What's the deal with repair parts these days???

[grubworm]

a couple months ago, we went up to wyoming and south dakota with brother-in-law and his wife. we were just outside of gillette, wy when their transmission light came on and the truck shut down. it was a fairly new chevy silverado still under warranty, so no worries...gillette was just a few miles back and they had a chevy dealership. well...it was some kind of valve in the transmission that failed and even though it was covered by warranty...the part was not available. i even went online and called dealerships in louisiana and texas thinking i could get one overnighted. NOPE. it took a week and finally sourced one and had it shipped to the dealership. a month later, they had another warranty issue and again, the part was not available. they traded the truck in on a new one.

now, a week ago, the wife was driving her jeep sahara when the abs and brake light came on. its a 2013 with 100K miles, so it is in really great shape and is basically her grocery getter and light errands vehicle. i plugged in the obd reader and found that it was the abs controller. no problem, i called the dealership to see if they had any in stock. not only do they not have any..NOBODY has them. i called dealerships all over the county including mopar warehouses and every other parts distributor i could find on line. after a little searching, i found out that it has been discontinued by jeep. they were around $350 new and the very best i can hope for is to have the local salvage yard try to source a used one (which is $800 used plus the cost to reprogram it)
jeep is messed up...the abs controller i need is only available on 2012, 2013, & 2014 models. after that, they have a new style and the new jeeps are even different from all those.

looks like older jeep parts are discontinued. i looked at other parts and its the same story. i know there are a lot of older jeeps out there and i wonder how people are going to keep them running if the very manufacturer who made it quit making parts for it? and apparently chevy is no better. i have a tundra, so now i wonder if toyota is also falling into this as well.

anybody else have trouble getting parts?

 

[Correus]

I have a '63 Land Rover SIIa 88... so far, no issues getting parts.

 

[KD7WCD]

a couple months ago, we went up to wyoming and south dakota with brother-in-law and his wife. we were just outside of gillette, wy when their transmission light came on and the truck shut down. it was a fairly new chevy silverado still under warranty, so no worries...gillette was just a few miles back and they had a chevy dealership. well...it was some kind of valve in the transmission that failed and even though it was covered by warranty...the part was not available. i even went online and called dealerships in louisiana and texas thinking i could get one overnighted. NOPE. it took a week and finally sourced one and had it shipped to the dealership. a month later, they had another warranty issue and again, the part was not available. they traded the truck in on a new one.

now, a week ago, the wife was driving her jeep sahara when the abs and brake light came on. its a 2013 with 100K miles, so it is in really great shape and is basically her grocery getter and light errands vehicle. i plugged in the obd reader and found that it was the abs controller. no problem, i called the dealership to see if they had any in stock. not only do they not have any..NOBODY has them. i called dealerships all over the county including mopar warehouses and every other parts distributor i could find on line. after a little searching, i found out that it has been discontinued by jeep. they were around $350 new and the very best i can hope for is to have the local salvage yard try to source a used one (which is $800 used plus the cost to reprogram it)
jeep is messed up...the abs controller i need is only available on 2012, 2013, & 2014 models. after that, they have a new style and the new jeeps are even different from all those.

looks like older jeep parts are discontinued. i looked at other parts and its the same story. i know there are a lot of older jeeps out there and i wonder how people are going to keep them running if the very manufacturer who made it quit making parts for it? and apparently chevy is no better. i have a tundra, so now i wonder if toyota is also falling into this as well.

anybody else have trouble getting parts?

I had a 2007 H3 Hummer up until about a year ago. I was surprised how easy it was to get parts for an orphaned brand. Not junkyard parts but brand new in the box ORM parts. Only thing I couldn't fide was a valve over that has the built in PCV valve. I ended up finding a brand new off brand equivalent on Ebay motors after a mechanic friend recommended them.

From what I am hearing the Union strikes are making it hard for the dealers and suppliers to get parts. It is putting the mechanic shops I. A bad place. Ironic that the people who make a living fixing thier products can't.

 

[HighVoltOverland]

I have a 97 TJ and I can’t get a fuel pump mailed to me because of emissions laws
Also Bosch stopped making the pump so it’s unknown part clone roulette as far as part longevity and durability is concerned

 

[grubworm]

I have a '63 Land Rover SIIa 88... so far, no issues getting parts.

that's pretty impressive. i figured something like that would be very hard to find parts for and that you would have to rely on pickers out there finding parts in old barns, etc.
did land rover change parts every 3-4 years like jeep does? like i said, the part i need was only used on three year models before they changed it just enough to not fit other models. maybe that is a greed thing land rover didnt have back then.

