I still remember the exact moment the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. It was a Tuesday, just before lunch. The building manager called me, his voice tight with that mix of annoyance and urgency you only hear when tenants start complaining. I told him I’d have a fix in two hours.
I was wrong. And that mistake ended up costing us $4,500—and a lot of credibility.
This is the story of how I learned to stop looking at price tags and start thinking about total cost of ownership. It’s also the story of how KONE became our go-to partner for escalator parts and maintenance.
The Setup: A Small Problem, A Quick Fix
We manage a mid-sized commercial office building in a downtown area. Two elevators, one escalator connecting the lobby to the second-floor conference center. Nothing fancy, but reliable is non-negotiable.
In early 2023, our main elevator started acting up. Nothing catastrophic—a door sensor was intermittent, causing the car to pause before closing. Annoying, but not dangerous. My usual supplier quoted a replacement sensor for $320, plus a service call. Five-day delivery.
Then I found another option. A third-party parts supplier offering a compatible sensor for $180. Half the price. Three-day delivery. I thought, “This is a no-brainer. Same spec, lower cost, faster.”
I checked the specs—or so I thought. The dimensions matched. The voltage rating matched. I placed the order.
The Turning Point: When Cheap Gets Expensive
The part arrived on time. I was pleased with myself, honestly. Felt like I’d saved the company money. I scheduled our maintenance tech to install it the next morning.
That’s when things started falling apart.
First, the sensor mount didn’t line up with the bracket. The holes were off by about 3 millimeters. Not much, but enough that we couldn’t bolt it in. The tech, who’d been doing this for 15 years, looked at it and said, “This is a universal part. It’s not built for your model.”
I assumed “compatible” meant identical. It didn’t. We spent an hour trying to jury-rig it with washers and spacers. It worked for about two hours. Then the door started sticking again, and the elevator shut down completely at 11:45 AM—right before lunch rush.
We had to evacuate three people from the car. Embarrassing for everyone.
The Real Cost: Not Just Money
Here’s where the numbers got ugly. The $180 part was only the beginning.
- Rush order on the correct part: $380 (with expedited shipping)
- Overtime for the tech: $220 (he had to come back on Saturday)
- Lost tenant productivity: Roughly $1,800 (estimated based on 30 minutes of downtime for 120 people in one office)
- Management time: I spent 4 hours dealing with complaints, sourcing the right part, and writing an incident report—call it $400 of my salary
- Credibility cost: Hard to quantify, but the building manager still refers to it as “the elevator incident”
Total: about $2,800 in direct costs. Plus the original $180 I’d already wasted. Nearly $3,000 for a “$180” fix.
But the real kicker came a month later. The same sensor failed again—this time, the third-party supplier had changed their manufacturing process. The replacement didn’t match the sensor we’d just installed. We had to replace both. Another $600 in parts, another day of downtime.
Final tally for that “cheap” decision: approximately $4,500 over two months. And I looked bad in front of my boss, the building manager, and the tenants.
The TCO Epiphany: What I Now Check Before Buying
After that disaster (September 2023, if you want to mark your calendar), I sat down with our senior maintenance lead and mapped out what a total cost of ownership calculation looks like for any elevator or escalator part order.
To be fair, the cheap part was cheaper—on paper. But TCO includes things you don’t see on the invoice:
- Fit precision: Is it OEM-spec or “compatible”? The difference in tolerance can cost hours of installation time.
- Supply consistency: Will the same part be available next year? If the supplier changes specs, you’re back to square one.
- Warranty support: Who covers the labor if the part fails? Our third-party supplier didn’t—they offered a replacement part only, and we paid the tech again.
- Documentation: After-market parts rarely come with detailed installation guides. OEM parts from KONE include schematics, torque specs, and troubleshooting steps.
Granted, OEM parts cost more upfront. The correct KONE sensor for that elevator was $340. But it came with a guarantee, the right mounting bracket, and a tech support line. Three days delivery, installed in 45 minutes. It’s been running for 14 months without a single issue.
What I’d Do Differently (And What We Do Now)
I now maintain our team’s checklist for any parts procurement. (I really should have done this years ago.) Here’s what we check before ordering:
- Verify the exact model number from the equipment’s nameplate—not from memory or a generic list.
- Compare total installed cost: Part price + shipping + expected installation time.
- Check supplier reliability: Have we used them before? Do they have a return policy for fitment issues?
- Factor in downtime risk: If this part fails, how much disruption does it cause? A door sensor? Moderate. A drive controller? Critical.
Since implementing this checklist, we’ve caught 11 potential errors in the past 18 months. That’s about $5,000 in avoided waste and rework.
The $4,500 lesson stuck with me. Now, when I see a low price, I don’t think “deal.” I think, “What’s the rest of the story?”
A Final Tip for Building Managers
If you’re maintaining a commercial building with elevators or escalators, I’ll tell you what I tell our junior staff: The cheapest part on the market is rarely the cheapest installed, working part.
KONE’s spare parts catalog is a good starting point for spec verification—even if you don’t buy from them. Their Ecodisc® technology and machine room-less (MRL) systems have specific requirements, and the right parts matter for safety and longevity. We now source most of our KONE escalator parts directly, because the fit and documentation save us time on every install.
Look, I’m not saying never buy third-party. We still do for some generic items. But for anything that affects uptime—door sensors, controllers, drive components—I calculate TCO first. The math rarely favors the cheapest option.
Dodged a bullet when I finally switched to OEM sourcing for critical parts. Was one poor decision away from a much bigger problem. (Note to self: update the supplier evaluation form with TCO weights before next quarter’s review.)
