It makes sense to support vendors who in turn support our US TR-7's.
For daily running/maintenance parts, we can get them from US vendors and should support them unless you want your car off the road while you wait for your shipment from the UK to arrive. And I want to encourage VB and Moss to keep carrying TR-7 parts; they won't, obviously, if they believe that every enthusiast is ordering parts from UK vendors.
As Underdog notes, there are fewer and fewer restoration/body parts available from VB and Moss. TRF hardly even mentions TR-7's anymore in their email letters or on their web site. Unfortunately, that's when shipping costs and the variable exchange rate really have an impact on the total price.
Lastly, we should be careful of assuming that sale prices by Rimmers and Robsports are regular pricing. I'm sure their buyers seek out special deals from suppliers, and those deals will get passed on to fortunate customers. The same deals might not be available to the US vendors, so prices will look uncompetitive for a while.
What would make me look hard at UK vendors is the issue of quality. Some of the simplest items, like oil filters, coming out of VB and Moss are looking really chintzy these days. Let's hope that we can keep getting quality parts - let's not return to the glory days of BL.
Jeff
Jeffrey Aronson
P.O. Box 90
Vinalhaven, ME 04863
USA
'80 TR-7 Spider
'66 Land Rover Series II-A [2]
'66 Corvair Monza
www.landroverwriter.com
