Quote:
Originally Posted by paul roberts
A little over a decade or so ago I use to tell a lot of my customers that were looking to buy w123s to go ahead. They're easily rebuildable and there's plenty of parts available. But, most people always would always opt for a less expensive after market part rather than the more expensive OE part. It's probably not cost effective to continue to manufacture quality parts to a small market. My customers that were into serious restoration didn't care about the cost, but the everyday drivers would always complain about the price of OE parts. I've seen it on all of the MBZ forums in the last 25 years. Everyone looking for cheap deals on parts. So, IMO, I think that a lot of vintage car owners did it to themselves by being too cheap to pay the price. To this day, I have a good inventory of W113, 108,123 and 126 parts that are NOS still in the MBZ or bosch boxes that people still want for nothing.
|
This is absolutely correct; people want the best quality but want to pay zip for it. I'm aware of other German companies involved in other product lines that produce top shelf quality products at a price, of course. Cheap skates should go buy a Ford, GM or Chrysler, MB is not for them......
I do believe that MB sales people could have done a better job of explaining to new MB owners the requirement for using genuine MB parts. Most of the MB sales people I talk to only care about making a new car sale. After the sale, they don't care what happens to the car.