S2C Forum Archives
Main Section => Welcome to our virtual Pub Meeting ... => Topic started by: 100+9 on November 25, 2019, 05:14:14 PM
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Clearly the majority won't agree, but I'm ever left aghast at how cheap most parts are. All I hear is bleating about prices. I could pick a hundred examples too.
I've jsut bought a new steering relay for £60. I mean £60, and that's delivered!
Jeez, it cost a clear £7-10 to send the thing, then there was the VAT, the seller's eBay shafting and card -Paypal fees etc. That is one stonking miracle of a price. If you think not, put your money down and try to make one. If you're at under £6-7000 for your first, you've done very, very well. Then you've got to sit about with a heap of them, waiting to first get your money back, and then maybe, maybe make a profit? Fancy it? Money to follow mouth mind....
Have you looked at car-parts prices for anything modern? If it was a similar component fora eurobox, it'd be £400-500. I quote the steering relay, and it may not be a good example, but you get my point.
You might have issue with the quality, but how in all that's holy can we ever argue at the prices we pay for so many of our parts. Nonetheless, many do?
We are so lucky. I think the answer to complaints in this arena can only have the one response. This might involve a cattle-prod...
We are damned lucky.
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I'd agree, many common parts are available at a very good price, cars like series LRs and Morris Minor's, minis, etc have a sufficiently numerous following to make it worth while for firms to source and supply parts for them.
The stupid prices I laugh at come from those who try and flog bits and bobs off scrapper LRs on ebay for absurd money, tho whether they ever actually sell is debatable to unlikely, (ditto the insanely priced complete vehicles you see on there)
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Have we done a formal 'welcome back' party yet? :-*
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Beats me? How can we possibly complain at prices for the majority of parts?
... I don't think anyone is ???
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If you think your paying too much your not doing your research.
I am doing a nut and bolt restoration of a Series 2 and have created a Excel sheet for every part I need to purchase.
I list the part number description, supplier and price Inc. VAT and then when it all filled in sort the list from low to high. You would be surprised how a simple bolt can cost 3 times as much from some Suppliers and I have 18 suppliers on my list to pick from. I must have saved a £1000 by now, its tedious work but beneficial
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Have we done a formal 'welcome back' party yet? :-*
:)
No. No-one that I know is complaining about price of parts
You must have dreamt it. :cactus
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Have we done a formal 'welcome back' party yet? :-*
No, but maybe there is a 'not so' golden goodbye looming?
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:-X :-X :whistle :whistle :-X :-X
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:-X :-X :whistle :whistle :-X :-X
Geoff - post No 7 on this thread + another 10 we should be there. :cool :agh :tiphat Any one commented on the H t lead thread - there's a price to discuss.
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Really? I read price-carping. Generally I mean.
Yes, I read price-carping. All the more if we bring in the more desirable used parts?
You know the kinda thing… overdrives, some trim pieces, certain engines, anything S1, one ton and FC parts, mech-winches and PTO bits blah.
Yes, there’s quite a lot of chancers… however look closely and for a sellers-market, most of that stuff is snapped-up so fast, this can only serve as evidence this stuff is cheap.
When a ‘Boxed Old stock Brake cylinder’ fetches £400 I don’t have much sympathy. Anyone paying £400 for a part you can buy via Britpart for £25 is admitting they don’t intend to use it anyway.
Hardly a week passes before somebody complains a part isn’t made, and thinks the tooling for small batches should cost pennies.. I suppose, from the perspective of serviceable slave-cylinders for £7 delivered, anything could look pricey.
Then there’s the ‘What is a fair price to pay for X?’ threads. This is always code for ‘fair to the OP’, and the answers always come back at 25% of what ‘said’ article sells for anyway.
Lest we forget thrreads running about paying £100 odd for insurance? You wouldn’t believe this possible but it’s true. When other road-users pay anything between £450 and in my son’s case £3400, I’m not sure what the right price is expected to be? You have to chuckle, the tight-wad nature of the LR community keeps clubs poor… you know it’s true.
I’ve had to pay mad prices for used parts, but overall I’m vastly up. I’ve just unloaded some FC bits at £excessive, and still fought buyers off. You win some, you lose others.
Anyone that’s had leafers much over 20-30 years, has heaps of kit by default.
My father and grandfather before me, I made a point of collecting way back.
When we can get a steering-relay for £60 delivered, we can hardly whinge where a PTO unit costs £crazy. It’s a bit rich to bitch, when our kind can unload our stash for a helluva lot more.
Unless you want an obscure factory option, or some such, we can stick to readily available cheap parts. Admit it, you likely want. but don’t need, that obscure and pricey part anyway?
And don’t ‘come it’ either! If you sold-up tomorrow, are you saying you’d sell your ‘galved everything’ S2 for £800? You know damned well it’d sell all day long at £12.000+ If yours is bright, double.
