Citroen XM Forum

Not sure. If new companies see a market and start a new business to provide newly made parts, it should be viable for Citroen themselves.
Even if they charge exorbitant prices.
As stated, as Mercedes or Audi can do it, rest assured they won't loose any money over it

Dieselman is right.
That some companies stock and provide long term is all about company profitability.
If the company is doing well, has plenty of cheap storage space then it can justify a generous policy towards spares.
The aftermarket suppliers quickly latch onto the high volume stuff, undercutting on price.
That makes the original car manufacturing companies car spares operation even less viable.

The 2.5 jockey wheel idler was high volume enough for 15 manufacturers to supply it.
With the recent drastic reduction in active cars I doubt that more than 20 got sold in the UK in the last 12 months.
I suspect that production of the item stopped some years ago and we have been drawing down old shelf stock.

The chinese alternative may not be real, just design copied ready waiting for a very large order.
Quality will be the next problem, particularly with an item that was crap as originally produced.
Where they do produce in volume the results can be interesting.
Take the blower fan module.
Ebay is awash with them. Some are perfect copies. Some have the wrong type of transistor and do not work.

John

Your so right John. You just cannot rely on Chinese rubbish. A shame as it could potentially be the answer.

xmexclusive wrote: Take the blower fan module.
Ebay is awash with them. Some are perfect copies. Some have the wrong type of transistor and do not work.

Don't I know it That led me right up the garden path to a pond full of red herrings....

russ92xmsed wrote:You just cannot rely on Chinese rubbish.

A company I deal with, not associated with cars, design and assemble in the UK but manufacture the steel parts in China. They are doing a roaring trade selling at a quarter the price of the No1 company who do everything in the UK.

Don't assume everything made in the Far East is sub-standard.

Eddie nuff wrote:

russ92xmsed wrote:You just cannot rely on Chinese rubbish.

A company I deal with, not associated with cars, design and assemble in the UK but manufacture the steel parts in China. They are doing a roaring trade selling at a quarter the price of the No1 company who do everything in the UK.

Don't assume everything made in the Far East is sub-standard.

I would agree - where would we be without China assembling most of the consumer electronics we all rely on (including my Lexia).
After my experience of shopping in several USA Wal-Marts I came to the conclusion that the majority of their merchandise is manufactured in China.

Ken

This is true of course. But the supplier is in control I would suppose. .....I still wouldn't trust Chinese design and Chinese knock off though.

Thing is Russ, we have little choice in a lot of things.. I'm reading and posting using a PC and monitor made in China and eating a meal with a Chines knife and fork on a Chinese plate.. Only the food is not Chinese

It's a home made Indian curry made from scratch and it's a bit tasty

it's very hard to avoid Chinese stuff nowadays.. Quality seems to vary from abysmal to excellent... And often with no discernible reason why and often it's unrelated to the price.

AH! This is what I mean Jim...if there is say a western company involved or a customer commissioning the product and dictates a good quality standard, then fine, that's good. But if it is just Chinese copying and making rubbish..not so good.

I don't really care where parts are made, as long as they are durable and up to the job.

Thanks for all the advice/info. I guess from a business standpoint it makes perfect sense not taking up storage space with slow moving old stock. Still a crime when some of these dealers simply threw it in a skip. Reminds me of a story I read in Car Mechanics magazine a few years ago. A dealer took in an XM estate in metallic red, with full history, 2.5 TD, leather, all the goodies and they tried to convince the owner not to put it in the scrappage scheme. But no, the bloke wanted a new Citroen so in it went to be slabbed. Now that is a crime in my book.