Why did GM stop making parts?

Bowtie-72 said:

As a bona-fide GM partsman, I agree with pretty much every statement made to this point...

As a favor,... I will see if I can track that part down for you. I won't look up parts (no time, as I still have my real job to do), but I can give you some locating help.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the offer :thumbsup:
The 'doing you own homework' should be one of those proverbial "No Brainers" - but, sometimes it's not...
You can't expect someone who's full-time job it is to try to keep a service center full of technicians supplied with parts - along with their complete complement of outside customers that spend the big $$$ that keep the parts center account on the plus-side of the ledger - to defer from his normal duties and look up that $5 Starter-Brace or a $3 'Z-Oil-Pump Spring for you... can you?
If you are one of those kinds of people (or you just happened to follow one of then after they just left the counter...) then you should expect the treatment I've seen some get - at ANY parts counter! I've been on that side of the counter - I have a million stories of people looking for a part for their car - but they can't even tell you the model or year - let alone what options - so you can get them the correct part. Rather than spend 30 minutes playing mechanical sharades with these folks - it was usually better in the long run to just tell them you don't stock it :sad:
You need to know what you want and do as much to be sure you know as much about the part as you can to expect to get what you need - with anything in life I imagine, but specially when looking for correct (or servicable) parts for a 35+ year old car. This goes for almost anything we need for our cars - he11, half of these people behind the counter weren't even born when our cars where first sold!
You also can go a long way towards getting on the good side of a fine parts guy by NOT coming into the place during their busy hours and trying to get your parts. I try to go the very first thing in the morning while their having coffee and waiting for parts requests from the service group (or check with them to see when a good time to come in) to get a a few moments of his time to check some part numbers for you - oh, and bringing donuts really gets his attention
I'm also never in a hurry for the parts - they get there when they get there, if they can find them... and they know this - it's surprizing the number of times he calls me a day or two later and says he found it and it's being overnighted at no cost...
Oh, and just for kicks, - walk into any Chrysler/Jeep/Whatever dealership parts counter and try to find something for any 30+ year old car they once made - the look on their faces is "priceless"... (not tune-up parts at all - not hard engine parts - they did finally have a set of valve cover gaskets we needed - after asking if I could go look at some!)

Bry:
I was pretty sure someone on here once said they were a GM parts guy - I quess it was you!
I actually keep a couple of older catalogs from a couple of the repoppers around because they used to actually list the GM numbers in their listings. It is an easy way for me to cross a part sometimes.

Thanks for posting your reply;
John

You speak as if you were a partsman at one time... SO true.

A little background:

I actually was born at the end of the musclecar era, but have been involved shade-tree style since the late 80's and have been fortunate enough to be in the business directly for almost 9 years. I'm at a dealer who was once involved DEEPLY in performance, restoration, pro-shop, and mail-order parts-almost 25% of business, and about that in inventory as well. We once held a show in our shop, and had guests Warren and Kurt Johnson both there. We mocked up a '69 Camaro on a drive-on hoist (plywood covering the open hole, and laid out pretty much all the sheet metal, bumpers, chrome, crate engine/transmission, etc for everyone to see what we stocked. I remember stocking ZL-1 (NOS too!) pistons, rods, and cams. Wish I would have bought them and hung onto them now!!!

We had the first few ZZ430 engines available to the public, and sold 10 total. We had our own crate engine program, being one of the few who took 502 MARINE engines, and made them into 509s. Got 609+ hp, using iron heads, and readily available parts. Sold them for less than $9,000.

I also have been fortunate enough to work with the traveling GM Performance Parts, GM Restoration Parts, and Chevy Racing displays when they come to my area. Go to park my buddie's car in the display area to help promote GM stuff.

The performance and restoration business is just too competitive to keep a sustained profit, unless that is all you do. Factor in the the extra overtime on weekends and additional inventory dollars necessary to make it worthwhile, and profit for a large show like Car Craft Summer Cruise would net us about 6-8% profit once labor for manning the area (plus pre and post show set up, tear down, and loading/unloading from the shop), purchase costs, space rental, table/tent misc show fees, and then using the space at the shop for inventory storage. We needed to have $$$ for "real" parts, so we bailed. We still do a little resto sheetmetal business, but don't actively promote it like we used to. It's also too costly for people outside our area to have it shipped without potential damage. When we got out of the pro-shop business, we donated over $25,000 to toys for tots-2 complete truckloads of die-cast cars!

Your local dealer also probably doesn't have the necessary reference materials anymore ither. We only have 1976-2007 GMs loaded into the computer, and from the mid-80s back, the catalog isn't that great. We still have to refer to the old paper catalogs for 1975-older, and there's one for every manufacture, plus special lines like truck, vette, corvair, etc. I have managed to keep for myself as much as I can find at shows and swap meets just for personal use.

Long story short-if your dealer sucks, try to find another-even if it's a little drive. A Chevy dealer is probably your best choice just because of the probability of having the old books.

Thanks to everyone here for having a good site that promotes Camaros in a positive way-be it restoration or customs. I was directed here by the other "TC" site-Team Chevelle, where I'm also Bowtie-72. Another great reference site.