The OEM+ / S-Chassis Preservation Thread

[spooled240]

I put an order in for the LHD Euro kouki headlights with Mav a few months back. The wait is long, but it's worth it considering YAJ is selling old broken RHD sets for $600+ before taxes and shipping. I'm also a stickler for having the correct headlight cutoff.

[Boeing7487]

I'm on the hunt to get a properly fitting s13 sunshade and I'm curious if anyone else already has some recommendations.

[mav1178]

Originally Posted by Kallixtos

That'd be great...but I dont have any spare Euro glass at the moment. I'm always on the lookout for them though. Lets figure something out.

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

There's a vendor in the classifieds section selling both Zenki and Kouki EDM headlights brand new from Nissan.

Originally Posted by dizzariot

You talking about Mav? I didn't know these were on the list still...

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Yes. It's my understanding that he may have sets of both Zenki and Kouki glass available for purchase. Shoot him an email.

I love my glass Zenki headlights(with leveling sensors). Hell I might purchase a spare set just have them just in case. Same goes with the new Kouki tail lights he has.

Originally Posted by Kallixtos

He doesn?t necessarily have them available. Order must be placed and there?s a long lead time. Currently still waiting for shipment. All that info is available in his post though.

That being said I did place an order for a set of zenki glass. Gonna hide them on the shelf once they arrive lol.

Originally Posted by spooled240

I put an order in for the LHD Euro kouki headlights with Mav a few months back. The wait is long, but it's worth it considering YAJ is selling old broken RHD sets for $600+ before taxes and shipping. I'm also a stickler for having the correct headlight cutoff.

I've been hinting at it with various folks that preordered parts (and have sent me emails to follow up) but I'm running into several problems as I inquire for parts and subsequently order them.

S13 Silvia fenders, S13 Silvia corner lights, S14 zenki/kouki EUDM headlights, and several others are all falling into the same pattern:

1. Nissan has pricing and parts available to order in their system
2. Order is placed (but smaller quantity as the deposit amount is 80% of order total, whereas I'm charging people 50% for deposit in advance, so I'm fronting 10-50% of the actual order total depending on how much I have on order.
3. First few POs were fulfilled, so I then order a lot more items on subsequent POs based on what is fulfilled, and also fronting 5-20x more money to make this happen.
4. Then Nissan will fulfill some items (S13 Silvia fenders, 25 sets) and then flag the items as stop production and cancel the additional ones I have on order (100+ sets)
5. Same pattern is happening with the S13 Silvia corner lights (~15 pairs ordered/fulfilled, subsequent 150 pair order cancelled after deposit was made)
6. S14 glass headlights are falling into this situation, the problem I have now is that I do not know the exact quantity that is inbound, so until I know later this month I can't actually contact anyone about their order status because the people that have ordered (~25 people) have headlights that are staggered over 5 different POs on my end, with the first few being test POs to see if the order will be accepted.

I am leaving out some details about this process but one of the things I've accidentally exposed is how inefficient and archaic Nissan's relationship is with their parts supply chain vendors, and how badly Nissan has managed their own internal parts system and how distributers procure parts from Nissan.

The biggest problem is this: when Nissan accepts my PO, I have to pay an 80% deposit via my supplier. When Nissan cancels a PO or parts on order on a PO, the deposit money is rolled over to future orders....

... meanwhile, I cancel the order with the customer and refund them in full.

At this point I have about $150k sitting overseas doing nothing for me. As I've said in other threads, if I took this money and parked it in the stock market or crypto I would've retired already.

Everyone that has ordered will get an update from me later this month. Everyone else, email me...

[NukeKS14]

Originally Posted by mav1178

The biggest problem is this: when Nissan accepts my PO, I have to pay an 80% deposit via my supplier. When Nissan cancels a PO or parts on order on a PO, the deposit money is rolled over to future orders....

... meanwhile, I cancel the order with the customer and refund them in full.

Jesus, man. If no one else has said it, thanks for what you're doing for the community. That's just... insane. Nissan is not making a lot of friends in the classic restoration market, that's for sure.

[mav1178]

Originally Posted by NukeKS14

Jesus, man. If no one else has said it, thanks for what you're doing for the community. That's just... insane. Nissan is not making a lot of friends in the classic restoration market, that's for sure.

That's actually most OEMs in a nutshell.

People outside of buying a handful of parts really have no idea how massive and complicated the OEM supply chain is. They don't care about people buying $100k of parts, they care about the $1M-100M per year type of customers.

People also fail to realize that car manufacturers actually make maybe the sheet metal in-house when build a new car, almost everything else is made outside the factory. Once a car is out of production the OEM parts suppliers typically have parts fulfillment contracts that are only renewed as long as the manufacturer is willing to pay for it.

[red_240]

Although I may be a drifter and have thrashed these cars pretty hard over the years, I actually really do care about the cars so I took it upon myself to save one that has been sitting outside my buddys shop for almost 2 years and was about to be scraped. Buying a car in this condition and restoring it is a daunting task but I feel good knowing that once Im done it will be one more s-chassis back on the street that otherwise would have gone to scrap. Hopefully I can restore more of these doomed cars in the future. Dont let them sit guys, save the ones that need it.







Where im at with it now;





If you are interested in this build stop by youtube channel, I am doing a detailed build series from start to finish with content uploaded weekly.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4B...ZcP4i4tZJLiCNQ