Cannot get Parts

[Zoe Saldana]

I talked to two dealer part's dept on thurs about rear shocks. They didn't have any (couldn't get them either) but they told me another dealer who did have them. They could get them for a little more. So, OP, if you are in need you could see if another local dealer has what you need.

Here?

ShockWarehouse

Shockwarehouse the USA’s source for shock absorbers and struts for RV’s, Cars and Trucks. Performance brands like Bilstein , Rancho, KYB, Fox, Arnott , Safe T Plus and Koni. Steering Stabilzers, Sway Bars, complete, struts, and air and electronic conversion kits .

www.shockwarehouse.com

 

[Travelin Ram]

The strike has Nothing to do with getting parts, nothing. Parts have been and continue to be an issue since that panic lockdown the country(s) put us all in. Union workers simply put parts on vehicles, the do not "make" the parts.

No, the union staffs parts distribution warehouses.

“United Auto Workers' picket line to work in distribution centers shipping ship out vehicle parts to dealerships”

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/b...usiness-resource-group-diversity/71086002007/

 

[Jimmy07]

The strike has Nothing to do with getting parts, nothing. Parts have been and continue to be an issue since that panic lockdown the country(s) put us all in. Union workers simply put parts on vehicles, the do not "make" the parts.

 

[KKBB]

Just my take...I have no problem with the UAW wanting more money and better benefits. I think everyone posting here would want the same with their job. I think the UAW is fighting for this seeing how the auto makers have jacked up the prices of vehicles and are making record profits. They just want their fair share of that instead of the rich management type getting paid millions a year to sit in their office and do basically nothing. I have always been for the workers, no matter what it involves...not the rich CEO or others wanting their millions. They don't make the product, or the company go, it is the workers that make it go. Without someone building the vehicles, the CEO doesn't have a company to pull millions in salary and bonuses from. The workers should get what they are asking for, the upper people should be cut back and prices would drop.

 

[Mike Wenrich]

I thought all shocks were gas filled now. These days that oil spill in CA might have generated a hazardous material response from the guv'ment.

Inflation has a lot to do with workers needing to earn more. That in turn adds to inflation. It's a vicious circle that our Congress couldn't care less about. As long as they get their lobbyist money all is okay. So not to be political, I agree with KKBB. They have to keep up with inflation. And the company heads keep making multi millions no matter what happens. I'm retired and fortunately my plan has a cost of living clause to help keep up with inflation. It's capped at 3% per year and over the last ten years has not kept up with inflation. I'm doing better than most but I see the need for workers to ask for more. They are not going to get more from company CEO's without asking or demanding.

 

[Tulecreeper]

I thought all shocks were gas filled now. These days that oil spill in CA might have generated a hazardous material response from the guv'ment.

Inflation has a lot to do with workers needing to earn more. That in turn adds to inflation. It's a vicious circle that our Congress couldn't care less about. As long as they get their lobbyist money all is okay. So not to be political, I agree with KKBB. They have to keep up with inflation. And the company heads keep making multi millions no matter what happens. I'm retired and fortunately my plan has a cost of living clause to help keep up with inflation. It's capped at 3% per year and over the last ten years has not kept up with inflation. I'm doing better than most but I see the need for workers to ask for more. They are not going to get more from company CEO's without asking or demanding.

I'm retired from the gov't. Mine is capped at 2% per year and tied to the CPI. If the CPI is less than 1% the 3rd quarter of the year, then the following year we get nothing for COLA. If it is more than 1%, we get that amount but only up to 2%. The gov't gets to save the rest.

 

[Sherman Bird]

I'm one of those workers. We have had a $3 raise since 2007. Seeing as how a new truck went from$30k to $70_80k in that time frame would you be ok work that? Change the shock yourself if you want to drive your truck. Really not worth the aggregation is it?

Well.... you DO trade time for money! So, there's THAT!

