Parts Quality

[Mike Wattam <MikeWattam@domain.elided>]

Parts quality is clearly a cause of concern to all members of this Digest
and particularly those resident outside the UK.

The rubber bushes referred to have been sent to me by TSr members, and they
look as though they have been made from an 'Eastwood' rubber moulding kit. 
Rubber specification is not to be taken lightly, there are many different
hardnesses and compositions of rubber and mounts are specified to suit the
application.  Clearly somebody making rubber mounts to a purely physical
specification and using the nearest available cheap material (old tyres?)
is not going to get a great deal of customer satisfaction.

The Triumph Stag Register has been in more or less constant liaison with
major parts suppliers over the past 2 years in an attempt to secure good
quality on all parts, and while expressions of intent have been made it is
clear that in practice this is not always getting through to the parts
themselves, e.g., un-reinforced hoses are still available over 6 years
since I had them (I thought at the time) convincingly condemned.

Most parts specialists are at fault in not having their own quality checks,
they merely rely on the supplier to do it right and in some cases clearly
the suppliers are ripping them and us all off.  There is a great deal to be
said for going to a Stag specialist who does do his own quality control -
HRS and Paddock are people who I personally trust but I am sure there are
others. 

We are now also very fortunate to have Tony Lee with Stagpro, who is
personally checking out the small number of body parts supplied which
previously were of extremely dubious quality in many cases.  May he expand
and prosper - while keeping the quality up!

In defence of the suppliers, the Stag is itself a major part of the
problem, they have to react to customer needs and that is driving quality,
often in a downward direction.

Here in the Digest hopefully we all have a pretty good idea of what quality
we need, and know that to achieve it you just have to pay.  Therefore
hopefully we are using the parts suppliers who can deliver the best quality
they can.

But there is an entirely different profile of Stag owner which is almost
exclusive to the UK.  Because there are a lot of Stags in the UK, the great
majority of Stags find themselves being owned by people who go into Stag
ownership over their budget financially, have no knowledge of the special
requirements of classic cars, and certainly no real understanding of
'engineering quality'.  These people simply buy on the lowest price
irrespective of quality, and often STILL moan like hell that they are being
overcharged.  If for instance an unreinforced hose should burst they blame
the car, patch it up badly and sell it.  It might sound like I am
disparaging these people, but I am not.  We need them, if they did not
exist and buy parts, then the major suppliers would not be bothered to be
in the Stag market and that would hurt us all.

So, I believe we need to be more forceful with the suppliers and use our
collective wisdom to convince them that just a little more spent on the
'right' quality will bring them better rewards in the long term, without us
having to continually send their parts back and argue with them.  The guy
on the tight budget is going to have to pay a little more, but he too will
have the job right first time and his Stag will have more durability.  It
is up to the Stag parts specialists to supply only good quality and
convince the price-imperative buyer to pay the 'going' price for decent
quality parts.

Rest assured I shall be making these points yet again, but if you have any
comments to add please let me know.

Mike Wattam
Triumph Stag Register