Frustration with the After-Market

[Rich in Vancouver]

I bought a braided stainless replacement clutch hose for my MGF from a well-known UK seller.
Car jacked up, old hose off, fluid drained. Of course the upper fitting was too tight to undo in situ so I removed the
short pipe at the slave cylinder end and removed the hose on the bench.The new hose is made for a ZR and should have two adaptor
fittings included to mate to the slightly different MGF pipes and....Went to put the new hose on and, No bleedin fittings!
Reinstalled the old hose, hooked up the Eezi-bleed which turned out to have a perished seal at the tire attachment end.
Talked really nicely to the Missus until she agreed to do the hated job of pedal pumping.
Not a cheery day, thankfully there was a bottle of Tequila on hand.

Progress zero yesterday...hangover today.

Why not give the seller a ring? This is a business that states on their E-Bay ad that they will not sell to Canada.
Their business website shows international postage but when you request a quote they don't even have the courtesy to
respond. (In my case they lost a 130 quid sale) In the end I ordered a couple of items that weren't advertised elsewhere via
a friend in the UK who received them and then posted them on to me. I don't want to try getting the fittings out of this seller as
I can tell it will be a PITA dealing with them. I also don't want to complain as they appear to be the types to blacklist me, and one day
I may need something else that is only available from them. (Got to keep my options open!)
Metric fittings aren't all that common here but I am sure I will be able to hunt some down, but that will have to wait for another day.

End of rant, thanks for listening!

[Rich in Vancouver]

Just a little addition to the above...
One of the other items I ordered was a silicone charcoal canister vacuum Hose Set for the MGF.
Looking at the picture on their site it looks like nicely moulded bespoke hoses to fit the charcoal canister
What arrived was 2 lengths of cut hose. Fit for purpose sure, but not a patch on the lovely moulded hoses
I bought for my cam cover from Eliseparts. (That is a company I don't hesitate to recommend!)

The third item I bought from the unnamed company was an X-Power sticker to dress up my license plate frame.
That I am very happy with!
One out of 3 isn't bad I suppose. Better odds than the lottery!

[talkingcars]

Not a good story but why are they making a kit for the ZR, it uses a clutch cable of the same design as on the mk1 Scirroco I had in 1980 and the early maestros and fails in just the same way.

[Rob Bell]

How frustrating - and how tempting it much be to name and shame!!!

Hopefully you can get a satisfactory resolution to the issues Rich.

[Rich in Vancouver]

Rob, I thought the same thing about the "ZR" hose. As we don't have any ZRs here I assumed that they must have made a variant with a hydraulic clutch.
Here's the package and a pic of the hose end.

( Ignore the bit on the package that says LMA Performance. That isn't who I bought the hose from!)

And here's the MGF hose end. You can see why an adaptor is required.


BTW: Do you know what the thread of the hose fitting is? It appears to be 12mm but I'm not sure if the pitch is X1.0, 1.25, or 1.5
Tomorrow I'm going to drop by my local auto-parts shop to try to match the hose up. I don't hold out much hope as I haven't had much luck
buying even common fittings there! I might give the local marine hardware store a try as well. They often have the less common stuff.

[terreneuve]

Try a hydraulic hose shop too!

[John SS]

Rich, it may be a PITA and you may not think it is worth it, but I can't see that requesting adaptors or returning an incorrect part, via your UK friend, is going to get you (or him) blacklisted!?

[sniperpenguin]

It may just be the wrong part..... I think I know who you are on about, and have bought plenty from them in the past with little issue.

(I usually call him direct to get a little knocked off since he avoids EBay fees) - If you need anything delivered to you from him, I'll be happy to help.

[mowog73]

From your first post I can't understand why you would deal with them in the first place nor can I understand why you might want to deal with them again in the future, unique items or not. Some ventors are not worth the trouble, Victoria British comes to mind.

The SS clutch hose is available from the normal parts vendors and I would think that a local parts store could help you out with an adaptor, metric hydraulic bits are carried locally by both NAPA and CarQuest.

[Rich in Vancouver]

To tell the truth the MG Sport and Racing sticker was the main thing I wanted. I added the hoses to make the order worthwhile.
I suppose I am whining as I seem to be having more issues with UK suppliers not answering e-mails and generally not giving the same customer service they did a couple of years ago. This isn't just the little guys and e-bay vendors but the bigger players like B&G and MS. The one bright light continues to be Rimmers. They don't have an issue with overseas sales. Their biggest issue seems to be keeping up with the volume of orders. I ordered a radiator from them a few weeks ago to be shipped via UPS. When it hadn't arrived in 3 days I e-mailed them and they explained that they had come in on the Monday to find 1300 web orders waiting and were working through the backlog. I still had my order within 5 days of placing it. (halfway around the world!)

