the same equipment in the same factory and the difference is where they get kicked out of the quality control checks.

Front end parts I would go gold.

If it were electrical components, I would go OE.

I usually always buy the AC Delco OEM, unless I see that another brand is preferred such as Moog for shocks. I just had to replace my alternator and Gold line was the only option in AC Delco from the website I was using so that is what I went with.

Thanks gents. I was going to buy the Gold parts and seems like that is a good way to go.

I would buy Moog, especially for a GM Vehicle of that vintage. Moog also offers/produces a line 'Problem Solver' parts, for applications where the design of OE parts were deficient. You will rarely see AC Delco go down that path, as they're typically sticking to the original design, which was primarily designed with a lifespan equivalent to the GM warranty.

Though AC Delco does produce quality parts, they rarely go down the path of design improvement. Moog on the other hand, is all about producing the best suspension parts for any particular application they offer a replacement for, and likely at a lower cost than OE...Just sayin'

My information may be a little out of date here.

AC-Delco is mainly a marketing entity, not the AC-Delco/Delco-Remy of old times. If you look at the packaging of the old AC-Delco/Delco Remy parts they used to have “A Product Of General Motors” or something like that. Newer items say “Marketed By” or something similar to indicate that the parts are made by an outside company and repackaged under the AC-Delco name. Basically Delco says to the suppliers “this is our specs, make it to this level”, lowest bidder gets the contract.

I ran into a situation while I was still in dealerships of needing u-joints for a project car. Under the same part number the we had several joints in AC-Delco boxes. Some were made in Mexico, some made in U.S.A., the U.S. ones had zerk fittings, the Mexican ones did not. In the days of the “real” GM/ AC-Delco that difference would have entailed a part number change, never would different designs both be under the same part number. In the old days of the “real” GM aka pre bankruptcy any material change to a part such as a inclusion or deletion of a hardware item would trigger a part number change. A supplier change would definitely trigger a number change, that was one way to keep atop of quality changes from a vendor change whether inside the corporation or an outside source purchase.

The packages marked “Genuine GM” were OEM quality. If I still drove GM products (I refuse to anymore) if it came down to a choice between the OEM and the Delco line on my own vehicle the Genuine ones would be used with one exception, the Durastop Brake parts line, not to be confused with AutoZone and Duralast. Despite the amount of Durastop brake rotors being made in China I can’t remember a rotor out of the box causing any brake pulsation or the brake pads having any squealing. I suspect that Delco has some pretty strict quality control in place there.