 

[Docwagon1776]

I like the fact that our current “uniter n chief” went down to the picket lines and said they deserve a raise, a first for a sitting president. At around 28$/ average, they’re at the same level that 1st class shipbuilders make producing ships for the US Navy (ask me how I know).
Of course the current administration wants the UAW to get paid more, those costs get passed on to the consumer. Tell me how much a single cheese burger from McDonald’s costs right now while a job intended for high school kids and part time jobs is starting off at over $10hr in my area. Costs for Dino powered vehicles stay high, and more reason to push electric vehicles and the green agenda. Oh, come get your government subsidies for your battery powered vehicles, they’re more affordable than gas powered vehicles. Can we say 33 trillion in national debt and counting! Inflation is sky high and production is down, I fear we’re in for a rough ride.

Few things:
Costs can't always be passed to the consumer. If they could, there would be zero incentive for efficiency and no company would ever go out of business. Supply/demand sets prices. Supply has been low, demand has remained steady, predictable results. There is obviously *some* price elasticity, but if you'll pay $70k for a truck you'll pay $70k for a truck regardless of if it costs the maker $40k or $65k. Wages or shareholder dividends, irrelevant.

Worker wages are a pretty small part of the cost of food at McDonalds. Last time I bothered to work the numbers, you could double the cost non-mgmt worker's pay/benefits and it would add 29 cents to the cost of a value meal if profit levels remained steady. The lie of $15 Big Macs that floated around during the minimum wage debates is simply the excuse given to not pay people a living wage and keep the lower class doing the crab bucket, pulling each other down because they are afraid it may hurt them for one of them to get better.

You can see the effect of lower/middle class pay raises for yourself. Pull up a chart of minimum wage increases, average worker increases, and overlay them with the CPI (Consumer Price Index). If lower wage workers making more money drove price increases, they would track. But they don't.

Why? Because the entire economy expanded based on lower and middle class worker wages in post WWII US. If the supply of things to buy keeps track with the supply of money to buy them, there's little inflationary pressure. Now the lie is that workers shouldn't make more money because it hurts workers... SO much better for purchasing power to be solidified in fewer and fewer hands...

 

[GTyankee]

I think about Union Labor

I think about in 2003, i bought a loaf of store bought bread for 50 to 65 cents.
Today, the bread on the shelves is $4.29 at my Albertsons Grocery

I think about Union Labor a LOT

 

[Stavinksi]

Ford, GM, Stellantis have never built a Shock Absorber.
Their Engineers design it & then they Let the Specs out to bid, usually a major Shock Absorber Company, or companies let the car companies know how much they can build them for.
Whoever wins the bid, sends the newly designed shocks to which ever location, Auburn Hills Headquarters needs them to go.
At the point, Union Warehouse workers are in charge of new orders, shipping & storage.

All done without a single UAW person touching it, until those shocks reach the Ram Assembly Line

=============================

Did you know, that Unionized Auto Plant workers in Canada & the USA, are making over 20 bucks an hour & people in Saltillo Mexico, working at the Stellantis, GM, Ford, & KIA plants are making less than half that & making the same product ??
Many companies are moving their factories down there.

How Mexico is Winning the Car Manufacturing War

Mexico's auto sector is booming, while Canada's is dwindling. Amanda Lang finds out why.Click here for the full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/carmak...

www.youtube.com

This has been going since… forever. Ever hear of China?

 

[crash68]

I think about Union Labor

I think about in 2003, i bought a loaf of store bought bread for 50 to 65 cents.
Today, the bread on the shelves is $4.29 at my Albertsons Grocery

I think about Union Labor a LOT

Try back in 1983, about 20 years prior. A union autoworker was making about $19/hr which that loaf of bread was about 3% of their hourly. Fast-forward to today's scale that $4.29 loaf of bread is 14% of their hourly.

 

[Docwagon1776]

Try back in 1983, about 20 years prior. A union autoworker was making about $19/hr which that loaf of bread was about 3% of their hourly. Fast-forward to today's scale that $4.29 loaf of bread is 14% of their hourly.

