Do you loathe parts guys sometimes? Do you wonder if major manufacturers really have it together?

63 caveman said:

Call in and get the "bad" parts guy (should have hung up and called back like I normally do but in a rush)

Click to expand...

I can completely relate to this! My local Cat dealer has 1 parts guy, I'll call him "L".......that no matter how or what I do, if I have him look up parts for me over the phone, something isnt going to be right. It has happened so many times that when he answers my parts call, I just hang up and call back, hoping to get someone else. I've called and hung up several times in the past cause I kept getting "L" on my calls. When I have gone inside to order parts, guess who is the only parts person available? ......... "L" of course. If I have to deal with "L", I make dam sure I myself am seeing what is on the parts screen. Its the only way I can make sure Im getting the right parts I need. What really pisses me off is I have done this with him numerous times, but he cant seem to remember my company name, or even my actual name. He asks me every F^%$ing time.

I just a week ago or so had a stripped pump drive coupler on a Case 590 SM. Called the dealer here........not a dam thing in stock.........no pump, no coupler, no adapter....NADA. Well.....do you have the rubber engine mounts? Well HELL no they dont! DO you have the mounting bolts for the front engine mount bracket since 3 of 4 broke and caused this failure? Well again........HELL NO! You mean to tell me that there is 1000 Case backhoes within 150 miles of here, that use the same dam mounts across the board, and you......A long time DEALER.........dont even have 1!?? It makes no sense at all and is aggravating to put it mildly.

Its only going to get worse folks!

63 caveman said:

I always have trouble billing customers full rate for time spent tracking down parts and it seems like it been taking longer and longer these days.

Click to expand...

THIS IS BILLABLE TIME! You dam sure are responsible for the job from start to finish, at least thats how it is with me. If they don't want to pay you to hunt parts down through this current fiasco then have them try doing it. They will come back begging you to handle it.

Vetech63 said:

I just a week ago or so had a stripped pump drive coupler on a Case 590 SM. Called the dealer here........not a dam thing in stock.........no pump, no coupler, no adapter....NADA. Well.....do you have the rubber engine mounts? Well HELL no they dont! DO you have the mounting bolts for the front engine mount bracket since 3 of 4 broke and caused this failure? Well again........HELL NO! You mean to tell me that there is 1000 Case backhoes within 150 miles of here, that use the same dam mounts across the board, and you......A long time DEALER.........dont even have 1!?? It makes no sense at all and is aggravating to put it mildly.

Its only going to get worse folks!

Click to expand...

You got it Case! And pump drives are so common among different models but carry different part #s Funk Me! The "good parts guy" knows which ones interchange (and the least expensive) and the "bad parts guy" orders the wrong one (and most expensive) every time. Funk Me!

Vetech63 said:

THIS IS BILLABLE TIME! You dam sure are responsible for the job from start to finish, at least thats how it is with me. If they don't want to pay you to hunt parts down through this current fiasco then have them try doing it. They will come back begging you to handle it.

Click to expand...

I'm getting better at it all the time!

What a frustrating day I had yesterday. I took a cased thrust bearing to the local bearing house to find a new replacement. Young guy at the counter spends 15 minutes measuring and thumbing through books.......then tells me there isn't any manufactured to the dimensions of the bearing I needed. The old guy (LOL, my age) happens to walk by during this conversation and asks young guy what he is looking for. He measures the bearing and thumbs through a different book while telling the young guy he isn't even looking at the right type of bearing.

Called Cat dealer for part I need , Get "L"........hang up and call back, Get "L" again...........hang up and call back, Get "L" AGAIN! Drive to Cat dealer to avoid "L". Pretty much look up my own part number.

Stop at a local Taco Bueno that's notorious for being slow. The sign on the door says the dining room hours start at 1030 AM. People in the drive through but I get there at 1045 and the door is still locked. So I decide they may not open til 1100 so I sit there.........and watch numerous folks go up to the door, then leave in frustration. My service truck is too tall to go through the drive thru so I walk over to the drive thru speaker. I attempt to get someone to answer , NOPE..........nothing. Go back to the front door, its now 1105 AM and the door is still locked. I see a guy pull up to the drive thru, so I walk over there and ask him, to ask them, when in the hell do they open the dam dining room. The reply he got was 1130. So back to the truck I go to wait yet again. While Im standing outside the front door, I see what looks like the manager glance at me several times.......its now 1135. Doesn't even wave , smile, flip me off............not a dam thing. I leave at 1145 with the front door still locked. If my service truck was capable of burning rubber I would have left most of my tires in the parking lott.

