No one is immune to all of the new concerning the parts shortages in Japan after the recent disaster. Almost every industry in that country has been brought to their knees by the massive issues at hand. While the automotive factories in general may still be intact, the infrastructure or the parts supply stream has been severely interrupted, Many of the countless small suppliers are still down and holding back the production process.
Now many of you aren’t too concerned because about this because you simply aren’t planning to buy a new car this year, and by the time you are going to do so the issues will most likely be resolved. But I want to bring to light that the lack of parts isn’t just going to affect new car production. It can affect you in other ways as well.
Betting on a Japanese vehicle when purchasing might have been a good thing at the time, but now it could potentially backfire in an unexpected way. A case in point would be a recent purchase by a family member mine of an off lease 2008 Lexus RX450h. This vehicle is an excellent example of a 3 year old well maintained vehicle with only 25,000 miles, on the odometer. The car looks and drives new, and was a steal of a deal considering most of the depreciation was paid for under the lease. A thumbs up on this purchase even from me.
As with all vehicle purchases entering the fold, we ask for the car to be dropped off at the local dealership and have it looked over for any outstanding warranty issues, applicable TSB work, and outstanding recalls before we take delivery. We have yet to have this request refused and until now we have yet to have any vehicle go through the process in less than 2 days. That is until now.
Let me be perfectly clear here, this RX had few very minor issues that had to be addressed, and the fact that it had been 100% serviced by Lexus by the prior owner made any work very straight forward. But one thing that we had not counted on was that each of these minor issues also required a few parts. Nothing big you might think, but without parts these issues become major and can’t be resolved. So in this case what normally would have been a brief 48 hour visit has now been extended to 7 days and counting. Compound this with the news from the dealership this morning indicating at least another week before any of the required parts might show up. Now it makes you wonder what will happen down the road.
Do you think this an isolated incident, or do you know anyone that has been already been affected by similar circumstances? Are we going to see the issues compound to the point where normal service might take days due to the scarcity of the most basic of parts? Are the dealerships going to resort to the use of non OEM sources to fill the void?
You tell us.
2012 BMW M5 Concept Photo Gallery
2011 Del Mar Nationals Show Photo Gallery
2011 Porsche Panamera Turbo S Photo Gallery
2011 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Photo Gallery
2012 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe Photo Gallery