 

[pluton]

Toyota still has most (but not all) of the parts for my 1997 4Runner. In cases where Toyota USA no longer stocks the part, (headlight assy for 99-2002 4Runner) I've bought from Japan and the UAE. The downside is the pricing from Toyota USA. I don't know how the USA domestics are on parts prices, but Toyota USA is, in many cases, an extreme ripoff. Like $150 for a $40 brake hose. Luckily, the Japan and middle east suppliers are cheaper!

 

[KD7WCD]

I have a 97 TJ and I can’t get a fuel pump mailed to me because of emissions laws
Also Bosch stopped making the pump so it’s unknown part clone roulette as far as part longevity and durability is concerned

Where do you live that you can not buy a fuel pump because of emissions?

 

[grubworm]

a few years ago i helped my son change the alternator in his pickup. took out the old one and went to autozone to get a new one. they didnt have an OEM one, but had some chinese made aftermarket brand. before the salesman even handed it to me, he said they were known to have a high failure rate. sure enough, new and out of the box it didnt work. i didnt give it a lot of thought back then because i rarely had any repairs to make, but now it seems like vehicles are going to be like laptop computers where you have to buy new every few years because of planned obsolescence.

this has got me thinking a bit...not paranoia or the sky is falling, but serious concern. the wife's jeep is in great shape and runs well...what if we had taken it up to wyoming and the abs controller went out then? its not drivable and i literally cannot find a part for it so i guess i would find a mechanic or dealership up there that would store it for me while we now spend more money flying back home so we can wait there and see if they ever find a part. then spend more money flying back to it and if that part was found and fixed it, i can drive it back and hope nothing else breaks. damn.

i really miss the vehicles that had carbureted engines with distributor caps and no abs and all that other mess...

 

[John and Mandi]

Welcome to the new world order.

Actually this has been in the making for several decades. Auto manufacturers only have to supply parts for 10 years. In the case of your Jeep, I'm surprised that the part has been dropped since it could be within the 10 year period (you stated production utilization was until 2014) but if all of the 2014 models that used it were actually produced in 2013...well, there you have it. A dealer tried to turn us away due to the age of our van, once I said all we wanted was a service (we were traveling) they said they could do that but no repairs. This was common practice through Latin America, older than 10 years and you were on your own. It has been built in for a long time but it appears it is now coming online.

 

[reaver]

Thankfully, my 03 Xterra with 150k on it is running great (and my wife's 02 with 250k does as well). We can also still find everything we need.

I've debated picking up a parts car though, as they're getting older, and I'm sure that parts will be hard to find eventually.

 

[Garyindiane]

Welcome to the JIT methodology in automotive manufacturing...

The only thermostats available for the 3.6L right now are Mopar on Ebay for $70+ or a $30 aftermarket with 50/50 odds of working correctly.

 

[grubworm]

kind of reminds of the early 90s when the brady bill was working hard to restrict guns. i had an FFL then and reloaded a lot. i remember that government was working hard to restrict a lot of guns and gun related items and there was backlash from a lot of citizens. next thing i know, primers were nearly impossible to get and certain ammo was no longer available to purchase. if you cant outlaw something, just make any pieces and parts for it impossible to get. looks like there is a giant push from the government for electric vehicles that obviously nobody wants, so i guess just make it nearly impossible to keep combustion vehicles serviceable. i know this is getting into politics, so i'll just end by saying that as a community that likes to travel by vehicles...we might need to start being a little proactive on how we are going to keep our vehicles working in the near future...

 

[bgenlvtex]

LOL, wait until you try to charge your EV after refusing the latest vax.


Manufacturers produce/secure a quantity of replacement parts consistent with their expected failure rate. When it turns out the original production run is defective on a grand scale, demand outstrips supply.

I had this problem on a 5.9l Cummins injector line. Thousands on nationwide back-order, I found one at a dealership who had just recently lost their Dodge franchise that had one in stock. The dealer I bought the truck originally told me they had 6 in stock, and then crawfished claiming they were all "spoken for". The actual issue was the isolator was not properly torqued allowing the fuel line to vibrate and crack.

