With some items you do get what you pay for and some are generally only available from a marine supplier. Saving a buck or two and buying hose barbs and below water plumbing fittings from a home center can cost more in the long run....
I buy none of my marine wiring from a marine chandlery yet I still buy the same quality at about 1/3 the price or less. You just need to do a little research and shop around..
One of the reasons that "marine grade" stuff is so expensive is that the volume/demand is low. The more people that have no clue and think that the SS hardware at Home Depot is the same as the SS hardware at a chandler make the situation worse. Buying $.05 screws from HD instead of $0.15 screws from a real fastener supplier is folly. After your nickel fastener has failed, and you get the drills, easy-outs, torch etc out to remove the crap you saved a dime on, you get smart ... you go to the chandler to get a proper part ... the screw is now $0.25 not $0.15 ... *IF* the chandler is still in business.
Certainly some * identical* items are much too expensive when they are relabeled. My Onan Generator uses a Kubota engine. The filters in the Onan box, are $35 for and Oil Filter and $60 for the Fuel Filter. After the unit is out of warranty I will look at the parts in Kubota boxes and compare them. I'll save an Onan OEM filter from the genset and cut it apart and do the same with a Kubota OEM filter to see if they are indeed the same. If they are, I buy the least expensive one.
Replacing the Genset is $12,000+ ... filters change out at 200 hour intervals (per Onan) ... less than $0.50 per hour for filters from Onan ... if you change once a year it is $0.26 a day. That is nothing compared to the cost of replacement or repair if a non-OEM filter causes damage.
The bottom line is that unless you *KNOW* that the part from the hardware store is of equal quality to the one you think is too expensive, you cannot make a valid comparison.
I agree with the drop in quality of many items at WM. In many cases they have stopped selling the "Name Brands" and sell cheap knock-offs under the WM(tm) at slightly lower prices. Case in point, grab 4 Shakespeare SS antenna stand-offs and 4 WM(tm) antenna stand-offs. Compare the quality and accuracy of the dimensions. Look at the details. If you cannot see that the Shakespeare parts are built properly and are truly interchangeable and the WM parts are not. Go ahead and buy the WM crap. Notice that every time you lower the antenna the Shakespeare mount works properly, the WM mount does not hold the tension on the pivot bolt, when the antenna is returned to the upright position the mount is loose. Try to remove the $0.05 screws to get at the pivot bolt on the mount you saved $2 on ... if you had gotten the good part to begin with, and used the $0.15 screws you would have no problems.
Most of the people that go on about the "rip-off" prices of marine quality parts and equipment don't know what they are looking at. Sorry if that offends anyone. I used to make a living correcting the damage done by manufacturers and owners that were either trying to save a dime or two or have no idea about quality parts and proper installation.
MS may come across as OCD at times, but I'd bet my life that the stuff on his boat works ... 100% (with the possible exception of that cheap ball valve) ...
It seems like we have this debate on a regular basis ... starters, alternators, almost anything that looks similar at a discount store to the part at a marine store. Does anyone think that a boat manufacturer spends 300% more to use Marine rated items for no reason? They would make more money if they used the cheap stuff that some owners buy for their boats.
Two quotes from John Ruskin:
“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.”
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”
