For the last few decades, FCP Euro has dedicated itself to supplying customers with the best possible parts to service their vehicles. During that time, the business expanded to cover more manufacturers and help customers with detailed DIY videos and articles. There are Buyer’s Guides and model-specific resources, too. But, perhaps the most valuable service we offer are the assembled service kits available for nearly every vehicle. No more wondering if you have every last clip and bolt, and no more ordering too many parts; simply grab your kit and get to wrenching!
What Are Service Kits?
As we all know, fixing our cars isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Modern manufacturers have removed traditional steel hardware and components for single-use aluminum and plastics. That’s made acquiring the right parts for a simple job a bit more involved. Want to change a control arm? Well, you’ll need all new bolts, nuts, and washers. Oh, and don’t forget to get the right bolt grade, too, as certain manufacturers equip models with different bolts.
To save you the time and hassle of ensuring you have all of the right parts, our experts have put together hundreds of service kits spanning every manufacturer and about every mechanical system within a given model. Once you know what you need, you can decide who makes it. OE, OEM, Genuine, and Aftermarket parts can have different qualities, and brand loyalty is a personal choice. If Sachs and Bilstein both make dampers for your vehicle, then you’ll be able to get a kit with either brand. Kits featuring Aftermarket companies and more-performance-focused parts aren’t always as available, but we do have them depending on popularity.
What Type Of Service Kits Are There?
Service kits are available for nearly all mechanical aspects of your vehicle. If a job has a long parts list with many small pieces, there’s an excellent chance of a kit being available. Below, you’ll find a list of some of our most popular kits; however, there are many more for more involved jobs, like replacing the pistons and connecting rods in your early Audi 2.0t engine. Pushing our cars a bit harder, lowering them, lifting them, and restoring them to factory spec are all ways we can enjoy our vehicles, and FCP Euro is proud to support whichever path you choose.
Brake Kits
Brake service kits are available for the front axle, the rear, or both, but the exact parts will vary between kit and vehicle. At a minimum, the kit will include fresh rotors and pads, but more involved kits featuring aftermarket brake lines and high-temp brake fluid are options for those seeking better braking performance. Before choosing your brake kit, ensure you know which brake pad compound you’re looking for. Each pad compound best suits different operating conditions, so you’ll want to match them to your driving.
We also carry big brake kits with either OE or aftermarket parts. For example, B8/8.5 Audis and P3 Volvo models can take advantage of larger calipers, rotors, and pads from other models in their manufacturer’s lineup. BMW owners can also fit their non-M models with the M-Performance Big Brake Kit. Other models, like Mk7 GTI, have larger factory options and aftermarket kits from StopTech.
Oil Change Kits
The most common kits we sell are our oil change kits. Each kit features the necessary oil, a fresh OE or OEM filter, a drain plug seal, and the other required parts that vary between models, like oil filter housing cap o-rings, and drain plugs. Multiple kits are offered per model, with slightly different oils separating them.
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LIQUI MOLY oils are specifically designed for European applications and are the oil of choice for most FCP Euro oil change kits. The Leichtlauf HighTech is your bog-standard full-synthetic Euro-spec oil and is always offered alongside LM’s Molygen. Molygen contains LM’s latest friction-modifying technology, MFC, to provide the company’s most advanced oil. Along with better preventing harmful deposits, the MFC reduces friction across all bearings, making the engine more efficient, even with extended service intervals. But perhaps best of all, it’s a fluorescent green color with particles that react to UV light, allowing you to use a UV flashlight to help identify where an oil leak originated from.
In some cases, you can grab yourself a complete Maintenance Service Kit. Rather than just oil change bits, they include intake and cabin filters, ignition wires, and spark plugs for a complete tune-up in one kit—perfect for refreshing that poorly running project car you just bought.
Suspension Kits
There are few things more than suspension work that enthusiasts love—whether slamming your golf on airbag struts or setting it up for the curves of Lime Rock Park with a set of Bilstein Clubsports, changing suspension components can have a drastic effect. However, the less flashy parts like control arms, bushings, and tie-rod-ends play an enormous part in how a vehicle drives.
We offer all sorts of suspension kits, from basic strut replacement to complete overhaul packages. The suspension also has the benefit of having more than a handful of trusted brands supplying parts, giving various options. For every make and model, you’ll have a strut/shock kit and a control arm kit which will refresh most of the serviceable items in your suspension. Bushing kits are available, too, and sport-oriented models will have a choice of material. BMW 3-series owners can install a complete M-spec bushing kit fit for an M3, though not every manufacturer offers an OE upgrade. Aftermarket polyurethane bushing kits are common across all makes, offering good value for performance.
