I had lunch with the fellow I contract my log hauling to today. He also runs a small dirt company. He was headed to Cat to return a oil filter upgrade kit. It was telling me that while his 315 was in his shop getting serviced they broke the "handle" on the top of the filter. Cat told him it was not available and he needed the upgrade kit at a cost of $700 plus. The kit came in yesterday and had the same top piece as the one he broke but with a different part number. He called Cat and the new cover piece was available for under a hundred bucks. He was takng the upgrade kit back when I seen him. Seems parts counter folks do not have the knowledge today like the the old timers had years ago. I would have expected a superceded part number.
It is the same for everything .I needed a seal , didn't have a number but had measurements. They said couldn't get it without part number. I found a site that listed seals by measurements and part numbers,got number ordered seal . It is the computer age ,years ago I would take a seal that I beat up getting out ,go to bearing house ,put on counter ,counter guy would look at it and go in the back and get one.DONE.
Having worked parts counters for Deere and CAT at various times in my life I can tell you it's the manufacturers being obsessively stupidly secret or disorganized about parts. Sometimes if you have the time to dive in and do some research you can worm your way through all the BS and find what the customer needs, but it takes years to learn the back channels to do that, and the parts counter is nobody's idea of a lifetime career, the pay sucks and everybody, literally everybody hates you.
I'm like everyone else, dealing with parts sometimes drives me nuts because so often it lacks any sort of organization, common sense and logic. Recently had a E80 Bobcat excavator come in from rental, customer had bent the brackets on both sides of the arm that mount the hydraulic quick disconnects for attachments. Now aside from being made a left and a right angle bracket they are totally identical in how they are made. Not so, the left bracket was $55 and the right bracket was $67. That stuff just makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Hey, there is one parts guy i like at my local dealer.
Old.. In MY WORLD its the same.. fuel injection has omitted, the small parts breakdown, in an assembly.. A 1.00 spring that breaks constantly, now costs 175.00 as an assembly.. + tax.. I have a "little black book" that I've accumulated over 30+ years w/ part #'s "no longer available" from the manufacturer.. It went missing once & I put up a reward for it.. luckily it was in the parts room where I left it, looking for one of those parts.. I was in a co-workers box looking for a special tool once, and found a small card file binder in there.. Couriosity got the best of me & I looked in it.. It was an EXACT COPY of MY "black book"..!!!! I was pissed!! It was just the point of him STEALING the book, making a photo copy of it and putting it back without my knowledge, is what set me off.. I guess its pretty valuable, if someone is gonna steal it.. lol