After completing my restoration and finding many of the parts poorly made or actually not fitting, I think it’s time that we started posting a listing of inferior parts.
The listing process would identify the part name, number and vendor. Maybe vendors would be given time to rectify or replace their parts. But I have seen tie rod ends that are bad, lower ball joint rubbers that they degenerate before the car is on the ground, door Chrome that’s a quarter of an inch too narrow, lower valances that have a 3/4 of an inch too wide mouth, bad Brake Masters, headlight pieces that require the adjustment screws to lean about 15 degrees toward each other due to poor manufacturing, and I’m sure there are other parts which were poorly made but i can’t remember.
While the vendors have always claimed that they have quality control, there seem to be too many repros of questionable quality.
I knew Pete is already getting excited since I suggested identifying the vendor, but maybe we could just start with a list of questionable parts and numbers and then have a phone number for the Jag member that could be called and in a private conversation the vendor name relayed.
Sort of like consumer reports for repro parts. If a part showed up on the list, we could identify a vendor with a good repro and leave off the bad repro vendor
The potential lack of objectivity in posting a problem.
People sometimes blame the part when in fact the problem stems from installation or user error.
We all have different ideas concerning what’s acceptable and what’s not. And different ideas of what’s acceptable customer service when something goes awry.
All of that can lead to unintended or unfounded vendor bashing. If a way can be devised to be fair, impartial and objective I think it would be a worthy addition to the site.
To my mind this would almost need a shadow list where an admin is designated (separate from the current Admins as I am sure they have enough on their plates) to collate the various parts/problems/vendors and only add to the visible listings when there starts to appear a consistency of problems.
And NO I am not offering as I am only just starting to think of refurbishing my ‘S’
The “usual” supplier generally gets blamed for parts that one (or more) individual may consider not up to snuff and shouldn’t necessarily be. The suppliers buy the parts from a third party manufacturer in good faith. Most often there is only one manufacturer of a particular part and all suppliers sell the same part. My forty years of experience working with them shows that if you talk with the supplier he will make good on the part by first returning your money then either working with the manufacturer to get it right or looking for another manufacturer. If there is not another manufacturer out there and the supplier agrees that the part in question is not up to snuff, he will stop selling it. Case in point – many moons ago there was only one supplier of aftermarket bumpers and over riders for our E-Types. The parts were made in Mexico by hand. Some fit and some didn’t. This drove everyone crazy, especially the vendors. Finally the suppliers themselves enlisted a new manufacturer to source bumpers, etc. and the problem went away.
There are very few OEM parts out there any more! So aftermarket is what we have to live with.
Many of us have a tendency to air grievances about parts on this forum instead of with the vendor. I suggest we use this forum to alert folks that there is a bad particular part (in your opinion) but first work with your vendor to see if you can get it squared. You’ll be amazed how knowledgeable the vendor are about the stuff they sell and how willing they are to work with you.
I think a bad parts list identifying vendors is a useless idea. What do you do when a vendor changes manufacturers and gets the parts right? Sounds like a can of worms to me.
I see your point, but a site that identified which vendor had the best version of a particular part would be useful to me - especially when it is a part manufactured by or unique to one vendor.
If we knew in advance which vendor’s had the correct parts, we would eliminate a lot of dissatisfaction with inferior parts. It is always better to give a positive recommendation then be mum about the negatives. After restoring my XK 150 I am aware that some vendors really do know and have what we need.
Len Wheeler
Tucson
Really, gents, it’s not all that complicated. The usuals strive to source the best spares possible at a reasonable bulk cost to them, which they can subsequently mark up and pass on to you at a unit retail cost sufficient to cover expenses to keep the lights and heat on in the warehouse and still pay a living wage to their employees. They are not out to screw you but to meet your quality/price expectations best they can and still make a buck. There are alternative specialty suppliers who will sell you only the very best, though their selection of spares will be much more limited and pricing will be a multiple higher. By all means support them too. But don’t be too hard on the regulars who maintain a stores stock of 10,000 SKUs for our obsolete classics, because you’ll be really sorry when they’re gone.
That would be relatively easy to set up via a Wiki post where users can update the content, We’d need some discipline from the users about indicating Supplier, Jag Part Number, Supplier Part number, and most particularly date purchased. We could have a parts wiki post for each model/series.
This way, users could see that supplier “XYZ” was selling part c.nnn which fitted in which timeframe, but it would mean a fair bit of input from users to keep it up to date - it’s a lot easier to remember which parts didn’t fit, than the ones that didn’t make you struggle. The issue of longevity (see @Nickolas’s Sheared upper timing chain damper thread) would be another matter. This is also hard to keep positive and up to date, how many people are going to remember to post “the whiffle seals I bought from XYZ three years ago are still retaining the combobulator without leaks” (this aside from the question of if XYZ is still sourcing the whiffle seals from the same manufacturer, and if the manufacturer is still using the correct cat whisker/ground smoke mixture).
Alternatively, a simple post “Good Part quality, part XYZ” in each forum would work as well. If the information is stale, someone looking for that part would just add “Any change to this?” to the bottom of the thread, which would hopefully prompt someone to reply “I fitted the ones from DEF last month, they were fine”.
@Nick, @gunnar, thoughts? The drawback would be that some suppliers might feel like the competition is being endorsed.
It’s still there, the main problem with it was always that it was really only added to by one or two people. Once they got busy with other things (life happens!), it sort of just died.