One of the more interesting conversations I've had at the Monterey Historics
was with one of the Walton family--of Wal-Mart fame. I offered the opinion
that they drove quality out of the market with their aggressive push for a
constantly lower price. Their response was--that's our biggest concern, a
problem that we don't know how to fix. I was stunned. He went on to say "how
do we change a successful culture, where everyone knows that this is what we
do? Where and how do we back off on our price pressure to encourage
innovation and investment in building better products?"
Some of this stuff is simply hard to stop. Junk drives out good, because too
many people can't discriminate.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Dodd, Kelvin
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 2:38 PM
To: Jim; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: parts suppliers
Jim:
First off, I know you put in a winky/smiley face so I'm doing some deep
breathing exercises.
Your comment got me to pipe in, as I was informed last week by purchasing
that Moss Motors could save over $5000 per year by changing from the Brembo
brand on one application to another brand which had a good reputation and
was offered by our competition.
I chose to stick with the Brembo brand because of it's long term quality and
the fact that it was preferred by those that knew their stuff. I was
supported by our Head of Quality Control and by our Operations Vice
President. We have brand locked the product to make sure that this issue
doesn't come up again in the future.
There are a lot of problems with many products on the parts market, but I'm
chiming in to let you know that we do care about the situation and one of
the reasons I read this list is to keep on top of what is working and what
can be improved.
Just throwing out an unofficial comment that there are still some places
where the gearheads get to override the penny pushers.
Kelvin Dodd
Moss Motors, Ltd.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On
Behalf
> Of Jim
> Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 7:51 PM
> To: fot@autox.team.net
> Subject: RE: parts suppliers
>
> Aaron,
>
> Are you looking to find a single supplier for everything? Or just
good
> sources for the individual parts?
>
> And as a side question to the group, any problems with things like
Brembo
> discs for our cars? Brembo used to be high quality, but even Moss has
> been offering them lately.. ;)
>
> If you have the part numbers from the bearings/races you can go to an
> industrial bearing supply and they can get them, usually cheaper than
the
> "specialists" for equal/better quality. SKF used to be decent,
haven't
> had
> any personal problems with them but it's been a few weeks since I've
had
> to
> buy any.
>
> For large lumps of money (gotta support my racing habit somehow :D ) I
can
> run down all the pieces.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jim
> Dallas
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On
Behalf
> Of fpspitfire@insightbb.com
> Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2005 10:11 PM
> To: fot@autox.team.net
> Subject: parts suppliers
>
> all...I need to find a parts supplier who supplies high quality parts
on a
> regular basis.
>
> The components I'm looking for
> brake rotors
> brake caliper pistons
> all diff bearings
> front wheel bearings
> trunnions
> and a few other odds and ends
> Seems the quality is always dodgy from vic. brit....but maybe that is
past
> experience...any suggestions aaron
>
> --
> All the best
> Aaron Johnson
> #38 FP Spitfire Mk4 Southern Illinois Region SCCA
> http://home.insightbb.com/~fpspitfire
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