Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

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ands59
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#1 Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Fri Dec 09, 2016 6:44 pm

On 2nd December 2016 I purchased a brand new canopy from one or our suppliers.
The assembly was incredibly expensive but needed fitting .
On 3rd and the 4th Dec it was clear this was not made to any credible manufacturing tolerance that I with stamping/hemming/service part supply at an automotive OEM would NEVER and could NEVER make as errors too great.
The supplier is acting with utmost professionalism and has been told from manufacturer this assembly requires some work to fit and has offered me a full refund as this was not stated at point of purchase
My point for this is
1 Why do we pay top money and then pay more to get parts to fit
2 Should we not get together and work with suppliers to reduce prices to reflect fitting costs of parts (I'm sure like me you've experienced this)
3 Push suppliers to make parts to original or even better Iso9000 specification(then they might fit)
4 Insist suppliers clearly state parts that do not meet above and are sold as seconds
5 Forget the political correctness and name and shame poor manufacturers and suppliers
What do you guys think
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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#2 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by cactusman » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:13 pm

Parts bought from bona fide UK suppliers would be covered by the consumer rights act 2015 which gives the buyer the right in law to expect the goods supplied to be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If they are not then, providing a complaint is made to who ever you purchased the part from within 30 days, you are legally entitled to a full refund unless the goods are perishable.... really applicable only to food products.

Not sure name and shame would be helpful for those many reputable suppliers who will honour their obligations under the act. Mistakes do happen and all those I have dealt with have been extremely helpful. For those who try to evade their obligations then I would say absolutely providing of course they have been given the opportunity to do the right thing and one sticks to the facts.

I would agree that some of the prices for parts are excessive. I have posted in the past specific examples of parts from jaguar suppliers that are vastly inflated, I suspect, because we drive jaguar. The parts were common to many 1960,s cars and by shopping around considerable saving could be made. Equally for parts only used on a specific model we may have to accept that manufacturing in small volumes will mean high cost, although I do wonder if some suppliers do assume that as we drive jaguars we will pay any price they choose to name.....solution. Buy elsewhere if possible.

Just my two pence worth.
Julian the E-type man
1962 FHC
1966 MGB....fab little car too

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#3 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by mgcjag » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:23 pm

We should think ourselfs lucky that we can get parts for our 50 year old cars nearly all of which fit and work and only some that need fettling.......there are many cars out there where parts are no longer available.......as for price think yourself lucky you dont have an old Mercedes spare parts are far more expensive than Jaguar....as an example for my 1987 300sl a single wiper arm £230.....as for so called name and shame....there is nothing to stop you nameing anyone...especially if you have bad service...but i dont consider it acceptable if you just think there parts are too expensive.........but go for it
Steve
69 S2 2+2 (just sold) ..Realm C type replica, 1960 xk150fhc

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#4 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:31 pm

Thanks for comments I totally agree with and share aware of.
My biggest gripe is the manufacturer to knowingly sell a product you CANNOT buy anywhere else which is so poor.
Quality is King weather you make 1 or 1000 parts it must be made to a credible standard and NIT palmed off to the customer
Ps
Supplier is putting comment on website re this part and fitting requirement but as material for this part. I would estimate is approx £2 for materials and to mark it up to £860 with labour,storage etc is to say the least excessive and remember the a high 3 figure cost on top of this to get it to fit IS THEFT
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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#5 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by chrisvine » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:46 pm

Sadly I don't think the problems with the canopy fitment is a one-off and replicate the problems I had. Part of the problem was the pace of my restoration so, by the time the problems were identified, it was past the point of being able to return the canopy.

My canopy was so bad I had to abandon the trial fitting and seek the advice of Suffolk & Turley who would be trimming the hood. They too were appalled at its quality saying it was the worst they had come across (polite version!). Fortunately they have RS Panels next door who had to weld a one inch strip to the front of the canopy and completely reshape the curvatures to get it to fit .... at an additional cost of £400. I think it would have been cheaper just to get RS Panels to make one from scratch.

