Originally Posted by
Alpha52
Imagine if you took your new Ford to the dealer down the street for warranty work, and they refused to work on it because you didn't buy it at that Ford dealership?
Not quite the same. At least draw a reasonable parallel.
Imagine taking it to the local Ford dealership and them not working on it because you didn't buy it from
any Ford dealer.
Part of what makes gray market cheaper is that you are not paying for the aftermarket service and warrantees, so you should not expect it. You should also expect to eat this yourself.
You also do not get whatever (if any) protection the manufacturer would give you of buying from an "approved" vendor. In theory this means that the manufacturer has some level of trust in the vendor. How much this matters in real life, I don't know. In reality it probably just means that the manufacturer gets paid.
The down side of the gray market other than no warrantee is that you could be getting a counterfeit item (I don't really think this is as likely in components as in frames, though I have no info to back this up). I think the issues more common than counterfeiting would be buying stolen items or factory seconds that should have been destroyed.