I just took out my ignition switch to clean the contacts. Well the heat and age of plastic did not lend it being put back together unfortunately..

Now I'm left with a car that I have to hot wire to start and I have just ordered an ignition switch from Mazda (nobody else carries it or it's a 4 week wait) for over $200 for a piece of copper, a couple of ball bearings, springs and a plastic cylinder.

Does anybody know of a non-oem parts list that works with the FD? i.e. would a Miata ignition switch, Miata alternator etc etc work with various "standard" parts for the car?

The ignition switch component is pretty standard. I understand obviously that other parts are FD only but I'm just curious if anybody has had any experience with using alternative parts?

It really pisses me off to spend a few hundred bucks on something so trivial and that was designed poorly in the first place (the copper points were worn down - so even if I could have put the thing back together the contact was crap)

The car only has 55k miles on and has been looked after like a baby. It makes you wonder about what else can go wrong...

I'm interested in hearing anyone else's stories of parts woes and wonder if we can help keep the spare parts from killing FD's owners budgets.

 

If you were in the US, I'd say it is because it is a rare car and the parts were never produced in volumn.

But since you are in Australia, I don't know.

How many were imported to Aus?

 

I don't know of any alternatives for the ignition pieces. However, there are some pieces which can be used from Miata's and FC's. Keep in mind that while car prices drop as they get older, their part prices do not. For instance, Ferrari 348 parts cost just as much today as they did when the car was made. However, you can buy one now for much cheaper than they were new.

The old saying, buying the car is only 1/3 of the battle.

 

I actually moved to the US a while ago, Though it's definitely easier to get parts in Australia given that a ton of FD's including the series VII and VIII's have been imported make a great spare part business

The less common the car the more expensive the part I think is a fair call to make as well...

Thanks for the input though..

 

Some FD parts is expensive, but in comparison to other enthusiast cars like the M3 or the S4, it's not as expensive.

There are ways to cut cost like buying used parts versus new. It's amazing the variety of parts that comes through the For Sale section of the forum.

 

I have an ignition switch you can buy

 

I'm down for buying 2nd hard parts. Like Ranchan said some parts are expensive and other parts are very reasonable.

What I don't understand is the manufacturers cost model. Volume is the key to the model yet so is the cost to manufacture which is partly derived from volume and product tolerance.

But why do such crappy little parts that from my perspective are simple to make cost far more than much larger parts that may be more inherently complex and contain much more 'material'?

Understandably tolerance is probably a significant factor which increases price. The tolerance of a given part must be tested and verified within certain boundaries and the lower the tolerance the more testing and accurate manufacturing processes required to make it which drives the cost up.

In regards to SLOASFK unfortunately I have already bought the ignition switch out of frustration. I did do a search through the forums and I probably should have put up an advertisement for one Thanks anyways though!

I think I have ranted enough about the subject, sorry to whinge but it feels good to vent my frustrations at how much we get gipped on parts. I am glad at least we have a forum where we can trade parts at decent prices and help each other out.

In future I'll post up ads re: parts before whinging about buying new ones!

Thanks!

 

Mazda, like many OEMs, does not make take a penalty in new car sales by having expensive parts. They only make more money.

In general, the marketing teams focus on new car buyers. Owners who take the time to shop around for parts are the lowest priority. These owners don't tend to take their car to their dealer service garages, and they tend to fix rather than buy a new car. Generally speaking. So the OEM has room to increase parts prices, and they do. I work for an OEM company and we jack the hell out of spare parts prices because we want to sell new stuff. (not my decision, but it's universally true). Generally speaking, OEMs only stock spare parts because they are required to.

Now for the FD in particular, there were under 10000 LHD FDs made in total. In the world of cars and parts, that's not a big number.
- The smaller the number of the parts, the less likely the part is to be sold and used. There are huge warehouses of parts that will never be bought or used, and when you buy a spare part you're helping to pay for all of them.
- smaller production numbers tend to keep out aftermarket companies (again, not enough volume for the aftermarket to make money).
- the FD is a very well-optimized design that does not share very many parts with other vehicles.

Dave

 

There's an old saying:

"Buy all your spare parts from me, you can have the car for free".