As for worrying about being blacklisted, you just have to read the sellers ads to see he seems to have a chip on his shoulder, and owning a car where I have no choice but to buy my parts online I don't want to alienate any vendors, and I don't want to piss off my friend in the UK with a lot of messing around as I really appreciate his doing me the odd favour. I would rather keep my options open as it seems that with the mass scrapping of MGFs in the UK the viability of a lot of vendors will be decreasing. Besides, even though this seller is difficult to deal with he has some good stuff at good prices!

[sniperpenguin]

It's quite funny when you talk to the guy..... He doesn't run the Web business (his daughters do that.... again if we are talking about the same vendor) - I agree his descriptions are often blunt but he doesn't believe in absorbing EBay fees ("It costs me more to use Ebay, so I charge more" lol )

Again, if you need a need Rich, let me know

[Rob Bell]

Eye-balling the thread, it looks 1.0 Rich. I have a spare gearbox in the garage - but I fear it may not have the necessary link pipe with the necessary thread on it...

What I can do is take a picture of a M12x1.0 bolt and give you the pitch measurement - would that help Rich?

[mowog73]

You do make a good point Rich. I too find that Rimmer is head and shoulders above the rest when it come to answering emails and send out packages promptly and reasonable shipping charges. I have only dealt with a handful of UK-based parts vendors but there is one that rarely answers an email and has excessive shipping charges, a vendor we have both used.

You want some bread to go with that whine ? (just joking of course)

[Rich in Vancouver]

I went by our two big parts suppliers this morning. One was totally useless and the other at least was able to confirm that the thread is M12x1.0 so I have got that far, even if he couldn't supply the parts. I am going to try to hunt down the fittings online. As the car is back together and running I'm not in a big hurry. The original hose really didn't need to be replaced anyway so it serves me right for getting fancy!
Sniper, thanks for the offer! I'm sure we are taking about the same outfit. I think he must be one of those guys who is trying out the new way of doing things but hasn't come to terms with the fact that if you advertise online people outside your normal trading area will want to deal with you. Very few companies realise that the dynamic is totally different internationally compared to the UK market. The overseas MGF owners are all enthusiasts and are willing to spend more on their cars than the average UK owner. I have paid more in postage for parts than most Brits paid for their cars, and it doesn't bother me as it's the price you pay for owning an MGF in the colonies. Like I said above I deal a lot with Rimmers. Sure their prices are generally a bit higher than some of their competitors but their great website gives some assurance that you are actually going to receive what you need, their shipping is pretty darned impressive, and they deal with problems quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately they aren't too much into specialty items or they would get all of my business!
Such is life!

Cheers, Rich

BTW: Mark, Make mine WINE!
FWIW I have also had really good results from E-Carparts in Sandy Bedfordshire.

[Geoff.F]

Rich,
My "MG Experts and Parts Suppliers" experience mirrors yours.
As for Aftermarket Parts. I spent a buisness life in the Aircraft Industry living as a Tech. Rep, all over the world. It is illegal to fit these parts on any Aircraft worldwide as it is the same for cars in most countries in Europe. The UK is the only place where you can make parts in a back street factory or buy them from one in China and sell them as acceptable parts. Why ?? It is a Mega Buck buisness.
If you buy Aftermarket, E-Bay or parts from Bought to Sell reduced to spares on the Forum - Buyer Beware.
Geoff F.

[Rich in Vancouver]

Geoff, the same applies to North America. There are no standards for aftermarket car parts, and for that matter there are few standards for automotive modifications. It's pretty much "Anything Goes". The only recourse in the event of loss or injury is the courts.
There is a lot of junk on the market but there are also a lot of very high quality well designed parts and accessories. If you have a Porsche you can find just about any beautifully machined, high-tech mod you want or need. Unfortunately there are no such parts for MGFs over here...and darn few over there either!
I was very impressed by my MS Slick-Shift until I saw one for a 911-No comparison!

BTW: Many years ago I did maintenance on Boeing and Douglas aircraft for a living and I remember well the standards applied to parts and inspection!

[Dell]

I had am issue with some shocks I bought from the same company again no reply via website so in frustration I emailed his paypal account on the theory that would be viewed regularly, lo & behold I got a phone call within a couple of hours from him with an explanation an apology and a an offer of a refund or a pair of upgraded shocks for the same price which I accepted & they arrived 2 days later. I can only speak of my personal experience but dealing direct with the the organ grinder worked for me, If you search the forums you will find this is not an isolated experience & appears to be more of a problem with the people running the website than the guy himself who in my case went the extra mile to resolve the problem to my satisfaction.

[mgnminiman]

I was going to buy that hose but found Rimmer Brothers sold a Goodridge hose made for the MGF so bought that instead! Reading this thread I'm glad I did now!