Knowledge of spare parts or lack of!!.

Hi Axle, Reminds me of a few years back when rebuilding an E49 Charger when Ford and Valiant both used Borg Warner gear,Local mitsubishi agent was shut on Saturday morning so went to the ford dealer to get a speedo drive gear, young lad behind the counter assured me he needed to now what model it was for, when I told him he spent about ten minutes going through his computer before coming back to tell me Ford didn't make an E49 Charger(top marks for research). While this was going on the old Spare parts Manager whom I happened to know was standing in the background watching with a big smile on his face, After a few more minutes of me telling this young bloke it didn't matter what it was out of, all it had to do was fit a borg warner gear box the manager just walked over and without lookung at any references picked it of the shelf. Not too many of the old school left.

RosscoH

Even better when you walk into a dealer and say you want one of these (holding up part) off a rodeo 1990 model. Told him what it was for, where it mounted etc..

Holden dont and never have had that part was the reply...
Even when i showed him the car outside the door that the part came off, offered to show him where it came from, he wasnt interested.

Hello Axle

It gets worse ; if they have got the part , you are going to be ripped off with a fancy price for a generic bit of kit in the dealers box . When I owned an HQ Holden , you could get a Bosch electrical part cheaply , or the same Bosch part in a Holden box at great expence . Holden had the hide to claim that the mark up was because their Bosch parts were subject to Holden quality control !

Knowing who the original parts manufacturer is can save you big time . In about 1972 had a clutch failure in my E Type Jaguar. I thought this was going to cost me plenty because the Jaguar dealer in Canberra seemed to have a charge of about $800 to open the bonnet , and then every thing else was extra . I went instead to a Jaguar mechanic in Fyshwick and was amazed when he quoted $450 . I asked if that was for parts and labour and he said " yes , I assume you are going to let me put in a Landrover clutch !" . Now I was really ready to fall over but he explained that there was a factory in England that for 11 months each year turned out nameless clutch plates for Landrover, Austin , Morris and others , and for 1 month in the year turned out the same clutch plate stamped 'Jaguar' . He said he could get me the Jaguar clutch if I wanted , but the cost would increase by about $800 . The Landrover clutch worked very nicely

I have been told that there is a Mercedes wheel bearing for $150 that can be replaced by a $20 generic bearing if you drill a locating dimple in the side of the outer race , but I can't vouch for that .

I have had some trips to the local Nissan dealer that have saved me some money. I needed new brake rotors and went into the local dealer as there are very few aftermarket parts for Terrano's anywhere else.
Guy behind the counter looked them up and told me I'd be up for around $600 for the pair. He then pulled out a phone book and called a brake place down the road that quoted $200 for the pair, slipped me a busness card and told me to say they sent me.
I was also after wheel bearings and priced them at Nissan, nearly fell over. Guy behind the counter tells me with a wink, 'Oh look, they are the same as the the '92 Pathfinder'. Picked up some bearings for a Pathie at SKF for $60 and low and behold, exactly same SKF part number on the race and they were from factory.

As for the frustration of having a component in your hand with a part number written on it and having a supplier say they don't exist, happens to me every day.

Spare Parts used to be a trade in itself - you could do an bona-fide Tafe course. Probably not in existence any more - like a lot of marketing these days, the supplier expects us to to have the knowledge, or we can bugger off. Some supermarkets are trialling self-checkout now - soon there will be no staff at all, anywhere.

The young guy is just that...young.
Give him a chance and some time to gain experience and hopefully he'll turn out ok.
Not all young ones are useless. I've seen a few useless oldies also.

I went into a place renowned for stocking super crap rubbish looking for some bushes for the camper trailer suspension.
They had the springs on the shelf with the bushes fitted and i had to show the young fella what a bush was.
Needless to say they didn't have them anyway.
Now that the Auto Parts stores are moving towards a more super market type thing you can expect more of this sort of thing.
Employing kids is great but they don't have any experience at all

the dealers don't want you or me fixing things bring it in and we will do it i know the local nissan dealer near me keeps just about no spare parts in stock it has to be brought in i guss thats a sign of the times

After spending a few years in the trade (31yrs) I can assure you that as with everything things have changed. Gone are the days when a holden water pump fitted over twenty years of models. Now we have models that change after 6 or 12 months and there are 10's of model derivitives in every manufacturers range that there wasn't before. Yes it is harder to find the right staff as kids tend to get more education these days and lets face it after going to uni and paying hex fees we all want our kids doing more than selling spare parts.

Consumer trends dictate prices and things such as self service so the days of requiring assistance are limited. Technology with CD parts catalogyes means that people no longer have to "interpret" parts rather they just key in a computer search and there is the number applicable to that chassis no. I remember when I was younger to look up a door trim for a particular model required going through 13 pages of door trims and eliminating ones. Now it is punch in a serial no and trim code and you get the right one.

It is not only parts that the service has dropped off. Every industry has been affected by technology and changing society but not one of us would want to go without our new gadgets that this brings.

Sometimes we need to look at the bigger picture.