I go to Braums across the street, yet again not able to go through the drive thru. I walk in and order food for me and the wifey (whom I was meeting at her shop for lunch). I order a #7 and a #12 with NO DRINKS. The 40-something woman started to push buttons on the register, then stopped with this confused look on her face. She keeps pushing buttons and gets even more frustrated, all while a long line is forming behind me. She FINALLY calls a manger over and asks how to enter a combo meal with no drinks. The manager says you cant get a combo with no drinks, you have to enter the items separately. I kept my cool, but inside my soul I was ready to go postal at that point.

This was all in the first half of the day. I decided to go to a job I had scheduled for later in the week. I knew there would be NO ONE there to deal with for the rest of the day. It was a blissful last half of the day!

What the hell will the rest of the week bring?!!

We have ALL had days like that....if you work in a “service” related industry, at least PROVIDE THE F*****G SERVICE!!!!!

Truly we are simply experiencing the pinacle of everything got so mind boggling there are to numerous parts required these days for the correct ones to be on the rack and less of each part on the rack on the grounds that there are perpetually parts to stock

Vetech63 said:

I just a week ago or so had a stripped pump drive coupler on a Case 590 SM. Called the dealer here........not a dam thing in stock.........no pump, no coupler, no adapter....NADA. Well.....do you have the rubber engine mounts? Well HELL no they dont! DO you have the mounting bolts for the front engine mount bracket since 3 of 4 broke and caused this failure? Well again........HELL NO! You mean to tell me that there is 1000 Case backhoes within 150 miles of here, that use the same dam mounts across the board, and you......A long time DEALER.........dont even have 1!?? It makes no sense at all and is aggravating to put it mildly.

Its only going to get worse folks!

Click to expand...

Usually I get the reply. We don't have it but we can get it in overnight. Which takes three days and is then the wrong part.

It is getting worse ALL the time. Ordered a bunk heater control relay for the 05KW, One dealer parts man said cannot find it in the parts guide where had been having incorrect ordered stuff from these people, second dealer other direction from us same miles looked it up and found TWO, in WA State, ONLY two in system so ordered one, came in correct and found the other one was gone Same day, none available now.

Shop I am working out of keeps a pretty generous inventory of high usage stuff, had two bad auto slacks on truck I am using so replaced and ordered more, were told TWO WEEKS to receive, for essentially common parts to a million trucks. Korean Factory produced.

My business includes emergency service so I always try to keep common parts on hand but getting double nervous nowadays about some things.

Anything from Asia is delayed multiple times, all the container ships typically call on multiple ports in Asia and at least Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver BC on our end. The covid caused cancelled container ship sailings and the lack of empty containers flowing East-word from us is causing massive bottlenecks, container stuffing warehouses are, well, stuffed and refusing truck shipments and deliveries, ports are jammed up while still trying to maintain social distancing, and after two to six weeks delay in getting shipments into containers and onto the dock, they wait for the container ships that have not as yet returned from the Americas. On our end typically container ships are slow steaming in circles or anchored offshore at a buoy for average 20 days before they can proceed to the dock for unloading. Truck shipments for final delivery or port to port moves are delayed due to a shortage of drivers. THEN, if the container, or it's contents are destined inland, there are NOT ENOUGH RAILROAD CARS! WTF? And we're not even fully recovered yet, what happens when we get fired up?

Am wondering how many conex boxes are simply being dumped here to not propagate the virus BACK to home ports? Seeing LARGE volumes of Conex boxes sitting in yards everywhere and not just at ports. As to railcars, empty skeleton well cars for intermodal are sitting all around here on storage sidings and small staging yards, were several Hundred in ESL yards and the yards between Mexico MO and KC.

They're waiting for outbound freight, container lines and railroads don't like moving empties.

Been sitting for months

Probably waiting on China to tell us what to do.

More bitching about parts guys LOL!

I need some fan hub parts for a 320C so I call Cat (Tulsa line). Ron picks up, I give him the model and serial number of the machine, and he emails me the 255-2877 fandrive breakdown with the parts costs of each item..... Perfect!, just what I wanted. I notice on the email that he is in Amarillo Texas, not Tulsa. No big deal, it happens all the time. I have been trying to call him for the last 3 hours and no answer, just voicemail. I am trying to get these parts here tomorrow morning so I can get this emergency repair done for the customer.