News story from 1984:

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp.'s top five executives stand to earn more than $1 million each for 1983 because of GM's record 1983 profit of $3.7 billion.

Estimates in Thursday's Detroit Free Press said GM chairman Roger Smith should become the highest-paid chief executive in the company's history, with a 1983 salary and bonus of $1.3 million to $1.4 million.

- https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/0...-five-executives-stand-to-earn/6326445150800/

News story from 2023:

In its annual executive compensation report that GM filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, GM reported that Barra made a total compensation of $29,136,780 in 2021 for running the company and chairing the board of directors. For 2020, Barra took home $23.7 million in total compensation and $21.6 million in 2019

- https://www.freep.com/story/money/c...eo-mary-barra-salary-compensation/9574068002/

Meanwhile, the ratio of Barra's total compensation to the median of all GM employees' total compensation is 420 to 1

Yet unions are the problem...

 

[SniperDroid]

Same guys that think company exec's get paid too much, are the ones that throw money at professional athletes...

Apologies for spouting... it seems I have forgotten what the original post was about, and had to go back to re read it. I hope the OP gets his truck fixed and lets us know what he finds, if he's not too upset that we hijacked the thread...

 

[Tulecreeper]

I think about Union Labor

I think about in 2003, i bought a loaf of store bought bread for 50 to 65 cents.
Today, the bread on the shelves is $4.29 at my Albertsons Grocery

I think about Union Labor a LOT

I'll agree, I'm not a union guy either, but there are other unions than UAW and longshoremen. I worked for the gov't for most of 30 years, and I had a degree in Criminal Justice. I could have opted out of joining the union - which would have been my choice - except they had a thing called "Fair Share". I think union dues were something like 2% of your gross monthly salary, so if you made $3000 per month your dues were $60. Fair Share meant that even if you opted to not belong to the union you still had to pay something like 1.5% because their reasoning was that they were bargaining for you too when they went to the table. The drawback was, if you opted out they took your money anyway but you couldn't vote in union elections.

So, I stayed a member just so I could vote against all the idiots that kept getting re-elected as union officers. I don't believe there was one time in 30 years that someone I voted for won that seat. In 30 years I got three...3...COLA raises, not counting step raises; always 3% - 4%. And every single time they gave us a raise they upped our medical/dental/vision/insurance premiums that pretty much wiped out any raise. The last raise I got before I retired in 2013 was 4%. They raised everything else so much that afterward my net paycheck was $19.80 less than it was before the raise.

And remember that degree I have? When I retired I was at the top pay step for my position - I made just shy of the equivalent of $30 per hour. No one works for the gov't to get rich. Except, of course, for those in positions of political power.

 

[Zoe Saldana]

News story from 1984:



- https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/0...-five-executives-stand-to-earn/6326445150800/

News story from 2023:



- https://www.freep.com/story/money/c...eo-mary-barra-salary-compensation/9574068002/



Yet unions are the problem...

Don't fall for the that kind of division.

I support unions.

But, your thinking is just what others do to unions - they look at what union member get paid/benefits and DO say - Unions are the problem.

 

[Travelin Ram]

Don't fall for the that kind of division.

Well said. A business cannot operate without management and workers, both are necessary.

The fallacy that most people fall for is believing in a false equivalency between the two.

Fact is, thanks to globalization, assemblers are competing against the global market for low skilled labor. And the majority of people have voted with their wallets in favor of that formula. They will continue to shop Walmart and any disadvantage to your neighbor’s wages is of secondary importance.

OTOH, executives also compete in a global marketplace. Except on the opposite end of the bell curve. Major enterprises compete for the top few talents worldwide. And pay accordingly.

Major league ball players get big $ because they are the best of the best.

Well, most of us can play ball too. But you’re not going to get paid ten million a year to do it.

Does this mean I agree with executive compensation levels? NO I DO NOT. But apparently I’m in a small minority, because I don’t support huge paychecks for ball players, Hollywood actors, singers, or the car-dashians.

