Buying Auto Parts and Thinking About Your Safety
“Roadworthiness” – It’s a term we’ve all heard, from the time you renewed your license disc, from friends, family, and strangers, and from the mouth of traffic cops who’ve pulled you over. And if you haven’t heard the term directly, it’s certainly an imperative that’s been at play in all of those pursuits. Vehicles need to be roadworthy to be licensed, they need to stay roadworthy to avoid fines, and roadworthiness will, unfortunately, take some maintenance as your car ages.
Especially if you’re looking at maintaining an older model car that you just love, roadworthiness is going to demand some effort from you in terms of repairs and compliance with road safety laws. You’ll need auto parts from time to time for sure, and the older a vehicle gets, the more regular your maintenance will have to be (assuming you’re driving the vehicle regularly and it’s experiencing wear and tear). You might have a classic vehicle that you have no intention of regularly driving beyond shows and the occasional ad shoot, but you’re going to need a pile of auto parts to get it back into great condition anyway.
Realistically, anyone not driving a late model car with a motor plan is in the market for auto parts, even if they have an extended warranty in place. Warranties will cover you along a basic list of key components, but many components and “consumables” typically aren’t covered, and there’s a wide description of what constitutes a consumable out there! Moreover, a great many people have no extended warranty in place, lumping them with the obligation to find, inspect, and approve auto parts whenever they have a repair to undertake.
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and “Generic” Auto Parts
It can be a blurry arena, looking to distinguish between branded parts and everything else, partly because a lot of OEM auto parts are manufactured by someone else, on behalf of the automaker supplying them as OEM. That manufacturer may or may not have the right to sell into the open market, but it’s already confusing that the industry’s brands often contract out the making of their “branded” components.
Furthermore, then there is the entire brigade of alternative auto parts makers, with a wide range of standards at play. Legislation governing the quality and correctness of auto parts is in place in almost every country – even if it is a broad umbrella like the South African CPA, for example – but, there is still lots of room for chance-takers who want to offload components that might be substandard for the industry.
The reality is that as long as you can trust who you’re getting auto parts from, you’re going to do just fine. It’s really not the layman’s obligation to determine whether the shiny new auto component in front of them – or the refurbished used auto parts, in front of them for that matter – are fit for purpose. In part because the auto parts industry attracted so many charlatans so many years ago, it’s become easier to find venues where trust still counts. The auto parts industry has professionalised and better organised over the last two decades, and now you can find legitimate and transparent dealers within the fraternity, those who eliminate the guesswork around spares for their customers.
Why A.S.A.P. Spares Stands Out for Auto Parts
Keeping your vehicle safely roadworthy, performing at its best, and looking good- all in an affordable manner over the long term -isn’t a daunting prospect for A.S.A.P. Spares’ clients. Here’s our offer to you in a nutshell:
- We never sell junk. We strip junk all the time in our scrapyard of course, but with one singular pursuit: to find used auto parts that represent immaculate performance and no compromise on integrity. We won’t sell junk – did we mention that?
- Likewise, we don’t stock junk, new or otherwise. We’re an auto parts supplier that is recognisable by the hallmarks of all good business. We make a noise and want to be found. We welcome customers, we don’t fear returns. We stand behind everything we sell because whether it was a new component or a used auto part, we tested it, we’ve had experience of it, and we want to provide a one-stop solution for all of your auto parts needs.
- We make a point of only letting knowledgeable people deal with our customers. All of our front-line staff know their game and represent a value-add for our clients. You can talk to us, and we’ll share openly what we believe the best route to your repair might be, whether that makes us a sale or not! We wake up every day and hang our integrity up for everyone to see – the last thing we’ll do is tarnish it with uncaring service.
- It’s been our singular differentiator in the market that we’re the other kind of spares supplier – we love what we do, and we love to get our clients rolling again. We’ve applied our expertise in mechanics not to spin a buck, but to be able to validate and offer both new and used auto parts to the public that restore the integrity of our industry as a whole.
- We’re all about return business. To be wired for long term customer relationships, you have to be selling quality goods, no matter what kind of business you are.
Call on A.S.A.P. Spares whenever you need auto parts that will meet your needs at a price that pleases your pocket. Call us, visit us, but don’t fit a part without us!