Car is in a traffic accident,
Body shop won't return the car for 4 months because they ordered a new seat belt and it's not avaibable anywhere in the US, has to come from some other country. Takes 4 months.
Have you ever heard that a body shop can't return a car if a seat belt is missing?
Why couldn't they get a seatbelt from a junkyard, at least temporarily.
They didn't say what kind of car.
Is the democrat's "big government" getting in the way of your life?
Pay the bill in full and then send a flatbed over to pick it up and have it delivered to your home.
Thank the Traders of the world for that. It is that "keep us safe, no matter what" thinking.
You are right, go to a junk yard and get one.
Actually, if it takes 4 months to get a seat belt, maybe it's being caused by one of Trump's trade wars. Notably lacking is any mention of what kind of car this is, how old, etc.
I didn't hear about the trade war with Japan or Korea.
Who said the seat belt was coming from there? And Trump has had them included in his trade wars, the steel tariffs for example, applied to them. But the comment was pretty much a joke. IDK why it would ever take 4 months to get a seat belt. But them Micky seems to come across all kinds of things that you and I never encounter.
And the replacement parts would have been made the same year or soon after the original belts were made, long before the stupid tariffs.
I know they edit these tv court programs but what they showed didn't include a word about junk yards. I think a lot of customers don't know about them, especially the middle-aged woman who was suing. Of course she had a rental and reason to think the other side would pay for the rental.
(She wanted her car rental paid for by the guy who hit her, and his insurance company wanted someething from the repair shop that said they coudlnt' get the seat belt for 4 months. The repair shop claimed. oh, it was Mercedes, only mentioned in passing, that Mercedes had sent them the proper document, but I guess they were claiming they didn't get it, or it wasn't enough. )
Mercedes
Hard to bleieve 4 months for the seat belt. I hope I never buy a car that has that kind of lead time for parts.
I have order around 200 things off ebay from China. They charge no or very low postage. Some items were even under one dollar postage paid. They usually arrive in a month . The longest was 7 weeks.
If is an older car and no parts in stock, I can see four months. The supplier may may a small run of that item and it is not scheduled for a long time. I know we had machines at work with long setups and long runs and I'd not break in just for one lady than needed one part.
Junk yard would be my choice even if it was the wrong color. Come back in four months and we'll swap it out.
Build all the parts ever needed for a 1992 Ford Taurus in 1992? I don;t think so. Maybe if a Democrat like your ran the company. Would take a hell of a good forecast and a BF warehouse.
Or maybe they are just lying, the shop didn't fix it for some other reason and they had to make some excuse.
I doubt they built OEM parts long after the model run was over. They move on. Machines are changed to make parts for new cars and in some cases there just won't be any parts. I ran into that with a door handle for my Honda. There were still people who listed it but they were all out of stock.
I ended up fixing the old one, and it wasn't pretty.
No, in many cases parts like replacement seat belts are made less than 3 months from the time they are sold. In many cases they are not stocked in quantity in North American warehouses and are supplied on an as-needed basis - assembled and shipped from overseas suppliers.
Anyone with any sense owning a Mercedes (or other similar high end import) has a "second car" that they use for out of town trips, foul weather driving, and for the interminable waits for repairs and spares. That's what Chevys and Fords are made for - - - -
There are "second source" suppliers for virtually all parts today if you make the effort to find them - and replacement parts are often run by the OEM when the backorder list gets long enough to make economic sense to do so. Say the minimum setup run is 1000 pieces. When they have a demand for
300 parts they run off 1000 (or 1500) and fill the backorder charging a sizeable premium to cover the cost of the run - and then keep the remainder in stock (at no capital cost) to fill orders for a few more years.Eventually they do run out and stop supplying them - and that's where the "second source" suppliers chip in if a demand exists. Second Source also comes into play if the OEM gets too greedy - if there is money to be made, these companies WILL be there!!!!
One reason I bought a luxury car was comfort on out of town trips. If I take off for a couple of thousand miles I'm not taking a beater. I only have one car.
But it's not "CHERMIN" or French or Italian. (or a Cadillac) I know quite a few people who owned Mercedes, BMW, Jag and Cadillac cars who gave up on driving them long distances, ond ones with Maseratis, Farraris and Lambos who never even attempted taking them on long trips and eventually just replaced them (not the Farrari and Lambo) with Lexus that they could drive around town AND enjoy on the highway. The one Caddy knew every dealer between Waterloo Ontario and southern Florida - another every dealer between Waterloo and Anne Arbor Michigan. The third Caddy owner went through 3 Caddies in 2 years - never had either one out of the shop for more than 3 months and I don't think any one of those three got more than 150 miles from home. Caddy number one's backup was a Lincoln Continental. Caddy #2's backup was a Lexus (and it's replacement first an Avalon, then a Lexus) and the third one was backed up by a Camry and a fleet of pickup trucks.
The family with the jags, Ferarri and Lambo had a fleet of Impalas for long distance drives. The Ferarri and Lambo were just for polishing and dusting and the odd "night on the town" and the Jags were the wives cars
Absolutely. They also didn't say which seat it was for. If it's not the driver's seat, the owner can "promise" not to put anyone in the seat without the belt. They could mount a rat trap to the seat to make sure. if the junk yard car is missing its windows, the belt might be ruined, but otherwise, it's no older than lots of cars on the road.
All that assumes you have a part that they see a need to make. If the usage is a few dozen a year and the cars are going to the junkyard faster than that, nobody is going to tool up to make more parts. If this was a metal part, I might have tried to find one in a junk yard but plastic parts go bad just sitting there.
Canadians are cheapskates. We have people around Naples who have a Benz as their beater and the Rolls is their nice car. Hubby might have a Lambo too.
I think you will find that's not true. Why would Bosch, for example, an OEM supplier to BMW, MB, etc, stop making parts after the model build was over. You're telling us they make brake pads, calipers, radiator hoses, etc for the next 20 years, guessing at what the demand might be? That would be nuts. And you can get parts from OEM suppliers like that for cars that are 20 years old today.
And no one said the part had to be from an OEM supplier either.
They
How old was this car? It's rare for that to happen, unless the car is very old. And in the above case, no one said they don't make them anymore, they said it takes 4 months to get one when you order it.
Oh, BS. I've owned Mercedes and the parts are just as readily available as for any other car. Sometimes more so. The MB US warehouse is in northern NJ. If the dealer doesn't have the part, they can typically have it the next day, unless it's something rarely needed.
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