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Momo
12-26-2006, 01:51 AM
Can any of you reps at RN tell us more about Proline? Is this a new brand/OEM mfr, a subsidiary of Allmakes, Bearmach, or what?

I just installed a Proline brake booster courtesy of our hosts. It's a nice unit.

Finally, any info on Series NLA parts that are being reproduced in the future? Not looking for anything specific, just curious if we will have to continue to scavenge or if there's hope for new supplies of now NLA stuff.

TeriAnn
12-30-2006, 09:55 AM
Can any of you reps at RN tell us more about Proline? Is this a new brand/OEM mfr, a subsidiary of Allmakes, Bearmach, or what?
This question has been unanswered long enough that I suspect it was either unnoticed or purposely left unanswered by RN.

I'm willing to take a stab it it as long as you understand that my reply is a guess only, based only upon observations over time. I am not privy to RN's internal workings so please take this as speculation and not as fact.

First, some historical observations:

When Land Rover abandoned the North American market around 1974, they still had an obligation to provide replacement parts to Land Rover owners, so they entered into agreements with two American companies to provide factory Land Rover parts in North America. British Pacific was the genuine Land Rover parts dealer on the West coast and Rovers North was the genuine Land Rover parts dealer on the East coast. Meanwhile, Atlantic British focused on buying and reselling aftermarket parts.

British Pacific has offered both Genuine and OEM parts so that customers had a choice of high quality parts, often the same part in a different box, at different price points.

It appears that Rovers North's marketing strategy was to position Genuine Land Rover parts as being superior to OEM parts and Rover's North as THE best place to buy a full line of Genuine Land Rover parts. This marketing message seems to have served Rovers North well until BMW purchased Rover and started discontinuing slow moving parts for older Series Land Rovers. This process was accelerated when Ford purchased Rover because Ford does not seem to support vehicles over 10 years of age with parts (The are busy discontinuing parts for Series, Range Rover Classic and Discovery I right now). All this leaves Rovers North with a hollow marketing message; a message that claimed that genuine is better, but with increasingly larger gaps in the range of genuine parts to sell.

It is my guess that "Proline" is a Rovers North term for "not Genuine Land Rover Part". The good folks at Rovers North are still sourcing the very best product they can to resell to their customers. Its just that not all those parts can be in a Genuine Land Rover box anymore and they have spent decades trying to convince North American Land Rover owners that anything not in a Genuine Land Rover box is somehow inferior. Since they spend decades telling customers that "OEM" was often inferior to "genuine" I suspect they went to "Proline" as a new term with no previous negative Rovers North marketing connotations.

It may be a coincidence, but Rovers North changed their part numbering system at about the same time they launched the Proline line. Until about that time, Rovers North used Land Rover's part numbering system. That was a change for the worse for customers who used to look parts up in a Land Rover parts book and order by LR part number. Abandoning the the Land Rover parts number system has some advantages for Rover's North. Land Rover part numbers have been changing almost faster than people can keep update them (making everyone's factory parts manuals obsolete). After BMW bought Rover they started switching Rover over to the BMW part numbering system. Now Ford is out there changing numbers as well. Having an independent numbering system keeps those expensive paper catalogues from going obsolete each week as Land Rover changes part numbers. On the other hand, a customer can not tell where a part came from by the RN part number and it makes prepurchase price comparison shopping harder to do.

Bottom line is that I believe "Proline" exists because Rovers North, nor anyone else, can sell you just Genuine Land Rover parts anymore and still meet your needs. And Proline does not carry any negative baggage from earlier Rovers North marketing messages.

I remain convinced that the good folks at Rovers North are working hard to provide you with the best quality parts they can source,:thumb-up: and just like British Pacific they are forced to rely more and more on OEM and high quality aftermarket sources for those parts that Land Rover has discontinued or priced much higher than available non genuine LR parts.

As far as you second question concerning the future of discontinued series Land Rover parts availability is concerned, my reply is restrained by my relationship with British Pacific (I am BP's web master and I wrote and maintain BP's Series parts catalogue). I can say that Land Rover is steadily discontinuing Series parts and I for one am stock piling some drive train parts that are available as genuine only and plan not to use them as long as I can still get them new.

OEM and aftermarket manufacturers will make a part only if it is profitable for them to do so. They invest their resources in products that make them the most money. Don't hold out a lot of hopes for long term availability for new parts that are currently genuine only, seldom break (low sales volumes) and cost a chunk to tool up for. Remember the US is a unique market for Land Rover. Sales stopped in the early 1970's and they sold very few Series Land Rovers into North America between 1951 and 1974. We are not a very big parts market. Everywhere else people tend to buy an older cheap used Defender when their old Series rig wears out.

