OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics It's no wonder this country is shutting down !

I needed a couple of 626Z bearings to fix a ceiling fan that's become a tad noisy. It wasn't an El cheapo fan as it had a Fasco motor fitted and they are generally repairable.

I checked in with one of our local bearing suppliers and the best they would do is $4.10 per bearing. I said pass on that and checked out the prices on the ol bay. You can buy 5 for $2.98 and that's delivered......... WTF !!!!

Now as I have two of these identically same fans installed in the house the pack of 5 was a no brainer as I'm going to do both units and make them quiet again.

The bearings that were originally installed had the name Singapore stamped into the metal shield and as such these were no SKF' NSK etc big money units.

So how can these businesses survive when charging these sort of exorbitant figures and generally sourcing their products from where else but the same place we can now buy from ?.........Asia.

Even now with the added GST on overseas internet sales these local businesses still don't want to even try to compete, they're just happy to sound their own death knell and have Mason Gray and Strange move in eventually and auction off the lot, which seems to being happening on a weekly basis nowadays.

It's no wonder this country is heading where it is..................down the gurgler.

Cheers,
BB.

PS this thread could've also gone into the "Tech Talk" sub-forum under "International Movement Fixing Community" topic but I've decided to give it a life of it's own here in "Off Topics" as it slightly differs and is a tad more political I feel.

Hi BB,
there is nothing that can be done about this now, the internet has changed the game forever and the local retailers have no way of competing or even getting close. I still have a mate who has been repairing Triumph motorcycles all his life, slowed down over the last few years since he closed his shop and moved up the bush. He has a computer but doesn't know how to use it apart from checking emails, so when he wants parts he either writes to the supplier or rings them to order parts. He pays top dollar for his bits but he is not going to change. Anybody from a slightly younger generation just hops on the computer and is able to source parts from anywhere in the world at the click of a button. This was not an option 10/15 years ago so this will continue to chip away at any business that is trying to make a living , paying the rent and all the other associated costs of running a business. Where this is going to leave this country and many others is hard to predict, but we are constantly told we must adapt to a changing world, I would just love to know how I can adapt

We have to change our value of money and reduce our standards of living, it's that simple I feel

Great story B_B -in a morbid sense!
I have my own example from yesterday.
I recently bought a second hand Sony Handycam from the 2000s and discovered it had the wrong leads to connect it to the tv for play back.
The end that goes into the camera is specific to Sony so I called Jaycar a a starting point. Man in phone said they don't carry proprietary cables like that and said to try Harvey Norman or Camera House. Guy at CH said they are too old a model to carry that cable and gave me a number of a business in Melbourne who specialise in proprietary stuff for older Sharp and Sony products. They were shut by Friday at 5pm so I looked on their website only to find they no longer had that cable available but had a close substitute that would work. When I clicked on the link to it, I was dismayed to find it cost $30 for what amounted to an RCA cable with a unique end.
I thought EBay time. It didn't take long to find an aftermarket version of the exact cable I was after for $4.70 incl postage from a Hong Kong based seller.
Only thing, I have to wait about three weeks. Oh well, I will have to be content to record footage for now.

MF, it is not going to change, many people now have the internet so you can buy anything if you are prepared to wait.The retail industry in Aus is never going to be able to compete with this

I think you hit the nail there NormK. I still prefer to get stuff from so called bricks and mortar retail as long as it is not more expensive by a high percentage compared to online.

If its bearing prices you're looking at, the front wheel bearings for any early rover, R10 imperial, Price from the local mower shop was $16 each I can get a pair off ebay for 16.95. Still expensive, but Half the price...

At least when we made things here, there were somewhat fewer middle men - now we have the original company, the importer, the wholesaler, etc down to the end shop. Add to that freight and it is just being priced out of the market.

It is when you see thing like line trimmer primer bulbs - buy 10 for $4 on ebay, but this is only slightly over the price GA apparently charge suppliers for 1 bulb. They then sell for $9 in most cases.

I needed a few of the rubber grommets for the trimmer tanks - I had a few choice:
Spend $12 and get one down the road
Spend $5 and get one from over east
or spend $5.80 and get 5 grommets, 5 fuel filters and 10 fuel lines (long inlet and short return) from china direct.