 

[Sparksalot]

@grubworm I had a near miss with this recently. After my own trip to Wyoming in July, I came home with a minor fuel leak, seemingly from the tank itself. I wouldn't have been surprised based on a very nasty spot of the WYBDR on my last day out. It turned out to be a fuel line on top of the tank. Good thing, since the tank itself is no longer available. For my 2015 Tahoe.

 

[zgfiredude]

It is exactly this issue, specifically with Jeep, that led me to sell my 2014 JK with only 60k miles and zero issues to that time. We also have a Grand Cherokee (same engine/different trans) and it has NOT been so trouble free. I had a stockpile of parts in the garage for the JK for the time when it became needed. I was looking a lifter/rocker arm replacement as preventative maintenance at 60k! I chose to exit the Jeep world and am not looking back. YMMV, but I am happy to have left.

 

[bgenlvtex]

It is exactly this issue, specifically with Jeep, that led me to sell my 2014 JK with only 60k miles and zero issues to that time. We also have a Grand Cherokee (same engine/different trans) and it has NOT been so trouble free. I had a stockpile of parts in the garage for the JK for the time when it became needed. I was looking a lifter/rocker arm replacement as preventative maintenance at 60k! I chose to exit the Jeep world and am not looking back. YMMV, but I am happy to have left.

Your first sentence is contradictory. You sold a vehicle at 60k with no problems while preparing to replace valve train components that weren't bad and are in no way part of normal PM.
If you don't like Jeep I get it, but conjuring non-existent issues is hardly Jeep (or any manufacturer) problem.

 

[grubworm]

@grubworm I had a near miss with this recently. After my own trip to Wyoming in July, I came home with a minor fuel leak, seemingly from the tank itself. I wouldn't have been surprised based on a very nasty spot of the WYBDR on my last day out. It turned out to be a fuel line on top of the tank. Good thing, since the tank itself is no longer available. For my 2015 Tahoe.

glad it turned out to be an easy fix. that is crazy, though...a 2015 is not that old a vehicle.
but like i said earlier...brother-in- law had a chevy silverado still under warranty and couldnt get parts, so even 2-3 yr old vehicles are having trouble

 

[grubworm]

LOL, wait until you try to charge your EV after refusing the latest vax.

a lot of computer software that you used to could buy, like Word and Photoshop are now subscription only. i can see EVs being that. we buy the vehicle and then have to "subscribe" to charging stations where we have to pay monthly fees or something. im pretty sure you are actually right on about the government using stuff like that for control. i am wondering why such the super hard push for EVs when the infrastructure for them isnt there. seems like a helpful government would see the parts debacle and step in to fix it. they step in everything else...

 

[zgfiredude]

Your first sentence is contradictory. You sold a vehicle at 60k with no problems while preparing to replace valve train components that weren't bad and are in no way part of normal PM.
If you don't like Jeep I get it, but conjuring non-existent issues is hardly Jeep (or any manufacturer) problem.

Let's see here. I had a JK. And to be fair, it did not have any specific failures at the time of sale. I do not think that prepping to replace lifters and rockers at 60k is typical, however, given my experiences with the GC, and a fair amount of other research, I chose that option prior to the most likely inevitable failure of those components in the JK which would damage camshafts, etc. That happened in the GC, and to others with Jeeps that I personally know, and to others on a Jeep specific forum I was on. All of the above experience lead me to the conclusion that the lifter/rocker replacement was what I would consider preventative maintenance. Better?

I didn't mention the fragile oil cooler/oil filter housing. I didn't mention the evap system and it's mystery codes, and I didn't specifically mention the buying/hunting of parts that were scarce/unavailable in order to warehouse them in my garage so that when I needed them, I had them vs. what @grubworm had to deal with. So, I appreciate your clarification of my post.

I chose to leave the brand due to real and potential parts failures and parts unavailability which is not unlike where @grubworm is thinking/headed.

 

[Dakota Houligans]

Currently, the "American" dealerships are having a bad supply problem with the strike. We deal with it every day. And they are buying up the aftermarket stock to keep going. on a Side note, I just bought new steering gear to frame bolts and an accelerator pedal for my 2003 Ford F250 from the Ford dealership. All on hand that day.