> <<The intent of any legitimate company is to supply a customer's wants
> and needs whilst making enough profit to continue to stay in business.
> Knowing what the customer wants, and being able to supply it
> effectively are
> the difficult bits.>>
>
> The other thing that factors in, Kelvin, is the desire or
> lack of it on the
> customer's part for quality products.
> Not much point in offering a really superior product if all
> you get for it is
> the respect of the customers that you'd do such a thing,
> while they send their
> dollars to your competitors for the cheap alternative.
>
> Some of us want, (nay, demand) quality at a fair price, but
> many are content
> to go through life in a second rate bargain basement sort of
> way, happy as
> long as they think they are getting a "deal" and unaware of
> what real quality
> is in any case. If most of your customers are 'cheapness
> above all else'
> types, you'd go broke trying to cater to the top of the heap.
I tried to stay out of this so I wouldn't have to mention other
marques, but ...
What we're seeing with MG parts today is the same thing I saw with
air-cooled VW parts 15 years ago, when all the German OEM's moved on to the
water-cooled models and left the air-cooled stuff to the Brazilian and
Mexican vendors. The quality varies greatly - and, thanks to horrific
economies in both countries, so does the price.
There are a few companies that do their dead-level best to provide
quality parts for the air-cooled VW - Gene Berg and Scat come to mind. But
for every one of them, there are five who take out full-page ads in the VW
magazines and sell mass quantities of parts that would be rejected by the
vendors who care. It's hard to withstand that kind of competition - so I
venture to say that a vendor looks for some product in the line that's of a
known lesser quality that won't get him sued if it fails. Anyone else agree?
Dan Pockrus
'74B in faded Citron
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