If I were a CEO, I’d refuse excessive compensation and spend my time working to make every level of the business feel valued and fairly compensated. But that’s easy to say, and a lot harder to do. Especially in a public company.

 

[GTyankee]

I worked for the State of California Highway Dept. ( know as CalTrans ) for 33 years. 1970 - 2003

California Employees can not by Law have a Union
WE can have an Association
We could not Strike

Some how the Plumbers Union inserted themselves & they got the employees to pay a monthly Fee for them to represent us. I maintained roads, how can they claim to represent me ?
IF we chose not to pay them for doing nothing, we had to choose a Charity to send the Fee to, i chose San Diego Center for the Blind.

Those that paid the Union all year long, never received anything besides some liquid & something to nibble on during their once a month, during the after hours meeting.
There was no Turkey or Ham at the end of the year, there was no Christmas Check.

End of Rant & Parts are still hard to get, especially parts that are causing our vehicles to be parked, almost useless

 

[Docwagon1776]

Don't fall for the that kind of division.

I support unions.

But, your thinking is just what others do to unions - they look at what union member get paid/benefits and DO say - Unions are the problem.

The American middle class exists entirely because of wage distribution and the ability for large segments of society to have social and economic mobility as a result. We have lived in a historic anomaly, a tiny blip in history where economic and social power were relatively widely dispersed and the middle class was the majority, but because it's a few generations old people think it's the inevitable norm. It isn't. Wealth concentration is power concentration and when it's in fewer and fewer hands, the middle class shrinks. The upper class doesn't expand meaningfully, so the obvious answer is the lower class takes those who fall out of middle class. That's not 'falling for division, that's a rational understanding of economics and history. The industrial revolution made the middle class possible. The Post-WWII rise in middle class buying power (for a number of reasons, not least the GI Bill's effect on middle class home ownership and college attendance) made the US you know today.

The post 1980-ish rise in top level salaries and wage stagnation for the majority reverses that. The Information Revolution will further the gap, as skill gaps become more apparent and the average intelligence worker is displaced by automation and tech at an accelerated pace.

 

[Zoe Saldana]

The American middle class exists entirely because of wage distribution and the ability for large segments of society to have social and economic mobility as a result. We have lived in a historic anomaly, a tiny blip in history where economic and social power were relatively widely dispersed and the middle class was the majority, but because it's a few generations old people think it's the inevitable norm. It isn't. Wealth concentration is power concentration and when it's in fewer and fewer hands, the middle class shrinks. The upper class doesn't expand meaningfully, so the obvious answer is the lower class takes those who fall out of middle class. That's not 'falling for division, that's a rational understanding of economics and history. The industrial revolution made the middle class possible. The Post-WWII rise in middle class buying power (for a number of reasons, not least the GI Bill's effect on middle class home ownership and college attendance) made the US you know today.

The post 1980-ish rise in top level salaries and wage stagnation for the majority reverses that. The Information Revolution will further the gap, as skill gaps become more apparent and the average intelligence worker is displaced by automation and tech at an accelerated pace.

You were correct when you said that " We have lived in a historic anomaly, a tiny blip in history where economic and social power were relatively widely dispersed and the middle class was the majority, but because it's a few generations old people think it's the inevitable norm. It isn't."

You lost it after that.

The middle class has been getting smaller since the 1970s and will continue to do so with things like AI which will reduce the number of corp workers such as HR, Acctg, Legal. Does that make you HAPPY?

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

 

[2020PW]

UAW Auto workers are already the Highest Paid, Unskilled Labor in the country. My best friend was a retired Ford Skilled Trades mechanic, and he was very proud of that fact. He passed away of a Heart Attack in early August. I'm glad he's not seeing all this.
The retirees got screwed over in the last contract, and the one before that. But it wasn't the companies that did it, it was the union brothers that gave them up.

They are not the highest paid unskilled labor.