Dateline, Aug 8th – I’ve noticed that the car really pulls right when braking. I’ve talked about this with friends and I’ve tried cleaning the left side brakes and checking for oil, contamination, etc., but nothing seemed to help. A friend suggested swapping out the brake pads to see if that makes a difference. So when I jacked up the car this weekend and looked under the right side of the car, I noticed that the wheel had a lot of play. Examination showed that the tie rod was worn! The interesting thing was that the left hand one had been replaced already, but not the right! Go figure!
Anyway, to test out my assumption that the tie rod was making the difference, I adjusted the right wheel to be significantly toe in and drove it around. Sure enough, brake still pulled right, but not as much. Time to order a new tie rod end.
Now the interesting part. This is the first time that I tried to get parts for my car locally. It’s Saturday morning, and I’m thinking that I’m going to find a place, no problem. I started calling around. NOTHING! None of the British car parts stores are open! Finally, I called a European car place just down the street and asked if they carry parts. No they said, but you can call this place that they do all their business with. I said, “Thanks! I call them right now.” The guy at the other end said, “Their not open on the weekends. We have been in this business long enough to were we don’t have to be.” WOW! It must be nice to be in a business that does not have to service customers on the weekend!
However, as I started to think about this, I realized why. First, all modern Jaguars are very reliable, much more so then the cars of old. Plus, up until the 90’s, Jaguars were always a poor-rich man’s car. Not as expensive as a Porsche or Mercedes, but not in the reach of the guy who buys the Chevet. Because of this, and because they are British, a lot of maintenance had to happen, and a lot of that done in the owners garage. Thus, parts are available. Now that the cars run in the $80,000 range, I suspect that there are not a lot of Jaguar owners turning wrenches and loosing skin on their knuckles as in the days of old! So it makes sense that the parts stores are only going to be open during the weekday. That is when the repair shops are open!
So, the answer is mail order. Thank you Terry’s Jaguar for having the parts I need!
