Parts rant

BVoelzke said
Everything is messed up...I agree using the covid reason is just an excuse for poor customer service...I have been waiting since February of my new 21 Ram Classic pickup every week its a different ship date from the dealer and the "Ram hotline" ... I sent a rocker arm to Hughes Engines for inspection via UPS and it took a week and a half to get there from N.J. I kept checking the tracking number and it was UPSs fault. " operational problem " was the reason... they had no problem taking my $16 to ship one aluminum rocker though! Jegs and Summit are great until you have to call and change or cancel an order via phone be prepared for an hour plus. I recently purchased a set of Indy rockers from two brothers in Maryland rather than have them shipped I drove the 8 hour plus round trip to get them as I didn't trust the post office or UPS to large rare earget them to me in a timely manner. I did however order tires from Summit on Monday and I had them on Wednesday which is normal when I wanted to modify the order was when I had a problem they did text me back but it took a few hours . I find myself buying more from my local well stocked speed shop lately as their prices are almost the same as mail order.

Your truck may be held up because of a lack of computer chips and what else. It will only get worse. That idiot Reagan started moving the mining and working of rare earth metals to China, and his boy Bush finished off the job. The US has one rare earth mine and it was shut down long ago. It will likely never open again. It’s in California BTW.

Why is that a big deal? Because rare earth metals are used in virtually everything we use today. Cell phones, computers, GPS...just about anything electronic. Sadly, it’s used extensively in virtually all of our sophisticated weapons systems.

So where do we get the stuff from?? China. And who manufactures a large amount of pieces for those weapons systems? China.

It would seem to a 9th grade educated fool like me that’s a horrible policy. If for no other reason that dependency on a hostile nation for self defense is an idiotic philosophy. Plus, it makes espionage and the theft of all kinds of technology China could never develop on its own.

Just stupid policy. And Ronny got the ball rolling.