Discontinued - Not Necessarily Unavailable

[Greg Powers]

Perseverance pays off when shopping with your local dealership parts man. Of course this won't work for your classic beauty from the 1950's or older, but for your more recent Cadillacs never give up on the discovery that the part is discontinued. I recently bought a 1990 Brougham from an estate with 15,000 original miles and original factory mounted Uniroyal Royal Seal tires.(Another whole story) I wanted to preserve the original tires for shows and needed to buy a set of steel wheels for the vehicle for driving. My local dealership assured me that the wheels were dicontinued and not available from General Motors, salvage wheels were not an option. Since we do quite a bit of business with the local Cadillac dealership, the parts man told me to let him do some research and he would get back to me. Suprise, although discontinued, several sets of wheels were available in Michigan. Now I can save my factory wheels and drive on a set of new factory wheels. I know I've also had discontinued parts tracked to larger old Cadillac dealerships in the area. (Sometimes parts ordered and not picked up by others after time). Have any of you found the dealership to be of much help with discontinued parts?

[TJ Hopland]

I find most dealerships seem annoyed that I am bothering them for a part for a 5 year old car. I avoid going to a dealer if I can.  I even seem to only get marginal service from the ones I have bought new cars from.   Recently I went to 8 different dealers trying to get a part for the most rare car in the whole USA, a 97 Chevy truck.  There are 1000's of those things still on the road, I would think they would stock just about enough parts to build a complete truck.    It took 4 before I even got someone to get me a part number and a picture to confirm I was not imagining the part in my hand.  I have had better luck getting parts for my 'one part at a time franken cars' than some of my newer un altered stuff. 

Your car was alloy wheels?  Or steel?  I dont know why the steel wheels would be hard to find.  There are usually plenty of cabs and cop cars in the junkyards along with the station wagons.   Most of those tended to have steel wheels.  They are also the same as the 2x trucks but I think those were silver so you may need a bit of paint if the cover does not cover the whole wheel.  Its been a while since I have looked close at one of those.  I suppose depending on your area there may not be may of those in the junkyards either since they quit building them in 96.  Late 90's steel wheels on the trucks even seemed to be getting rare.

[Greg McDonnell]

I have had some luck finding parts for my '85 Toronado Brougham by working with the dealership, although it was never the Olds dealership but rather our local Cadillac dealer.  I guess it all depends upon the guy (or girl) you end up working with in the parts department and whether or not they want to really try and track down the part for you.  I have had no luck with any of my parts searches for my '77 Seville, however.  All the dealers ever tell me is "That part has been discontinued and my computer is telling me there is not one in any GM Dealer's inventory in the United States!  I guess it depends upon the make and model as well...

Greg McDonnell
CLC# 20841

[RobW]

Yeah most dealers here have that same attitude that TJ describes above.
Another thing that I've found is that some of those old NOS parts that "were never picked up" were actually left behind or returned because they are defective or blemished. I've bought NOS mirrors with a slight bubble on them. Today they are a nice find but 40 years ago you could just say I don't want this one let me see another one. Chances are the other one was better.
But today all these blemished NOS parts are being passed off as the norm for the time period. I began working in proffessional body shops at 18 in 1978 and don't remember blems being the norm. We did send back a few things for better looking ones though.