Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

Ordered some rear strut mounts today and was told that only 6 of one side (I forget which) remain in inventory in the U.S.

The prospect of being unable to find parts for these cars is starting to gnaw at me a bit.

dcb

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

I think that is most likely incorrect.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

Unfortunately I think the day is also drawing near for some things. The lack of aftermarket support for our cars' specialized parts means that as the OEM stock is depleted, we will either have to cannibalize those cars that are not repairable, or find our own solutions to the parts issue using some creative design and problem solving. Hopefully once I'm out of school I'll have the tools and resources to do some of that problem solving.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

That day is here for some parts, and it sucks.

Glass is a major one, when someone broke into my car, a Subaru dealership said it would take at least two weeks to get the window in, and that there were only 2 left. It was one of the rear roll-down windows. Windshields are bad too, sucks for people with the bronze ones, from what Ive heard those are impossible to find. Also, the crank angle sensor went out on one of mine, and I couldnt get a replacement. Lucky for me theres a couple wrecked SVX's in a local junk yard, so I pulled one and it worked.

This is one of the major reasons I no longer drive an SVX.....

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

When I had my wheels stolen 2 yrs ago, I got a price from local dealer who came back and said only Left Hand were available from Subaru Japan - and a ridiculous price.

As we are only just 10 yrs from the end of production of the SVX, but majority of the cars are 15 + yrs old I think parts are not that rare - yet - and further down the track with a little thinking outside the square, parts from Legacy or Subaru in general may well be a workable solution.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

It's sad that a corporation the size of Fuji Heavy Industries is willing to let their customers down after such a short period of time.
Mercedes prides itself on having parts available for all models regardless of the age or production run.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

Aren't manufacturers only required by (US) law to support a model with parts for 10 years after the date of last manufacture? We're going on 13 years out on '97s now.

As a former Mercedes owner, I was always impressed with parts availability. I came to the conclusion that the cars themselves (especially my old 190E) were overrated, but parts availability was outstanding!

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

Im not sure but I think if any one sells stuff here in NZ, parts have to be supplyed for 15 years after the end of run.
I heard that thru our old local subaru delership.
But prehaps the guy was wrong? That I dont really know on that.
I still can get the odd bit for my 1973 GSR and 1974 DL from subaru.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

I have replaced my bronze windshield 3 times... Last one was 3 weeks ago. Took 2 days to get it though.

Keith:cool:

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

using up all the bronze....

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

FHI and Subaru have absolutely no interest in helping SVX owners, they do however want to make a little bit of money off of the extreme loss that the SVX was to them by selling off their parts inventory. I would expect nothing less, after all it is business, and the point is to make money.

Tom

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

I was speaking by phone with someone at a Subaru dealership who was obviously accessing an inventory database.

Tom's right: Subaru will "help" owners or any make only so long as it is a profitable endeavor. That means cheerfully selling-off existing inventory or replacement parts, and ONLY existing inventory. Even if they thought they could recover the cost of retooling, the price of newly-manufactured glass or strut mounts or fenders or whatever would likely be astronomical.

I realize this isn't a new topic, but this particular episode really got me to thinking about how it would suck to learn that an essential part IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. The real question is, are there a thousand strut mounts sitting on a shelf somewhere in Japan, or none?

dcb

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

It's the blue windshields which are not available, I think bronze is still fairly common for a king's ransom of course.

I would like to see the actual numbers as to how much Subaru lost on the SVX. Fuju Heavy Industries Ltd. is a gigantic diversified company. The actual amount of money they lost should be of little consequence to them. I think the real issue is that it's inconvenient to make parts for such a small number of cars. Think about it, how many SVX are actually still on the road? Definately well under 10,000 in North America.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

According to my research and from talking to people at the 10th Anniversary meet, here's what I found out. Research,design, development and manufacturing costs were quite significant.

Unlike most show cars, which were trimmed down to lower the costs as they went into production, the SVX was designed as they wanted it to be, without regard to the bottom line.

Their goal was to sell 10,000 SVX's annually.

As an investment, Subaru actually lost $3,000 on every Subaru SVX sold, for a total loss of around $75,000,000 on this project. However, they considered this a small price to pay for the increased awareness of Subaru's presence as a quality, forward-thinking auto manufacturer.

.

Re: Parts availability: How near is the end?
 

Sorry...
So blame me!

Actually, I got one bad chip on the way home from getting a windshield installed... No kidding!