About 2 years ago quite a few people advised that they had found an inexpensive source for complete cam sensors. Could have been Autozone, Rock, anyone or all of the common retailers / resellers for automotive parts. People were warned / advised on not only this forum but the other forum that it would be doubtful that a complete cam sensor could be obtained for that cost, but that it was more than likely only the cap. Everybody came back on the forum and advised that they had seen the picture in the parts book of "supply your favorite auto store name here" and that they were getting a complete cam sensor. The results were that only 1 or 2 came back on the board and advised that they received a complete cam sensor. A few came back on the forum and advised that they were allowed to get their money back as they had only received the caps. Most peeps that had oerdered complete cam sensors came back on the forum advising that they received caps only, and that the retailer had listed the sale as a "special Order" and that they were not given their money back. Some otherwise very respectable auto retailers were involved here.
Conjecture on my part, but I used to follow the cam sensor history as I found it very interesting that the price went from about $60 to as much as about $400 virtually overnight and did this repeatedly, on and off again. Not just once. Probably 3 or 4 times.
I think that the manufacturer of the cam sensors, and I think that there is only 1 or 2 actual manufacturers regardless of how many names you see on the caps, cam sensors, and their packaging boxes at one time had way too many in stock and drastically reduced the price to the retailers. The retailers / resellers in turn reduced their price, and then somebody over on the other board was researching parts and came across the fact that all of the retailers were selling the cam sensors very cheap, and ordered a bunch naturally. After getting his, he then released the information on the other board, that info got repeated on this board, and voila, a $ 60 cam sensor turned overnight into a $ 400 cam sensor or a $ 30 cap as everybodys stock ran low and found out that they manufacturers were out of stock too. So The manufacturer made another run of 50 or 100 cam sensors and then the price was reduced again to about $ 60, $ 70 or so. Everybody buys again, retailers run out of stock again, price soars again, well, you get the idea. Turbofish38, aka Mr. Eric Fisher could probably add or subtract to this history as necessary. So could Dennis Kirban, who released a lot of info on his weekly news a couple of years ago. Sorry for the long post. It is interesting to note that in all of that time, the GM dealers did not follow the trend of raising and lowering their list price as parts availability came and went, so to speak.
