Archive for January, 2009

In the last 3 months CarSpareFinder has heard of at least 5 car parts suppliers closing down or have gone into administration. This should be no surprise as most tend to have one car manufacturer as a customer and with factory shut downs affecting all of the factories within the UK.

Most car manufacturers use small but specialist companies within their local area to provide the add on components or even integral units to their cars. Even manufacturers who build their cars from a kit imported from their owners homeland still use dozens if not hundreds of other locally sourced car parts that are made to a specific specification, to ensure reliability in the cars they make.

This is no small thing because when car production does start again; factories will need to source these parts which are custom made.  This is not as easy as it sounds as often special equipment has been bought to satisfy a long contracted run of car parts.

For us the consumer this also could have a knock on effect. Not only were parts made to add to new cars, but also to stock the dealership garages with the correct parts and not any cheap copy. Many of these parts were also retailed to car owners as well as sold to trade, such as local garages.

The short term effect of this could mean that there could be a selection of parts where a true replacement can not be found. Consumers may be forced to buy a cheap import as any proper part is kept back for the manufacturers.

There is one solution though and that is to use CarSpareFinder to source genuine car parts. With 2 million cars leaving our roads each year, there are hordes of crash damaged and salvage cars within our breaker yards, with correct genuine parts fitted, that will come with a guarantee.

This should be a consideration if you like a driving experience that does not bring up problems every 5,000 miles or so, but how car manufacturers will handle any legal implications of not being able to supply the right car parts might become an issue in future months.

We hope all your driving experiences are all good, but in times you need any parts to keep you vehicle on the road, you will use our free service.

We have deveoped a video to describe our system and what we do, when looking for cars parts. Here it is.

2008 will be a year that most in the motor industry would want to forget. Many car manufacturers were forced to close factories for many weeks in the year as sales plummeted; some figures suggest that in November only 50% of the cars sold in November 2007 were sold in 2008.

The USA were particularly hit bad, and those who were still buying cars were being more selective than usual, with low running costs being at the forefront of their decisions. This meant that some Japanese manufacturers like Toyota did better than the USA made cars. Even so, Toyota predicts a $100m dollar loss this year, something unheard of in Japan.

This uncertainty has had a knock on effect on all the supporting industries and the car part manufactures and suppliers have also faced hard times with some of the going to the wall.

The high value of the Euro has meant it has been sale time for salvage cars in the UK, for those in Eastern Europe ready to buy these types of vehicles and ship them home.

Many breakers who would buy these vehicles to strip for used car parts, have found they needed to bid that much more to get any vehicle, and to an insult to injury, may found that car parts were cheaper than ever, as shoppers were counting their pennies and spending more time to shop around for the best buys.

So there is some anticipation in the air that 2009 will be better for all associated making and buying cars, as well as the car parts suppliers. We have already seen TV adverts for loans on TV, something that has not been around for a little while, this may be the encouragement for the public to start borrowing again and buy that new car.

However for those on a tight budget, you cannot forget the savings that CarSpareFinder can achieve for you when buying car parts and keeping that vehicle on the road. We have plans make you experience with us even better, so we hope to see you again soon, we wish you all a very happy and safe 2009.