Uh, no you don't. Otherwise you would end up with crappy parts like oil filters made out of glued cardboards, like those fram filters, which btw are OEM filters on all american hondas/acura except the S2000.
BTW:you shouldn't have to pay an arm-leg for parts on a european car at the stealership. There are plenty of alternatives, and I haven't found routine maintenance stuff for german to be much more than say a honda. Parts are cheap. Labor is what is expensive (and frankly unimpressive in san diego). That's why I usually DIY it.
They are actually in Rancho Bernardo: . Owner is an older gentleman. Really nice guy and very knowledgeable. I go to him whenever I can. Pretty good prices.
They are in Temecula. Kinda far for me, but the prices are usually pretty good, and for awhile they did some free shipping. I also highly recommend them, especially if you want to get parts slightly above OEM grade.
3) German Auto Parts: (not local)
http://germanautoparts.com/: Decent prices, but shipping will bite for heavy stuff. But they can usually get you things that you can't find locally.
Also good. Oh wait, sorry Audi/VW specialist only.
These places usually do sales toward the end of the year (like now). So I usually stock up on stuff for the full year.
There are a bunch more places I can think of too if you really need to get specialty stuff, but most of them are tuners (like if you want to do ECU upgrades, bigger turbos, suspension, etc). I've long stopped using stealers because I voided my warranty long ago by running a non-stock ECU, larger turbo, and an upgraded sports exhaust (no it's not one of those found on hondas that make the car sound like a sewing machine- it just removes some of the flow restrictions to allow the turbo to spool better, and the sound is virtually unchanged…I hate riceboys).
www.torque–factory.com (transmission upgrader. Highly recommended. BUT if you have a tiptronics transmission in a porsche, you should be shot, no offense).