I would expect industry standard parts, such as non special bearings & seals in wide use to still be available long term. A lot of electrical parts were used across the entire British car industry and the total volume of surviving vehicles should keep common parts on the shelf for some time to come, and current aftermarket parts will remain in production as long as manufacturers can make a reasonable profit to continue to keep them in production.

Anyway, please take this reply as purely speculation on my part. Only the good folks at Rover's North know for sure why they do the things they do, and the People BMW and Ford have put into place to guide Rover through the future seem to live in a very different reality from Series and Defender owners. Realities that have different priorities that are continuing to diverge from one another. :(

Leslie
12-30-2006, 07:57 PM
This question has been unanswered long enough that I suspect it was either unnoticed or purposely left unanswered by RN.

Or, the tech-staff have been off for the holidays between Christmas and New Year's.... while I don't *know* that about RN, I do know my office was running a skeleton crew this past week.....



It may be a coincidence, but Rovers North changed their part numbering system at about the same time they launched the Proline line. Until about that time, Rovers North used Land Rover's part numbering system.

I hadn't considered that; again, I have no insider information either, but the speculation that I was privy to suggested that RN's numbering change was due to them sending out oodles of catalogs to Series owners, who then would call X or Y competing Rover parts vendor, using the RN catalog.

FWIW....

TeriAnn
12-31-2006, 08:07 AM
Or, the tech-staff have been off for the holidays between Christmas and New Year's.... while I don't *know* that about RN, I do know my office was running a skeleton crew this past week.....

Excellent point. I forgot to look at the date headers. :o




I hadn't considered that; again, I have no insider information either, but the speculation that I was privy to suggested that RN's numbering change was due to them sending out oodles of catalogs to Series owners, who then would call X or Y competing Rover parts vendor, using the RN catalog.

That could be. Paper catalogues are expensive to have printed up, the Rovers North catalogue is one of the best in the business, and I think the very best available in paper format. :thumb-up: But I do not think customers will be deterred from price comparison shopping by different part number systems.

I think the real win of the new parts numbering system is stability. Factory Land Rover part numbers have been rapidly changing since BMW took control. Every time I turn around I'm changing part numbers in the BP series catalogue (BP still uses the LR part numbers wherever possible). I think a paper catalogue using the LR part numbering system would have obsolete part numbers faster than it could go to press.

Personally I think Rovers North's parts numbering system and the Proline parts designation were good business decisions for Rovers North. I've always had a lot of respect for those guys.

Oh well enough said on my part about speculating on RN's business decisions. Chatting about Series Land Rovers is a lot more interesting.

lrdukdog
12-31-2006, 09:58 AM
:thumb-up: I have always found that if I have the Rover P/N from my parts book RN can cross reference (I guess) to their new one. That's if you talk to a person, can't say about checking on-line for the Rover P/N.

Jim Wolf
Elvenwood Kennel

yorker
12-31-2006, 12:04 PM
I hadn't considered that; again, I have no insider information either, but the speculation that I was privy to suggested that RN's numbering change was due to them sending out oodles of catalogs to Series owners, who then would call X or Y competing Rover parts vendor, using the RN catalog.

FWIW....

Honestly speaking I used to do that, in fact I have saved my old RN catalogs as a reference for just that reason. When they changed to the new part #s it was a pain till I found my old catalogs. My initial suspicion was that they changed just for that reason however I think TAW's premise is equally plausible.

J!m
01-02-2007, 09:28 AM
I also cannot speak to the business drivers at RN or company policies of Land-Rover; however I will say this for those who are a bit scared to use the proline parts.

Rovers North tests potential (non-genuine) parts for about six months before they have them available for sale.

How do I know this? As sponsors of Drive the Globe Overland Adventures, we have a long term working relationship, and personal contact with several of the guys there (Namely Les and Mark) and get what might be called "insider information" at times. As such I will not comment on what is being tested now, as it may be confidential, but I will be ordering some when the testing is done from the sound of the test results so far!

So, don't be afraid of the Proline parts. AND, (unless I'm mistaken), they still extend a warranty of some kind on the parts. Genuine is one year unlimited mileage (which for me, can be quite a few miles!) that makes high-dollar purchases (such as a new R380) a bit easier to swallow.

Check with your sales rep for more details....

Quality of parts and quality of service are what makes RN the best. Anyone can get parts, and may even have a better price. It's all the stuff you can't put a price on that makes the difference (Like allowing me to replace a bad u-joint in the RN garage on the way up to Canada...):thumb-up:

Momo
01-02-2007, 01:15 PM
TeriAnn,

Your educated guess is basically what I had presumed. I know the BP/RN spares concession history well and we have all seen the rapid phase-out of spares happening over the last five years, so I am glad to see RN offering the Proline stuff. I imagine it's OEM stuff that has been repackaged by RN. The Proline logo is clearly their work.