A lesson learnt!
1969 S2 OTS, Elise S1

Restoration Blog : http://etype.chrisvine.com/

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#6 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by mgcjag » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:51 pm

Hi....you say your canopy frame was £860........i thought most suppliers were around £2k
Steve
69 S2 2+2 (just sold) ..Realm C type replica, 1960 xk150fhc

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#7 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:56 pm

Hi Chris
I have just been on your web site
Excellent by the way
Wish I'd read it before
My lesson learnt is to do a little more research from knowledgable people like yourself
Wonder if I can get £400 knocked off price?
I'll try that approach tomorrow
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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#8 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Fri Dec 09, 2016 7:58 pm

Steve
Hood canopy is the front part only which is a pivoted part which houses the 3 clamps to fit to the body and the pull down strap
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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#9 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by chrisvine » Fri Dec 09, 2016 8:08 pm

Steve - the £860 cost is just for the metal canopy section so doesn't include all the folding frames and sticks, nor the two wooden bows attached to the canopy. I could probably have accepted some re-profiling of the curvature to get a good fit but not to have to weld additional metal to the new part.

Ands - the other issue with the canopy was the positioning of the welded brackets that hold the cantrail rubbers. These were too far from the edges so they would never align with lip for the rubber on the folding sections. I'm now having to find some method of padding out the rubber so it at least makes contact with the door glass and gives me a fighting chance of getting a watertight seal (I hear others laughing at my optimism!)

Chris
1969 S2 OTS, Elise S1

Restoration Blog : http://etype.chrisvine.com/

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#10 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Fri Dec 09, 2016 8:27 pm

Chris
Thanks for advice
Will you update website with solution?
Thanks for your comments
Andrew
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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#11 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by chrisvine » Fri Dec 09, 2016 8:48 pm

Hi Andrew,

Trying to get a good seal to the window glass is on my ever increasingly list of things to do over the winter but I'll post my resolution.

Although to avoid the issue, I would recommend trial fitting your canopy to the folding mechanism to make sure the lip for the rubber aligns. I wish this had been spotted before the hood had been fitted so they could have repositioned the welded bracket. I'll try to take some photos to show the issue.

Chris
1969 S2 OTS, Elise S1

Restoration Blog : http://etype.chrisvine.com/

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#12 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Fri Dec 09, 2016 9:02 pm

Thanks Chris
I'll bear that in mind
Thanks again for your advice
Andrew
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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#13 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by AussieEtype » Sat Dec 10, 2016 12:45 am

I also have historic landrovers and a Steyr Puch Haflinger and the problem certainly exists with repro parts no matter what the brand. I share the concerns made in this thread but what can be done is a big question. Is it the responsibility of the maker or the seller or both - sellers should be testing and QC the products they sell but this is a big ask where hundreds or thousands of different parts are on offer. The manufacturer should have the same obligation but they are often just making the part as specified by another party but manufacturers do seem to want to cut corners with low quality material. Poor quality rubber and lack of UV resistance comes to mind.

No simple answer - I think the main thing we can as consumers is do is enforce out rights under consumer laws and hope the problem this causes for the sellers goes up the delivery chain to the source of the problem and fixes itself.

Garry
1971 Series 3 E-type OTS
1976 Series 2 XJ 12 Coupe

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#14 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by abowie » Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:23 am

ands59 wrote: 5 Forget the political correctness and name and shame poor manufacturers and suppliers
What do you guys think
I agree with you that repro parts should fit and work well, and I like everyone else on this forum I have had my fair share of being supplied with substandard stuff.
To be fair to your supplier though there is a great deal of work needed to correctly fit a new hood to an individual car. This is a job that I always get a motor trimmer experienced with E Types to do. These days we tend to get our trimmer to make the hood for the car as the results are invariably better than buying kits.
Andrew.
881824, 1E21538. 889457. 1961 4.3l Mk2. 1975 XJS. 1962 MGB
http://www.projectetype.com/index.php/the-blog.html
Adelaide, Australia

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#15 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by mark10337 » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:24 am

I think there are two separate issues here.
1. The quality of the re-pro parts
2. The quality of the pre and after sales service.

