Buy Affordable Car Parts in Pretoria for Your Peugeot
In the ’70s and ’80s, maintaining a car was a far simpler proposition than today. Back then, cars were extremely simple. The majority was still fuelled by carburettors and fuel injection was the reserve of the flagship models in cars’ respective ranges – and not available on cheaper cars at all. Even then, the systems were very simple, with the Bosch K-Jetronic fully mechanical fuel-injection system being possibly the most widely adopted system used by most manufacturers 30 years ago. Everything from a Golf 1 GTi to a Mercedes S-Class sported the trusty, reliable, and ubiquitous K-Jetronic. These were the years when all cars did not even have a distributor to distribute the power pulses to the spark plugs – “points” were still very much in vogue.
You might also remember that it was also the time of short warranties. Few vehicles were available in South Africa with a guarantee any longer than a year and some even imposed a 20 000-km limit. And it meant that, after just a year and perhaps their first or second service, most cars were out of warranty. Since most manufacturers – as is, indeed, also the case today – warned that the new-car warranty would lapse if an owner were to have their vehicle serviced elsewhere and not at the franchised agents for that first year, those first services were usually carried out by the agents.
Thereafter, owners had a choice. If you owned a vehicle that was affordable to maintain through the official channels, or perhaps an expensive car that needed special care, you would continue to take it to the agents for maintenance. Many people, however, opted to, take their car to the trusty neighbourhood mechanic or attempt some of the easier feats like standard services and part replacements themselves. If these were affordable, they would buy spares from the agents and save the prohibitive labour charges by installing the parts themselves or having their mechanic of choice do it. Sometimes, it would simply be too expensive. For example, that self-same Bosch K-Jetronic system’s fuel distributor could have cost upwards of R5000 brand-new – which was a lot of money back then.
The Start of A.S.A.P. Spares in Pretoria
Inevitably, motorists sought ways to maintain their out-of-warranty cars more cheaply, giving rise to the used-parts industry and scrapyards. These scrapyards would buy wrecks from insurance companies and salvage yards and strip them for salvageable spares. And this is where A.S.A.P. Spares come in. We joined this market in 2001 and initially, we exclusively sold Opel spares in Pretoria. Over the years, we have expanded our offering and now supply both new and second-hand spares to Chevrolet, Citroën, Opel, Suzuki, Renault, and Peugeot owners. However, we are still operating from our well-known premises in Van der Hoff Road in Pretoria West and we are especially proud to be the go-to second-hand-parts outlet in Pretoria for owners of the three French brands, of which Peugeot is the oldest.
Peugeot – A Storied History
In fact, the family business that preceded the modern entity that we call the PSA Peugeot-Citroën Group today dates all the way back to 1810, when it was a company that manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. In fact, don’t be surprised if you turn over a modern mill-type salt shaker in a restaurant and you still see the Peugeot branding on the bottom, complete with the famous Lion of Belfort that is still the company’s logo today. In fact, during the 1800s, the lion was incorporated in a logo that showed it walking on an arrow and it symbolised the flexibility, strength, and speed of the saw blades Peugeot manufactured at the time.
Peugeot would build its first car in 1889, only four years after Karl Benz’s 1885 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, which was regarded as the first production motorcar ever. Over the years, Peugeot would build millions of cars and grew into an automotive powerhouse, wholly acquiring Citroën in 1975 and Opel in 2017, turning around the ailing fortunes of the struggling German brand in record time and re-establishing it and its Vauxhall subsidiary in the UK as a force to be reckoned with. Peugeot’s own cars were very popular too, notably the indestructible 404 and 504 models, the latter of which examples rolled off the production in Kenya until as recently as 2004, with many of these tough workhorses still criss-crossing the continent in their thousands.
After an absence of 10 years, Peugeot returned to South African shores in 1995 and since then, they’ve become a firm favourite with their dedicated fan base – and beyond. However, because it is a niche player that does not sell in very large numbers in South Africa, all their cars and parts naturally have to be imported and this could sometimes make spares rather expensive – as availability somewhat delayed. More reason, then to visit A.S.A.P. Spares and come and have a look at possibly the most extensive collection of new and used Peugeot spares and salvaged Peugeot wrecks in Pretoria – and possibly Gauteng.
We give you the option of keeping your 206, 307, or modern Peugeot going with a selection of affordable new and used parts. And if we don’t have it on the shelf, let us look for it elsewhere in our supplier network. If it’s not in Pretoria, we’ll most likely find it somewhere else. Contact us today.