Depends the circumstance. If Tech Support tells me to install something and it doesn't work, and I can send it back 'as new', I';ll decline the restock. If I asked for it, and scarred it up putting it in, I'll happily pay if it was in error. That being said, I shy from Harris because of a) predatory pricing, and b) misinformation from Field Service. Some times they're better than others. My favorite being the 3 ayem discussion with the 'engineer' regarding an FM - 25K. I gave him the symptoms, first thing out of the phone was "It can't do that". After a very short discussion of his ancestry and morals, I assured him I was standing in fron of the g-d thing and it was in fact doing 'that'. The option being I called him at that hour for a friendly conversation about the weather in Quincy or something. The final fix was to install Service Kit 3 or something. Common Tinworks happening, your problem never occurred before, but we got a kit of parts to fix it.
It may be just because i'm a Nice Guy, or because I've bought a lot of their product, but I have been buying parts off Collins/Continental for decades and have yet to pay them a restock fee. They have the policy, but I suspect they only enforce it when someone takes advantage of them. As to pricing, yes, they get a premium. I always figured, that was the cost of having Gary Kral and his successirs answer the phone in the middle of the night, and then have somebody schlep the part down to DFW and put it on a plane headed my way. It's worth it.
The old Collins Radio manuals on their transmitters had a parts list which included the original manufacturer's name and address, and the OEM part number for every paert in the radio.