So screw it. I just called the Tulsa line again and start all over. I give the "new parts guy" the same group number to look up. I spend 30 minutes on the phone while he lists the parts I need into his computer......only to find out the parts are double the price the Amarillo guy gave me 2 hours ago. I'm like WTF?! Turns out he ended up doubling the quantity on everything somehow.....and also informs me that there is an updated hub base that requires several more parts (something the first guy didnt say anything about) No big deal, it happens......he then tells me that what I need will come from several locations and it would be 2-3 days. Well, figure freight then cause I need this stuff in the morning. another 10 minutes for him to correct the paperwork then all of a sudden I hear the phone hang up! JFC!!

So I have no idea which branch the second guy was from so I cant call him back. Knowing I came up on his call ID there, I figured he would call me back...... amirite!? Its been 45 minutes since then so I guess NOT!

So here we go for the 3rd time........just called the Tulsa line again to end up on permanent hold I thought until the operator comes on the line. She informs me that all the parts people are busy and that she would have 1 of them call me back as soon as they have 1 free..........that was 40 minutes ago.

The saga still continues and I probably will not get my parts tomorrow. Have you ever wanted to just kick your dog to let some frustration out? Its a good thing the wife took him for a mannie and peddie this morning.

Not the dog but usually end up with a sore hand or foot from hitting something solid like a wall. I like the old days when they had to look in books to find the right parts. The parts people had to actually know something. Parts person is supposed to be a trade but I highly doubt most places have a journeyman who over looks what the apprentices do. Too bad it wasn't a requirement that parts people had to be journeyman or indentured apprentices to work in their field like it is with welders here. You would think Cat would have some of the best parts people in the industry. I know Finning tried to break the union here several years ago but that didn't go well. They went with a 3rd party logistics company and moved stock from their warehouse to the logistics company... what a nightmare. One of their largest customers was losing something like 250K a day waiting on common pistons (something at 1 of their gravel pits). Before the change they could tell you where the parts were and when they'd arrive with real good accuracy (usually next day). After the change I needed something and was told they don't really have an idea, it could be 1 day, 2 days or 4 days, they just couldn't give a more specific time. I heard they ended up giving the big customer a credit to cover their losses.

The big customer was Sureway construction who I believe has the largest scraper fleet in N. America. I live about 10 minutes away from their headquarters. A couple years ago they had a whack of their scrapers parked in a field close to a freeway while they were building their new facility. I just saw $$$$ signs sitting there. I worked at a welding supply when the head of maintainence came in for something. He was a real nice guy and happy that all 638 machines were up and running, most on job sites. Sureway is one of the companies that financed the ring road around Edmonton that was over a billion dollars. Of course they did a ton of work on it. Take a look at their shop in the 2nd link.

Home Page - Sureway Construction

(10) Facebook

What are you guys promising as far as parts acquisition time? I can't imagine trying to get anything done on an overnight basis in this day and age. Tell the customer, you need to get a rental in here if it's that important.

I had one late last year, needed some parts, the vendor has a box to check for overnight shipping, they don't tell you how much it is going to cost. It was always about $60 for smallish parts before. Well this time it was like $300 instead. Happened 2x before the bills started hitting us. Customers were not happy. I don't use that option any more unless someone truly says, I don't care what it costs.

Typing from the other side of the counter (and, yes I have been in inventory control and material management for almost forty years), please consider; Starting in March of 2020 (Covid-19), I have never been as challenged to procure parts in a timely manner. Our parts counter represents almost ten global brands and the parts are sourced globally as well. Covid seems to have started in Wuhan, China (the land of almost right). Almost all of our brands get at least some of their parts manufactured in China. Now Covid (and weather) have shut down much of the production in India. In the past two weeks I have been told by one vendor here in the US that my order for rotary cutter parts would be at least twenty weeks before shipping. Same vendor was shipping within forty eight hours prior to Covid. Another manufacturer has gone from four days to ship a stock order to an average of nine weeks with a fill rate of less than eighty percent. Another manufacturer is struggling to hold a fifty percent fill rate on parts ordered.
It is an absolute truth that us guys and gals behind the parts counter should be very familiar with the brands we represent. However, it is an absolute impossibility for any of us to know everything about everything. Parts book at the counter are a thing of the past and I did find great value in the notes hand written in the books left by those that traveled the path before me. Believe it or not, there are errors in most of the parts lookups that we have access to, not to mention parts that have been left out of the system. Shipping has become another fiasco that we have no control over as well.
Lastly, please do not forget to do what Nige has asked all of us to do, stick your tongue out and tell me - what's your serial number? Model number would be nice as well. Today it is most difficult to locate anything with any degree of accuracy without this basic information. The thingamajig to the left of the whatchamacallit down below "that fitting" just don't cut the mustard any more.
Just my $.02