Morris Minor Owners Club

Out and about in Manchester today, tried to buy some replacement wipers for my Nissan. All the spares shops in my area have closed down. The shop I used for Minor bits located in Wigan closed at Christmas.

Is it me or are spares shops closing at an alarming rate and is it just in the Northwest?

all seem to be going strong still in Cheltenham and Hull

Everything is so relaible these days with servicable parts having huge inervals it doesnt supprise me. Especialy with how impossible modern cars are to work on unless you have a degree in electronics

I gues anything that does break or need replacing these days is done through a garage? just a thought

They are tending to move out of town - into Indutrial areas - as their original sites become too valuable! Also - internet buying is taking a whack of the business - it's reliable and for small parts the postage cost may actually be less than the petrol cost to go and get the parts yourself!

I have an account with Maccess http://www.maccess.co.uk/.
It was previously Regor and the branch I visited was at Trafford Park,Manchester
At one time I'd spend at least £100 a month with them and £400 not uncommon. This was as a DIY'er and not for business (I had the account as I was the "buyer" for a Belgian company but it never traded so I kept it for my own use)
There was always something I'd drool over but couldn't afford.
The place was buzzing with motor trade buyers filling up their shelves with the latest products but not any more.
The store is dying and I don't bother visiting anymore as there simply is little to interest me.
At one time you could go up with a list and get virtually everything you needed to repair / service your car. Body panels had to be pre ordered and no tyres but most other things on the shelf.
The rad hoses, distributor caps, brake wheel cylinders, clutch kits, etc that were the staple for small accessory shops have gone and been replaced with "bling" for boy racers.
If the trade warehouse that the small shops used to get their stocks have gone this way then I can imagine the shops themselves are struggling to get customers.
After all in recent years vehicles have changed dramatically.
They are a lot more reliable and need less parts, longer service intervals, more complicated so people tend to use a garage rather than tackle themselves, and a lot of the traditional add on accessories such as stereo, lights and such ar now standard equipment.

Paul Humphries

What BMC said about property. Good friend until a couple of years ago ran a very longstanding motorsports parts business, begun by his Grandfather.
It got to a point where trade was dying off, the majority of customers were baseball hat backwards want the biggest silencer for my 1tr nova types.
Basically he got sick of dealing with problem customers.
The changes in cars to modern engines meant less trade for most of his products.
After much deliberation he cut a deal with a developer, th shop got turnd into several flats and he took a 9-5 job as a parts purchaser manager for a very specialist motorsport company.
When alls said and done he's better off wage wise and has none of the hassle that goes with owning a business.
Good for him and his lifestyle, just sad to see such an old company go and with it that ever dying thing - customr service and superb knowledge

Is it me or are spares shops closing at an alarming rate

Yes, independant ones seem to be.

But, Partco/Brown Bros and many others are still going strong and should be able to supply pretty much anything.

Luckily there are loads of spares places locally but then there are loads of old cars here too thanks to the cr*p wages.

Since the local Brown Brothers closed down the "independent" round the corner has doubled their staff. And their prices. They never seem to quite have enough customers for the number of staff, but they're never empty either so there must be money in running a factors still.

It's a shame about Brown Brothers here though as not only were their prices often far better (even before the local place doubled them) they also had someone who was very into classics and Minors in particular. He was always up for a quick chat and ready to offer advice if needed, a level of customer service that seems to be disappearing in other stores...

if you ask around, you'll eventually find a main parts distributor that supplies all the local garages with the usual spares. They normally have a counter, so just go there and they tend to have far more in stock than any other shop in a 10 mile radius.

If they have a shop full of bling parts, or say 'we'll be able to get it later today' then you're in the wrong shop for normal service parts.

Once I went to Halfords to get a fuel filter as it was the nearest place to me. They made a phone call and said 'I'll get it for this afternoon'. I must have been having a dense moment as I ordered it anyway. I realised my mistake when leaving and went to the distributor to get it before going home.

The next day I went to Halfords to get the other one as a spare... but they didn't have it. I didn't tell them that the reason they didn't have it was because the parts distributor only had one, and I'd already bought it! They appologised for the problem and gave me some free oil ;-)

New vehicle may be reliable and do everything for you..like park so you do not have to look where you are going, or a little sensor to tell you that you have strayed over the white line....unless you are overtaking then you are indeed in trouble if you need a sensor to tell you that!! even heated wing mirrors my hubby has got the most gorgeous teal Kawasaki drifter 1500 with a watsonian stiebe style side car it looks the cats wiskers but a gremlin running and hiding in the sensors etc has meant that the winter when he needs the bike he can not use it, after replacing most of the sensors and bits the only other thing left was the on board computer (YIKES!!!) thankfully we fixed the problem before having that seen to , but you can not do any thing to these machines and they are great till they go wrong and then it is a very expensive garden ornament the saving grace for hubby is that he has been able to get to work on hiis Enfield you know where you are with a rattle rattle clank clank! he can do all the work on her himself

Youve summed it up perfectly Pat - Thats why i love the trav so much, simple to maintain/fix/service and if theres a problem i cant work out then someone on here will know
Only regret was not getting one 20 years ago

Quite lucky here in Central Scotland, we have a couple of major automotive parts centres, an A1 motorstores in Bathgate, independants in West Calder, Uphall, and Linlithgow.

As for modern cars, nothing more than bolt together sealed modules and the dreaded ECU interrogation socket. Most dealers charge £38 and upwards just to read any fault codes from the system. If it's anything exotic that's failed, it can take weeks for the part to be sourced from the manufacturer.

Engine reconditioners seem to be getting thin on the ground as well, mainly the 1/2 man businesses. Is this the same all over the country?

millerman wrote:Engine reconditioners seem to be getting thin on the ground as well, mainly the 1/2 man businesses. Is this the same all over the country?

Still a few about, but it's a highly involved operation on modern engines. It doesn't help when the likes of VW made the mark 3 Polo engine all alloy, and you couldn't undo the crank caps without the block distorting. (They have now reverted to iron block on the mark 4.

It's the throw away society we have now. Many skills are dying due to sealed this and that, and replace it if it fails.

Engine reconditioners seem to be getting thin on the ground as well, mainly the 1/2 man businesses. Is this the same all over the country?

They are becoming a bit fewer, but still not impossible to find. The problem is that with modern labour rates and high spares prices it gets easily uneconomical to rebuild a modern engine.
At least it means the breakers yards are kept in business (for gearboxes and engines!)

Yes, it's very sad, as these type of shops in my area were open 7 days a week, until 10pm in some cases, and were stocked by knowledgeable and helpful people. My favourite went downhill slowly as the older cars disappeared, the modern cars have far fewer systems which the DIY
owner can do himself so the businesses became unviable. Mine is now a dry cleaners!

I now work for a large chain of factors based around the south/south west. We supply a whole range of Factors including PaulK's favourite ;)

However a lot of the parts are kept in a central "hub" store, in our case the Southampton and Bristol branches are the hubs. Parts will normally be in within 2 hours of ordering, and yes there are trade counters!