I need help with a Dime wagon

[Patcon]

I haven't liked dealing with my local Nissan dealer. Also Courtesy has been very good to us vintage car owners and I would like to support that effort. I have the same thing with my BMW's. I buy parts out of Buena Vista, CA because my local dealer always wants to hurt$$ me. Even with freight from California the parts are much cheaper than I can get locally.

 

Any insight on whether it is really available if I can add it to the cart?

[jfa.series1]

The "out of stock 2-4 days" usually means its not on-hand, will ship to them from the whse with 2-4 days arrival.  Its the dreaded NLA you don't want to see!

[Patcon]

Thanks Jim,

I hadn't seen many NLA items I'm looking for thankfully

[Captain Obvious]

Interesting that parts availability came up... I spent some time at ZCON talking to the guys from Courtesy about that very topic.

 

I've had a couple occasions where I've found parts on their website with a reasonable price, but when I inquired deeper, the parts were actually NLA. I was asking the Courtesy guys if there was any way to tell without them manually looking into it, and the answer was "no".

 

So, unfortunately, even if it looks like a good part on their website, it might not be. They'll NLA them as the situation occurs, but until they look into it, they don't know and it looks like a good part.

[Patcon]

Thanks Bruce,

That's what I was afraid of. I will just have to try some numbers and see what happens. I need a lot of the seals as most of these are crunchy. We'll see what I get.

[Darrel]

ratsun.net is a good forum too.

[Zup]

Hi Charles!

I've found it best to call them first thing in the morning (~ 7:30 a.m. CDT) with the part numbers at the ready.

They'll do a quick inquiry to their system and can usually tell with some certainty whether or not the part/s is/are available.

Sometimes, if it is an extensive list, they will call back with that information rather than endure a long hold.

 

At times I've tried to order parts that aren't readily available using their internet storefront, but I've had long waits only to find the part wasn't available using that method.

Talking to a real person works best for me!

 

Jim D.

"Zup"

[Patcon]

Thanks Jim

[Captain Obvious]

One "trick" that I've used to help determine availability is to check at a couple other dealerships as well. If it shows up as a good part number at other dealerships, then you can be pretty sure that it's still a good number and Courtesy can get it. But if it shows up as an invalid part number elsewhere, you're about 50-50 as to whether Courtesy can get it or not.

 

And one other tidbit... Recently I noticed that a bunch of the other (non-Courtesy) Nissan dealers had all standardized on a new format for their website. I told the guys at Courtesy that I didn't like the new format and they said they were updating theirs as well, but weren't doing what the other dealers had done.

 

My feedback to them was "Good. And thanks for keeping a light on for the old Datsun stuff."

 

Now this was all in the hanger at ZCON2015, so they were clearly there in support of the Nissan/Datsun. I told them that it's great that they are willing to put in the extra effort to work on the old low volume stuff and not hate doing it.

[Patcon]

Thanks Bruce

Do most Nissan dealerships have an online parts portal?

[Captain Obvious]

I don't know about "most", but a lot of them do. Maybe 50/50? Problem (my opinion) is that a lot of them have recently standardized on a web site design and I don't like the new one. Here's a couple options near you. Note that they are all running the same website. They probably enter in their own percentage discount off stock and their shipping and handling charges, but other than those customizable parameters, they're all the same.

 

Scott Clark in Charlotte - http://charlottenissanparts.com/?siteid=216961

East Charlotte in Charlotte - http://www.nissanpartstogo.com/?siteid=216616

Harrelson in Rock Hill - http://harrelsonnissansocarolinaparts.com/?siteid=216864

 

Thankfully Courtesy has not succored to the temptation to standardize. Hopefully they never will. There are fewer things I hate more than searching by VIN.

 

Courtesy - http://www.courtesyparts.com/

[CanTechZ]

While searching for something else I found this 510 FSM:

http://datsun510.com/manuals/Service_Manual_510_1600_1973.pdf

They have a lot of old Datsun content, beware some files are very large:

http://datsun510.com/manuals/