parts sources and prices

[Gore Ranger]

It would be awesome if we could get a page (maybe one of the tabs at top) that had the cheapest parts and #s including generic parts that work, sort of like the page on Rangerovers.net, which I love by the way.

I see that Rovers North has motor mounts for $8.40 (RN345), which is half of what I paid for them about a year ago, and I looked at all the usual vendors at that time.

I know that we can go to that page at Rangerovers.net, but frankly I like this site a lot more and it is much more aesthetically pleasing. Plus. not every part from RRC is the same as the d90.

Thank you!

[chrisvonc]

Whats the link to the one on the RR site?
There is a Parts Substitution guide on this site in the Tech articles which list replacement parts or more cost effective parts as people submit them, but as for the "who has the cheapest parts", I'd have to see how the RR site is doing it.

[Gore Ranger]

http://www.rangerovers.net/rrpartsv.htm#classic

[brn24whl]

Oh please don't! Then the price stays forever and we (the supplier) look like the bad guy 2 years from now when we are charging more than it says on those sites. They have a part on there that was $189.95 retail and now we can't buy it for under $400.00. That is just one example.

Eric

[Gore Ranger]

I agree on that point, but I also learned from that site that I can get a better stepper motor from a chevy astro van at napa for a fraction of the cost of a rover part. that site does have some merit, although I totally see where you are coming from. :)

[chrisvonc]

here is the direct link to the PST
http://www.d-90.com/tech/part_sub.html

As for the page on the RR site, yeah its pretty much what I thought it would be. If they had some kind of widget that went to vendors sites and automatically pulled the info, that may have been considered but manual searching and updating it, no thanks, really because its a huge waste of time of me having to constantly keep the list updated of everything on it vs the time it would take a visitor, knowing exactly what part they are looking for, will take a lot less time hitting the major vendors site themselves.

Its a good idea if it could be stream lined and automated but then the issues become to get vendors to adopt the tie-in or bridge to pull the info, assuming they wanted to let it be done. A vendor could take the approach that it potentially could not be in their best interests to let something like that happen.

[MonLand]

I like the idea of being able to see the cross reference parts number list that can be updated without asking Chris for a web page update.
What would also be fairly cool would be to allow D-90 Source members to enter an updated price (and the date they got that price/quote and where they got it) based on their research.
For some parts (low cost), you just want to get an idea of where to go and how much you'll pay. For other (more expensive) parts, you will pick up the phone and call a few vendors before making a move.

We already do that for gas price right? "Users" report the gas price at their various (local) gas station once in a while, allowing most of us to get a feeling of where to go to get decent prices (knowing that the price you'll pay might not be exactly the price you saw on the web site).

So, looking for a part, I'd go to the "Part list" and get:
- OEM part #
- cross reference part # (and maybe some disclaimer/comment about what to change/do to the part to make it fit)
- known vendors
- latest price experienced/seen and date

While I would love to always buy a part at the cheapest possible price, I found that I typically do not have enough time to research all possible vendors and will only call a small number of them anyway.
Having a "reference" that I could work from would definitely be of value.
Then after doing further research, I could go back to the D-90 Source page and update the part list based on what I discovered (new part #? updated price? new vendor?).

What do you guys think?