Anyone else had fun trying to get consumable parts for a Moke?.

[Mr Spotlights]

Went in to Repco today to buy a oil filter for my 1980 Leyland Moke. Seems an easy enough task..... wrong!. The kid that served me wasn't even born then and had never heard of the brand Leyland so could not find a listing. He asked another guy and both were scratching their heads. I was pretty disgusted based on the fact Repco has been around for 85years.

Anyone else had fun with this sort of thing?.

[CQ_Moke]

I was able to find the right one in the book that they usually have with all the filters. But that was in Bundy, and they love their cars up their..

[Mr Spotlights]

Ryco has actually just done a new catalogue and new packaging. In its infinate wisdom it has completely dropped Leyland as a make.

[Newie]

Mine's a Wix brand and I bought it from Classic Motoring online

http://classicmotoring.net.au/cmos/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1_86_87

No doubt all the other Mini online places have them too. I haven't bought too many new parts for my Mokes yet, but I found out early in the peace that they dont seem to appear in the usual catalogues for hoses, brakes, filters, spark plugs etc. From what I can gather, this seems to have only really hit home in the past few years. Didn't Leyland go bust about 1982? Maybe they only list vehicles up to 25 years past obsolesence or something (although they obviously make exceptions for more common Fords, Holdens etc).

Looks like the time is coming where we have to get everything from specialty suppliers.

With all my vehicles, I like to get the part number off the existing item if possible and ask for it specifically. This reduces the risk of someone stuffing it up.

Newie

[mattsmadmini]

drop in filter or twist on?

[Mr Spotlights]

I was buying a spin on filter

[bnicho]

For a spin-on, ask for a filter for a VZV21 Camry V6 (88 model) or a 4-Runner V6 of similar year.  It's the right one. 

Cheers,

[Tim]

I have a local business that specialises in Minis, I always got to them. Repco used to be really good for all of that sort of stuff, but now they are more like an expensive version of Supercheap.
Tim

[Casper]

Yeah me too, my local Supercrap doesn't stock anything relating to mini/moke including spark plugs, fan belts, dizzy caps, points....

I have a local business that specialises in Minis, I always got to them. Repco used to be really good for all of that sort of stuff, but now they are more like an expensive version of Supercheap.
Tim

Agree, my nearest Repco is 25 min away and they are limited in what they carry, one of the guys didn't know that leyland made minis! 'whats a P76?' 

It took them longer to order a set of points that it was for me to get them sent to me by Minisport in SA!

Casper

[suspend6]

Deal with the Mini parts specialists - they have already sorted all those issues out.  Minis Plus, MiniSport, Link Automotive, etc

Cheers, Sus

[Andy]

The spin on filter also matches a lexus (toyota) V8, i think its Z418 in ryco.

My parts supplier must have old books, cos although they quite often have 2 goes at getting the right part they do have listings.

[Mr Spotlights]

My point was more that our little cars are getting old and there are now generations of people now that do not know of them.

I do buy all my main parts at mini specialists like minisport but it is sad to see the day on the horizon that we cannot go to our local auto store for consumables like filters etc.

[Terry]

Hi,

It is simply a sign of the things to come and why some parts are going to become harder and harder to find.

Ryco, as an example, have always made filters to fit Mokes/Mini's but the market is slowly diminishing, more go off the road than what gets added. Remember we only hear about the restorations, not the ones pushed to back of the garage and left to rot.

So the total number required in the market is smaller. Many people buy items based purely on price, the cheapest available, This allows the the low quality items to enter the market  thus further reducing the total number Ryco can realistically expect to sell.

The big chains like Repco etc aren't going to take up space on a shelf with a couple of Moke/Mini filters that they might sell one or two of in the year when they can put a Ford/Holden that will probably be gone in a  week. So volume and thus discounted price is no longer there making the cheaper ones even more attractive to the customer. A few years ago the MOA bought the last 88 Repco branded oil filters from Repco because they no longer wanted to stock them in Victoria.

The chains and the specialist suppliers are then competing with eBay and online stores selling lower quality goods with little fear of customer returns or warranties so further reduce the need for Ryco to produce.

So Repco and the chain have more or less stopped selling them and Ryco probably produce very few of them, and in the case of Air filters for the HS4 that fit nothing else will probably be discontinued soon.

So the irony is that in an effort to save a few dollars by the majority we will all be risking our engines on the ability of the cheaper low quality items to filter air and oil so we can avoid a couple of thousand dollar or more rebuilds.

I am sure our leaders at G20 aren't discussing Oil filters but the general direction of a global economy is to favor the lower cost item thus causing greater expenditure in repair and replacement. There is no money to be made in making quality products in a disposable economy.

Terry

PS. This was written before i read Mr Spottys Post.

[Maddog]

Don't worry - it's not just mokes. I bought four oil filters for Mrs Maddogs Astra from a Holden dealer. "Yeah mate, they're the ones". But they were all cartridge ones, and she needed spin on. A couple of years later she upgraded to a convertible, so I bought some filters for that. "Yeah mate, they're the ones". This time they gave me spin on, only she needed cartridge! And yes, they were different to the first lot.

For work I buy filters on an almost weekly basis, and one thing I have learnt is never, ever, ever drain the oil and toss the filter until you have the correct replacement in your hand! Google is your friend - there are plenty of cross reference charts out there.

Fortunately my local supplier keeps a book with a page for every customer detailing all the machines and vehicles we have, and a list of all the filters we have bought for them. So all we have to do is look at our page and get what fitted last time.

I was a bit lucky lately too, they had a stock take and anything that was not in the current Ryco book got tossed (as per Terry's post!). They had a heap of Z82's that fit mokes and Holden sunbirds, so he threw them at me and said "You're the only bloke I know that owns a moke - here, take these".

Cheers, Maddog.

[moemoke]

Oil filters are an easy thing to purchase as there are lots of other cars that have a similar filter (unless you have a cartridge type)
but what will happen to other consumables that a moke needs, radiator hoses, ign points, dizzy caps, air filters.
I guess as they get older and parts harder to get will we not be able to drive them as much as we want, there is probably enough
interest in Classic Minis that it will be a few years before parts dry up.

I think that autoparts stores will become more like supermarkets in that you pick your parts and just pay for them
at the checkout, it's usually no good asking anyone for help as they do not have the expierence of working on cars before they
become a plug n play item. The 'assistant' may know his (or her) parts but they are usually not a sorce of knowledge
when it comes to fixing a problem.