Best place to buy parts?

I can't believe I am asking this but have just had a go at ordering parts from Heritage and JK and they have made life so much harder than it used to be. I bought a whole bunch of service parts for my bus a few years ago and have been slowly working my way through them and want to replenish specific stuff like oil filters, spark plugs, etc. and don't want a "service kit". Who do you guys find easiest, most helpful, best quality for getting specific engine/brake/service bits? I have used Eurospares and GSF with varying degrees of success but I am surprised the specialists are such a pain to use now. Mine is a 1977 Westy with a 2056 type 4 and twin IDF40s so nothing especially exotic

 

Try @davidoft for hard to find parts

 

I don’t mean his parts I mean bus parts, o you know what I mean

 

What’s the difficult part of ordering?

 

possibly I need to try again after less vino, or maybe I have crossed the middle aged/old fart divide and am losing my ability to navigate websites. In the case of Heritage they support so many marques and models that I missed the old "its a T2 late bay so show me the fanbelt options from cheap to decent" easy options. I will have another go ( I have had more wine though so fingers crossed)

 

I agree, both those vendors have made it like a visit to Habitat, you have to wade through pages of stuff because they hope that way you'll see other things you want.

 

I don't think we want to see his parts

 

Cool air VW are quite useful and actually answer their webchat thingy

 

You realise that thing with the "screen" you're trying to order on is actually the microwave oven ?

 

Everybody has a messed up search that returns more items the more keywords you put in.
So you get all things matching each word separately.

At least on Heritage the search returns the items with the largest number of matching words first.

Another way is to search the part number.

And eBay's search will often find items shipped from Shoreham more readily than Heritage's own search. So sometimes I just use eBay, sometimes pay less carriage for a Heritage part.

 

These days JK's site crashes after a few minutes of searching and you have to reload it. Maybe something to do with my settings, but I can't be the only one. Once you manage to place an order it's fine.

 

Schofields, never have a problem.

 

Habitat?! We know what circles you move in.....! I would have have compared to B&M or Lidl!

 

I think JK and heritage are too big to give a more personal service. Cool Air seem better at this. Customer reviews on products are normally nonexistent. It’s annoying ordering a big list to get the free delivery then finding a part not stocked. Personally I hate the Heritage website at the minute.

 

Rant over, in answer to your question, I shop around between jk , heritage, cool air, vee wee, eBay , megabug to name a few.

 

Oil from whoever on eBay and oil filter from local factors.

 

Plus they have a my bus section so you can pre-filter all the crap to a degree to just see stuff that should fit...

 

Unless I was also buying other stuff I wouldn't buy any service items like spark plugs, oil filters, fan belts etc. from any VW parts supplier, and I wouldn't buy anything from JK unless I had no other choice. Service parts from local motor factors or websites.