In My Humble Opinion
Mike looks at the perils of poorly-chosen parts.
Rural bus routes, nice little corner shop post offices with a bell above the door and public phone boxes – what do they all share in common? Well, you can perfectly place them all in a ring file titled ‘use them or loose them’. I actually needed to use a public phone a few weeks back after the battery died on my trusty mobile following the associated death of its 12V charger. After running around the town centre – going into two pubs – I failed to find one. My dilemma was eventually solved by buying another charger and cheekily asking the shop owner if I could test one of his wall sockets for form and function for ten minutes – ahh such is the march of technology.
I know I often make out I’m a technophobe and sometimes bitterly resent what the future holds, but I’m not like that really. I use computers all the time, run a website, do my banking online and a whole host of other techrelated matters. But when it comes to buying things of considerable use or value, ordering car parts and buying clothes, I like to see the whites of the eyes of the person who’s getting my money. When Christmas comes, I enjoy being jostled about in the shops when buying presents – like all alpha males I get it done two days before the 25th and all in one sitting. Yet the internet is slowly killing the high street.
Remember those wonderful car parts and accessory stores?
When did you last see one? Once big names like Charlie Browns, Motor Mania, Motor World – they’ve all gone, not to mention the myriad of little independent outlets. Cars by their nature these days are a whole lot more reliable and the market for poorly fitting fibreglass body styling kits is all but dead, yet cars still require servicing and attention from time to time. When it comes to DIY repairs, that market is dwindling too as owners now need OBD or scanning software over feeler blades and a tube of blue Hylomar. Petrol cars still require spark plugs, all vehicles require brake components and owners these days seem to want to save a few quid wherever they can – regardless of the cost, so to speak.
My mind is drawn to a work colleague who had his 57-plate Vauxhall Vectra sitting on axle stands in the car park recently for almost a week. Owing to the fact he lives in a tiny flat in Brighton with little parking space, he thought he would do the simple task of replacing his pads and discs at work. He’s also the sort of chappie who refuses to pay the going rate for anything and never learns the errors of his ways. He came up to me a few weeks back asking where I thought the best place to buy his parts would be – but not knowing his manor, I couldn’t really help. The advice I did give him was to buy from business premises, not over the net, and to measure the width of the disc before he broke out the sledgehammer.
My words of wisdom fell upon deaf ears, seeing as later he proudly boasted that he’d bought the bits from a wellknown online auction site and was promised by the seller they were the right parts – and he’d saved… wait for it… £11. Of course, they were the wrong discs. There are two or three different width discs for this model as is often the case for other cars too, hence why a tape measure is so important. The chap had also immobilised his car by smashing the old discs off the hubs in anticipation of the new parts arriving and throwing them into the skip. Having no funds to get hold of the correct bits from elsewhere, he had to send the parts back, pay for the postage, and wait patiently with his car up on blocks.
All this would have been avoided of course had he bought from the parts store. That said, even they aren’t right all the time. When my old Saab ragtop needed new pads and discs, and the ones my parts man supplied were too big, all I had to do was Sellotape the box back up and ask my retired nextdoor neighbour to run me up the road to swap for the right bits. Unless you are 110% correct in knowing what you are buying – and no-one locally can supply what you need – I would never recommend buying off-the-shelf parts online. It’s just false economy, a pain in the arse and sometimes aiding the stolen parts industry, not to mention the forged copy business too. In the case of the latter, this is a booming market with Far Eastern companies making dangerously inferior pattern parts that are popping up on the internet. Be especially aware of dirtcheap, low-quality wheel bearing kits for sale that are borderline lethal.
As I have hinted, the internet is a wonderful thing, but when it comes to running and servicing your own car, a bit of sensible risk assessment is called for. My rule is always to use a reputable place for buying parts wherever I can, to avoid the hassle of buying online. These guys and gals need your support as much as you need theirs; you’ll be doing your bit for industry, parts quality and crime prevention as well.
Not only that but, in the case of
Mark, my own parts guy – if he closes down, where the hell can I lose an hour, drink some coffee and moan about our respective partners on a Saturday morning without the chore of waiting in line at the barber’s shop?
Once they’re gone, they’re gone!