<VV> Just My Way

[Mike Jacobi]

GlacierHI

I'm pretty green at "Corvairing", having had my 63 Spyder-Vert about five
years, driven it a lot of miles and loved every minute of it.  Having said
that, I would like to take a little bandwidth to tell some of my fellow
hobbiests that saving a few bucks at the expense of cutting into our vendor's
sales may well be false economy.

I have dealt with the East and West Coast vendors and got wonderful service,
advce and just all round friendly help from both.  Yeah, some of the parts are
pricey, but they have em, usually in stock and in my hands in just a few days.
And I have yet to get a clinker.  But I have wrenched myself into a couple of
real puzzleing situations, that a call to a vendor East or West has supplied
me with good sound dependable solid advice that let me wrench myself back out.

You know, these vendors don't have to sell Corvair parts.  I mean they could
switch over to regular car parts or specialty wheels or what have you.  It is,
I feel. a blessing that they are there with the parts we need to keep our 40
year old masterpieces running and looking good.  I guess I have said all that
to say that we need to keep the ecology of our hobby, our parts suppliers
healthy enough to continue supplying the parts and knowlege we need.

In my town, we used to have a great hardware store.  I knew the owner for 20
years.  There just wasn't anything I needed in the hardware line that he
didn't have.  And he'd gladly show me how to use a tool or get the best item
for the project I was working on.  Then the big boxes moved in.  We got a
Lowe's and a Home Depot in the same year.  My hardware guy is hanging on for
dear life.  Why?  Because so many of his customers can't see past the 10 or 15
percent they can save at the big box..and they miss the fact that the big box
offers no personal service, little or know knowledgable people and no interest
at all in seeing their project succeed.

Sometimes paying a few bucks more today to ensure the longevity of a supplier
is the best way to ensure you will have what you need in the long run.

Thanks for letting an upstart bang on your ear like this.  I'm learning a lot
from you folks and I will now go back to lurkin and learnin.

Man I hope I haven't got any of you upset

Til we meet on the street

Mike J