[Mr Teddy Bear]

Just a word of warning here; I ordered a cam belt kit for my 216, when I opened the box I found a Unipart cam belt boxed and a camshaft belt pulley, or in other words no tensioner/idler & no spring. I have just ordered the missing parts via Jon at A.E.Wilcox. So alway's look at the Rimmer parts list your self! The tensioner spring has gone NLA.
Can anybody confirm whether or not it's available in a Gates kit?

[961tat]

Just a word of warning here; I ordered a cam belt kit for my 216, when I opened the box I found a Unipart cam belt boxed and a camshaft belt pulley, or in other words no tensioner/idler & no spring. I have just ordered the missing parts via Jon at A.E.Wilcox. So alway's look at the Rimmer parts list your self! The tensioner spring has gone NLA.
Can anybody confirm whether or not it's available in a Gates kit?

.
I did a gates cambelt kit last month with tensioner from local engine part supplier and also used dayco with no issues .

[220 GSi turbo]

Has anybody been able to access and use the discount recently?

I got a reply off XPart after emailing them a couple of weeks after submitting the online form (which had not generated a response!), but they would not confirm any prices, instead saying that it was up to the retailer to quote me a price: "I am unable to advise prices as that is down to the dealer to give to you but I can advise availability"

[scoubix]

A lot has changed at XPart since the start of the pandemic, they have scaled down their staff dramatically and I'm not surprised you didn't get an answer after a couple of weeks...there's basically just one person there now doing all of the backoffice work. She's very willing and nice to talk to, but she's so busy with stuff it's really hard to get ahold of her, whether by email or phone.
As for discounts, the response you got mirrors what she told me when I mentioned setting up a similar discount scheme for my own club in France: it's up to the dealers to accept whether or not such a discount is applicable, as part of it (say 5%) is off the selling price from them to the dealer, the remaining discount being done by the retailer...and no one, not even XPart, can force them to discount if they don't want to. So the 10% discount for club members, when it was set up, might have been applicable with no dealer involvement, but it doesn't look that way anymore, and any XPart dealer who would be "forced" to issue a discount would rightfully so tell you that's XPart's promise, not his...

[Colonel Mustard]

I ordered some parts direct from XPart a few weeks ago, and have to say the whole process was relatively painless (although admittedly not as straight forward as if they had a proper online shop). I sent an email listing the parts required (having obtained the part numbers from Rimmers website!) over a weekend, and got an initial response back mid morning on the Monday. The prices offered were 10% less than those listed on the Rimmers website. A useful discount, but I would imagine XPart are still getting considerably more selling direct than they would if the parts were going via one of their distributors.

The most time consuming part was having to phone through my credit card details (they would accept a bank transfer, but there would be a 3 day delay until they would be able to see it on their account and hence send the goods). It took several attempts to get a call answered, which ties in with what has been said in previous posts. Once that was done the parts were despatched the same day and I received them the following day. So all told it took 3 days from initial inquiry to receipt of goods (and would have probably been 2 if the initial inquiry had been made early on a working day).

Two minor negatives were the delivery cost was slightly higher than most online suppliers; and for one of the items I had to buy a packet of 5 (whereas I only actually needed 2). But even taking these into consideration, as my order total was £186, the extra effort was worth it. If I was after another large order I would definitely try them again, but for most “normal” orders you are probably better off going through an online supplier in my opinion.

[MGZRreplica]

Hi,

I thought I would treat ZS for a new set of mats which they sell on eBay. I called them on Wednesday last week regarding the club discount.

She said ‘ they would check and call me back as they are already highly discounted on eBay’. She called me on the Thursday morning, saying ‘I could have them for £55.’ I paid by card. I said I would collect on the Friday night.

To be honest. I just wanted to be nosey and see the Xpart warehouse in Erdington. It isn’t very big. when I arrived I said to the lady,’ so this is all that remains of MG Rover.’ She replied ‘Yes.’

Any way I got home and I took the mats out of the wrapping. I was quietly surprised that they were made by Jaguar in Poland in 2020. They fitted fine.

[GTiJohn]

That'll be Kara, no doubt. She's always very helpful

[220 GSi turbo]

That'll be Kara, no doubt. She's always very helpful

Unfortunately that was not my experience with her, John.

My question:
"I recently enquired about some parts using your online form, but have not received a response yet....

My list has now grown to more than five items, so I have decided to try a direct email to yourselves instead.

I would also like to make use of the 10% discount available to members of the Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club (membership number ***), so please would you advise where my nearest participating XPart retailer is. (Postcode *******)

Please advise price and availability of (list of parts)"

Kara's reply:

"I am unable to advise prices as that is down to the dealer to give to you but I can advise availability."

She gave me the details of my nearest dealer, who was not aware of any club discount scheme and he explained that margins on MG Rover parts were already very low and he would need to consult XPart. That was 10 days ago and I am still waiting. In the meantime we have two unusable cars sat here....

I will try to find a few spare minutes during a working day next week to phone XPart and see if I can get this moving again. I had kind of hoped that if they were going to start offering club discounts, they would put a simple and efficient system in place to make it easy to use.

[kevinwillis]

My understanding was that the club discount only applied if you brought direct from Xpart by mail order and not threw a dealer.

So as longer as the 10% discount at least offsets the postage cost it is a winner and shows we want to by direct

John correct me I f am incorrect.

[Mr Teddy Bear]

From the conversations that I've had with my local dealer, they were unaware that Xpart were selling direct to retail customers. I suspect that it might have created some friction. I'm trying to be tactful here.

The real issue here is if as it seems Xpart have only the one person dealing with trade queries, she can't really handle an influx of retail business as well.

It's important to maintain a supply chain, especially as I've received some duff spares of late, this is via Ebay I should add. Bought a D16 rocker cover gasket from Micksgarage [ who are situated in Eaire] told by the garage who did the Cambelt that it didn't fit, and of course the Blueprint K series petrol filter that didn't fit either. This is all wasted time effort and money of course because you can't send the stuff back.