Bangernomics - DIY mechanics - Ebay - and stockpiling bits

anewman

Having bits at hand that may go wrong on your car - for example, brake pads, sensors, drive shafts and so on - can be handy if you ever come to need them. Sometimes you get 99p start auctions and things go much cheaper than the part would be at any other time (i.e. when you actually *need* the part). It could be quite rightly argued that this is wasting time and money if the part never gets used, but if you do use it you have saved quite a bit of cash. So I guess it's up for debate whether this is worth it.

Best example of *not* doing this for me is a reconditioned steering rack turned up on ebay and sold for £4 + delivery. When it turned out I actually needed one, dealers were after £180 and a seller who specialises in parts for my car on ebay was asking £100 so I chose the latter. But if I bought it at the right time on ebay.... I could probably have got one from a scrappie instead but I figured even if I managed to find one chances are that wouldn't be far off needing changing, and I'd need new track ends and possibly gaitors anyway etc.

Probably the best bargains I've had are a complete set of shocks for under £50 delivered (although unfortunately it turned out the front ones were manufactured 12 years ago). Brand new OE driveshaft £35 delivered (non oe ones are at the £90 mark, and daren't wonder how much oe would be).

I've seen some things go *really* cheap, but I have to hold myself back and rationalise whether there's a chance the purchase would ever be used.

Anyone else waste their time and doing this? Anyone had any really good bargains?

hewhoisnotintheknow

i do this with my cars, get hold of all the bits that will generally fail and then have em ready, great for fault finding. + when you flog the car you can flog the bits (and not be in a rush to sell em)

goldspanners

it makes sense, if its cheap enough and you have space to keep it then buy it i say. if you never use it you can always re sell it,or give it away with the car.
when i bought my capri the guy selling it was selling it for his father and gave me a boot load of spares to go with it,new bumpers,headlights,heater matrix,etc... half expected these were subtle hints as to things i may need to do to the car soon,but i never needed then it turned out he did actually just collect bits just incase, when i sold the capri on i passed on all the parts aswell to the new owner f.o.c.