I blame computerized inventory. Dealers now only buy parts that rotate vs parts they "think" might get used.JonW wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 7:21 pmThats the modern world. gone are the days of dealers ordering lots of parts in and storing them for us to buy. When someone wants to restore a 2018 R1 in 30 years there will be no cool rare NOS spares in dusty wrappers on ebay for those bikes, the parts will just be gone as the Yam worldwide regional warehouses will have none etc.
Part of the package when you sign up as a dealer is a mandatory parts inventory. The suggested package from the OEM''s is supposedly "most popular fast moving inventory." Sadly many of the items are neither fast moving or popular. Dealers create their own list of fast moving inventory going forward and much of it is aftermarket.
A new Suzuki dealer I worked for back in 1990 bought the old Yamaha dealer in town. To avoid buying the Yamaha-required initial parts package, he negotiated buying the old dealers existing parts inventory. The out of business Yamaha dealer's son was the parts manager and he owned a RZ350. While doing a physical inventory of parts, I couldn't believe the number of RZ350 parts in stock! If I had any extra money at that time I would have bought all of it. As it was well known that I also had an RZ350, my Christmas bonus one year was a NIB SOLO cowl and a New chin fairing! Both were considered dead inventory.
This same Suzuki dealer had at one time employed an up and coming Road Racer that went on to win at the National level. During his time as an amateur the dealership was his personal parts warehouse. I am fairly certain that we had the strongest inventory of 1987-88 GSK-R750 internal engine parts in the North East! We probably had the highest number of warranty claims for the same model as well.