But what I want to hear is an official reply from RN.

BP, AB and RN have all been moving away from Series rigs bit by bit. Will it make good business sense to turn the tide? The introduction of Proline parts is a good sign, but will we ever see new Series II fenders or steering boxes or early door handles? I hope so but I won't hold my breath.

Ray Wood is trickling out some really cool Series Parts (beyond the Roverdrive and parabolics and stuff). In a sense he's leading the way in North America. He's the little guy, a true enthusiast, and I try to support his efforts as much as possible. Ike Goss is another Series guy from whom we can expect quality NLA repro parts. If these guys can do it so can the big boys.

As an aside, the same problem plaguing Series trucks is sort of happening to RR classics too. The series trucks are few, so there's no economy of scale. The RR classics are worth next to nothing, spares cost a relative fortune, and the vehicles are being junked rapidly, so there's a pick-your-part option that can make buying some new parts hard to justify.

Both models are victims of small demand.

So good people at RN, please give us your official reply.

acpatsouris
01-02-2007, 09:38 PM
Hi folks,

Sorry for the delay in responding to this post; things have been a bit hectic around here due to the holidays and such(thanks for understanding, Leslie).

Rovers North's ProLine parts are offered as a replacement option to NLA parts, and as cost alternative non-genuine aftermarket parts. The parts assigned a ProLine label do go through a screening process (as J!m mentions) and only the parts we feel are the best available will be offered for sale. These parts, whether offered as a replacement item for an NLA part or as a lower priced alternative to an existing Land Rover part carry the same Rovers North warranty as the Genuine parts do; 12 months-unlimited mileage.


What can we expect to see in the long run as far as product availability and possible remanufacture of obsolete parts?

I think TeriAnn's initial post does a great job describing the current state of Land Rover parts availability. Both, BMW(as Land Rover's former parent company) and now Ford are obviously more interested in selling new vehicles than supporting Land Rovers over 10 years old.

As TeriAnn points out, simple supply and demand economics dictate the fate of both Genuine and aftermarket Land Rover parts. Existing parts that turn a profit will continue to be offered as long as they do so, parts in low demand generating low or no profit will go NLA.

Whether it is feasible to reproduce these obsolete parks will ultimately be determined by the end consumer. If a great enough demand is voiced from today's Series owners for certain parts, the possibility of future manufacturing might become a reality.

yorker
01-03-2007, 05:33 PM
As far as you second question concerning the future of discontinued series Land Rover parts availability is concerned, my reply is restrained by my relationship with British Pacific (I am BP's web master and I wrote and maintain BP's Series parts catalogue). I can say that Land Rover is steadily discontinuing Series parts and I for one am stock piling some drive train parts that are available as genuine only and plan not to use them as long as I can still get them new.
:(

So- what are you stock piling up on? There is such a huge # of Rovers on the road we'll likely have parts for a fair ways into the future- I think their quality will continue to slip though as LR drops items and the aftermarket is all that remains. Eventually it will cease to be an everyday market and will become a specialty one, just like buying parts for other vintage parts is today.

There really isn't a huge market here for series parts- so I am glad we have the sources we do have. I'm pretty sure their sales in modern coilers dwarf their series parts sales. I know an AB employee told a friend of mine that their series parts sales essentially plateaued long ago and generally don't go anywhere anymore, their other sales now make up the bulk of their profits.

TeriAnn
01-03-2007, 06:48 PM
So- what are you stock piling up on?

In my case I have bushings, bearings & clips for two complete transfer case rebuilds plus a couple extra intermediate shaft bushings & spacers. I also have an assortment of speedo housing spacer shims, spare ignition/headlamp switch plus a few other offs & ends. Over the last few years I have been replacing worn but servicable parts with new genuine parts just to bring up the overall vehicel condition in the hopes the new parts last another 45 or more years like the ones they replaced have. I just recently replaced a few body panels with new genune LR panels. The genuine LR body panels are stonger and more dent resistant than the current crop of after market panels.

My Dormobile is powered by a Ford 302, has a Borg Warner T-18 gearbox tied to a Series transfercase with Ashcroft high ratio kit installed. If I still had a Series gearbox, I would have stocked up on special internal bits and spare new clutch linkage bits.

If a part of good quality is available OEM or aftermarket, I don't worry about it. I'm mostly concerned about those special parts that occasionally wear out, are not available aftermarket and when sourced used are likely to be well worn. There are a number of special bits in LR gearboxes & transfercases.

jp-
01-05-2007, 01:09 PM
Personally,

I am going to try and stock up on more Land Rovers. That way, by the time I get them all fixed, I will have plenty of new parts lying around.

Every time I rebuild a Rover, I seem to end up with more parts than I started with...