Consumer rights as mentioned help a great deal for 2. With the vast experience we have together we can assist in 1 with feedback to those suppliers who will listen.
There have been numerous examples of this on the forum. Windscreens, HT leads conduit etc as well as the factory fit threads. Due to the years that have past since original manufacture, parts that measurements might have been taken from were ok for one car, but it may have suffered warping, accident damage etc in its life time and thus not fit others.

Some of the suppliers and independent manufacturers have listened and try to improve things and for them, just as it is for us when restoring, sometimes a learning curve. Of course there is also just pure sloppiness - and those deserve to be highlighted or "named and shamed".

If someone is experiencing a problem, people here do try and help, but then rarely does that get fed back into the manufacturing cycle which is what we need to assist with.
-Mark

1969 Series 2 OTS, Regency Red
'Life's to short to drive a boring car'

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#16 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by cactusman » Sat Dec 10, 2016 12:06 pm

As others have said, most suppliers are only too willing to try and put things right. Certainly SNG were fabulous when I had an issue with a reproduction washer bottle and pump. I would give them 10/10.
There is a problem with the quality of some parts both in terms of material quality and dimensional accuracy and really bad parts should be rejected.

Also true that over the 40 or 50 years since our cars rolled off the line they have been repaired and 're-repaired...can we always be sure the part is the wrong shape or, sometimes maybe, it is the car that is no longer dimensionally correct? Added to that I do suspect that even when built, jaguar workers had to do some wrangling on the line...dimensional precision then was very far from what it is today. Having worked on my mg and e type and also on XK's and TVR's among others owned by others I have come to expect to do a bit of wrangling to get replacement bits to fit...all part of the classic car journey I am afraid. Have fun and watch the skin on those knuckles :bigrin:
Julian the E-type man
1962 FHC
1966 MGB....fab little car too

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#17 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by 288gto » Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:02 pm

I accept that there will always be an element of fine tuning of replacement panels but when an expensive panel is completely the wrong shape, I find it infuriating.
A classic example of this are replacement sills.

Robeys ( and yes I will name them) are completely the wrong curvature, shape and guage of steel.

Hutsons are much better, right thickness, zintec coated as a bonus, but still require some fine tuning.

Monocoque Metalworks which are accurate in every aspect.

Clear evidence that a replacement panel that fits, is achievable.
I think some manufacturers need to take a leaf out of Gerald Ratner's book and proclaim "we sell total cr#p". :lol: The difference being, he sold his stuff cheap.

Simon
Simon
1969 S2 OTS

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#18 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by cactusman » Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:24 pm

Sounds like Martin Robey failed on satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. Send them back and demand a refund, especially as quality parts can be had elsewhere.....they have competition and it sounds like they are not competing....
Julian the E-type man
1962 FHC
1966 MGB....fab little car too

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#19 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by 288gto » Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:52 pm

cactusman wrote:Sounds like Martin Robey failed on satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. Send them back and demand a refund, especially as quality parts can be had elsewhere.....they have competition and it sounds like they are not competing....
As it happens, that's exactly what I did, but it was only by chance while up at Hutsons that I found out they made their own but don't really advertise the fact.

While on the one hand, I freely admit that I would be lost without some of the major and on the whole very professional suppliers, imagine if these suppliers had to put a disclaimer on everything.

" Vaguely resembles the part you require but will require hours of skilled work to fit"

" Not tested, cannot guarantee will work"

"Likely to fail within first few hours of use but don't worry our 500% mark up will more than cover our inconvenience sending out a/ several replacements"

"Sadly not to original spec, but what's the alternative"

" We've actually amazed ourselves and this fits/works and the price is reasonable "

:lol: :lol:

At least that way I won't feel quite so frustrated.


Simon
Simon
1969 S2 OTS

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#20 Re: Poor parts quality - Hood Canopy

Post by ands59 » Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:34 pm

Looks like I'm not the only one who experiencing problems.
Feel really sad that UK based manufacturer is so bad 'Robey'
I can safely state tat every part I have had from this company did not fit 6 in total but until now an alternative was available
Not so on canopy
'Up the creek without a paddle'
ANDS59

1964 Series 1 E Type Roadster
1970 TR6

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