Cooling System Kits
If there’s one weak point across all modern European manufacturers, it’s the cooling system. Today’s cooling systems are made almost entirely of plastic, but plastic doesn’t hold up very well to heat. Water pumps, thermostat housing, coolant hoses, and all of their fittings are all prone to cracking and even sudden failures after relatively low usage.
If you’re buying a used European car made within the last few decades, do yourself a favor and pickup a cooling system kit for your vehicle. Basic kits focus on smaller areas like thermostats, water pumps, and expansion tanks, while complete overhaul kits include every cooling system component from the o-ring to the radiator. Performance models will have upgrade kits featuring all-aluminum radiators and silicone hoses, too.
Ignition Service Kits
While not as critical as the cooling system, ignition coils can be a regular source of headaches. Whether fuel-efficient or powerful, turbocharged engines need a strong spark to ignite the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber, putting a fairly intense strain on the ignition coils. Picking up an ignition kit will refresh all of your ignition components and return a strong and consistent spark to your engine.
Fuel System Kits
Direct fuel injection, high-pressure fuel pumps, ethanol fuels, and increasingly restrictive emissions regulations have rapidly changed how fuel is injected into the engine over the years. While the results have primarily meant less-toxic fumes and more power, overall reliability has suffered. Euro manufacturers share struggles with injectors and high-pressure fuel pumps, but that’s OK because we’ve responded with the kits you’ll need to set yourself right.
How Are The Service Kits Made?
Not everyone at FCP Euro is an enthusiast, and that’s OK. But those we employ are some of the most experienced and knowledgeable people you’ll find in the community. With all that expertise, we’ve leaned on our Catalog Managers and Make Experts to draft up these kits to serve our customers’ needs best. The ideas and blueprints from these kits often come from our DIY videos that we provide for everyone on our YouTube channel. Though, now and then, they’re born from an unsatisfied niche discovered by one of our employees.
Most recently, one of our Mercedes Experts identified a simple solution to an enormously expensive dealership replacement for modern Mercedes engines. Leaking cam adjuster magnets were leaking oil in a way that caused the lubricant to wick up the harness and reach throughout the engine bay causing electrical gremlins to the tune of $10,000+ harness replacements. But a little sleuthing and some cross-referencing solved the issue. Mercedes sells “sacrificial Pigtails” for older engines that happen to use the same connector as the magnets. Plugging in a pigtail between the magnets and the main harness prevents oil from reaching the all-important ECU and other electrical connections. After conferring with other Mercedes experts within the company, a kit was assembled and is now offered on fcpeuro.com.
Other times, you might know what a part looks like but need help finding it. Manufacturers love to make subtle but important changes in the middle of model years. Making matters worse, superseded part numbers can be tough to acquire. Necessary evil or not, it’s a hurdle we must jump over to fix our beloved, but there’s hope. When assembling our kits, we bring every piece together in our photo studio and photograph them as a group and individually so you can easily identify what you’re looking for. No more wondering if what you’re reading is actually what you’re looking for, thanks to stock images.
How To Browse Kits For Your Car
Browsing for kits is as easy as looking up anything for your vehicle; individual parts and kits are found the same way. Head to the fcpeuro.com home page and look for the “Select Your Vehicle” box with the drop-down menus in the upper lefthand corner. If you have an account with us, you can follow that method or head to your account page and click on the “My Garage” tab instead. Either way, the site will save your car to your profile. From there, fill out the section with your vehicle’s details, and the site will automatically bring you to the model’s parts page.
The assembled kits are the first products that appear, so a quick look around that first page may have just what you need. Otherwise, you can search directly with the overhead search bar or go the detailed route by using the menu on the left. Select which system of the vehicle you’re buying parts for and then the specific area. That’s all there is to finding them!
Service Kits & Our Lifetime Replacement Guarantee
All of the parts we sell are covered under the Lifetime Replacement Guarantee in some form or another. Service Kits are absolutely a part of that, and the warranty process is much simpler than you might think. While you did buy a kit, we track the parts individually, so if you need to warranty one component out of the kit, you can. It’s the same process as any other LRG return; head to the home page, click “Hassle-free Returns” below the search bar, and follow the prompts.