When you see that one of a kind hydraulic rearward facing PTO mower ‘doowacky’ at £4000, and you want it, you know what to do. Simply admit in 1974 when the others were ‘weighed-in’, you were too idle to find it. Now it’s rare, you won’t see another, and you can hold it today. Shut-up with your bitchin’… don’t come on here cryin’. “It’s NOT worth that?!” . It is. Don’t cry to us about you £120 insurance premium either. Pay the man.
You can get steering-relays for £60 for crissakes.
We’re very, very lucky.
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The issue to me is not about the price of new replacement parts which are readily available......But the Quality of these parts which were designed and manufactured perfectly well over 50 years ago......But not simply don't fit!
A few examples I have experienced recently and the suppliers response is 'well no one else have ever complained and we sell 1,000'd!'
- SWB Fuel Tanks - Filling Spout is 3/4" too far forward! It should be on the rear edge!
- Front Axle Sub-Shafts - UJ Cipclip groves in the wrong place!
So I guess we only have ourselves to blame as we are far too good at making do and mending incorrect parts!
So I guess that is why NOS New Old Stock parts which are of the original quality and fit without modification and work as they should fetch silly money. Although sometime you can find a bargin!
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There was a thread on the old forum with regard to relays and the issues of buying cheap - if I remember correctly the centre shaft was snapping in half which could lead to a very nasty accident - so cheap does not necessarily me quality.
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How many of us are aware of this site?
https://www.lrworkshop.com/ (https://www.lrworkshop.com/)
Worth every penny of a subscription if you’re doing a lot of work, and even the free setup is priceless IMHO.
And I agree 100%, the prices we pay for parts are a pittance compared with most other vehicles.
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When a ‘Boxed Old stock Brake cylinder’ fetches £400 I don’t have much sympathy. Anyone paying £400 for a part you can buy via Britpart for £25 is admitting they don’t intend to use it anyway.
Eh?
The Britpart £25 brake master cylinders are great value for money on the face of it, but they all fail after three or four years. This is terrible when you consider how long the OE parts have lasted. Factor in the time and effort they take to swap, a litre of brake fluid and a better quality part starts to make sense... But there is no better quality part available because the race to the bottom in pricing means that we get parts that aren't cleaned of machining residue before assembly with poor quality rubber seals.
Parts are too cheap, not too expense.
I paid over £200 for a NOS master cylinder, not because I don't intend to use it but because I fitted two Bearmach parts that failed within 24 hrs and doused the recently painted footwell in brake fluid. The cost of this was far greater than the price of the part. The cost of having brake failure would be greater still.
I'd argue that if you paid £60 for a steering relay then it's because you don't intend to drive it.
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I'd argue that if you paid £60 for a steering relay then it's because you don't intend to drive it.
I kinda see your logic! And agree. We're not paying enough, yet we don't hear that complaint! We get what we ask for. Mintex yes, but I've yet to see anything from Britpart that is truly dangerous.
I too had issues last year with a tank not fitting. Did I send it back? Nope, of course not. I know damned well the proper item, fabricated with what will be two-days labour, all from fresh-sheet will run me £7-800, and if I wanted S/S, still more. I made it fit. We get what we pay for, and I paid £120 for a tank. It was too cheap, and even before seeing it, I knew it.
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The Rolls-Royce option is to get your hydraulic parts sleeved with stainless steel :first
This means that in conjunction with silicon brake fluid and PTFE s/s braided hoses you should never have any trouble with your hydraulics (for a very long time).
Definitely a once and for all solution for a "keeper".
One of the primary functions of this forum is to point owners to good suppliers and good parts - meaning quality parts at reasonable prices.
The days of running an old Land Rover as a daily banger on no budget have gone.
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Hmm.. I run mine as a daily banger, and I've got no budget at , ive probably got way less money than most of those charming people on bleedin' benefits... :shakeinghead
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One of the joys of Series ownership is that there are so many options when it comes to how you run a vehicle. There are no other vehicles I can think of which have so many choices, not just in configuration (type of top, do you want a winch or a PTO etc?) but also in what you set out to achieve in running it. Some people run an old rat vehicle, others have trailer queens.
It's the time-quality-cost triangle really (ie cheap vs. good vs. quick). You can choose any position on the triangle so you can have up to two but you can't have all three without some serious compromise. 'Good' is also very personal. PGV is to many people's eyes a lovely example of preservation and sympathetic restoration but others would only want a vehicle on a new chassis and bulkhead with everything galvanised and painted to a perfect gloss finish in 2-pack. Some people go for cheap and good but slow, e.g. winchman whose plan to repair one door with sections from another are verging on the heroic. Others such as myself are obsessive rivet counters so are going all out for the pointy end of their idea of 'good' triangle but very slowly. fwiw I too have a spreadsheet for parts and compare prices, which can vary tremendously, but I almost always end up at Craddocks, Blanchards, John Richards or Dunsfold and when the only place on the planet with the right bolt is in the USA, that's where it comes from! Others may choose to fit the cheapest parts they can get their hands on and do it quickly, then cross their fingers that they aren't made of cheese. Good luck to all approaches - your vehicle, your choice.
Alec