As much as I like to support local business, there is just no way I can justify it - I needed 5 grommets and spending $55 on cheapie ryobis and homelites plus fuel line, filters, diaphragms and plugs is not going to happen

Sadly everyone wants to do very little in this country and be paid very much while in other countries with a lower standard of living they will do a lot more for a whole lot less, it's that simple I've always said. The sooner some more of these money hungry morons hit the wall the better.

This country along with many other western societies needs a huge reality check, as does our Government.

The saying "the best form of welfare is to get a job" is just moronic as they are all going OS.

This country has for many years been run by fools, manufacturing has collapsed and now the dairy industry is following this wipe out, with dairy farmers walking out in droves. Spending billions of dollars on public transport projects is great for the blokes working on these projects as they are making squillions of dollars for little effort.This is not going to help getting this state working again or to keep any industries alive. I see little future for this country while we politicians thinking whats in it for me in the short term and not giving a second thought to what they should be doing to get this once great country going again

Hi speaking of dairy, I bought some 2 litre milk the other day from Aldi, who are meant to have the cheapest everyday prices right?

Well their 2 litre full cream and lite milks are now $2.39 each. They are still only $2.20 each at Coles and Safeway (Woolworths).

So the price of milk is rising, is any of that extra money now going to support the farmers?

Converse,
I think the 20 cent increase is a supermarket con job, very similar to the plastic bag removal, supermarkets have not had to do a thing except removing the plastic bags they have saved from memory about $77 million each. With the milk, too little,too late, farmers have either gone broke, or are so far in debt that they will never recover. I guess we will be importing milk from NZ before long. Australia is such a dumb country

The part about the plastic bag fiasco is just a slap in the face. First it was about being friendly to the planet and removing plastic bags that were being paid for within the price structure of the groceries.

Then they removed them and sold us those Green material style bags to reuse over and over again, now whe you walk up to the checkout the first thing they say to you is not Hello, but did you want a bag ? and then have the audacity to hit you up 15 cents per "Plastic" bag.

So what actually changed ? prices never dropped when the first lot of bags stopped, so they were then making more money with no expenditure and now their making even more because dumb idiots actually pay cash up front for plastic bags.

As you said Norm, this is such a dumb country run by Smart TV's and Smart phones which are programmed by dumb idiots for dumb idiots who are being lead like lambs to the slaughter house.

G'day NormK and Bonnar_Bloke,

Yes I agree NormK I have noticed that the price of both store brand bread and milk has been creeping up over the last few months.

I think Aldi has thought the farmers are now getting that extra 20c, we might as well also pocket an extra 20c per milk sold. Won't be long until Coles and Woolworths up the price of their milks also.

I know a person that has worked in the plastic bag industry here in Australia and you'd think after all the bag bans how they hell are they still in business here. Those old grey plastic single use bags used to cost about 1c per bag to make. They were all imported from Thailand and China. I have heard from people in the industry that those so called "green" reusable bags create more air pollution per bag to produce than the old grey bags ever did.

Also as I have mentioned once before I have noticed that everyone is just buying those 15c reusable bags at the checkout then they are all getting thrown out with the houshold rubbish into the plain green landfill rubbish bins. Yep that's great for the environment just replace the grey bags with the now thicker white bags in landfill.

Then here in Victoria they are saying that most of the recycling will end up in landfill as it can't be processed. Oh looks like everything is on track for a bright green future..lol

Yes I'm not one of those sleepwalking zombies with the latest smartphone and everything else that goes with it. What really scares me is because of these new age zombies and how the big banks are now pushing for all payments to be made via these damn smartphones and other new devices. We are all sleepwalking into one day becoming a cashless society! Just think about it. I always use cash wherever I can. It's the one independant thing we have left to be able to buy and sell things from one another without "Big Brother" watching everything we do.

Cheers!

Hi Converse,

Guess what ? I've got bad news for you................I think that within 10 years we will be a cashless society and then every cent will be accounted for and the Government will just be able to reach in and take when they want to.

The sad thing is that all the youngens just love all the tech that's coming in making them feel really cool with their dumb phones, well one day they'll realise that they have absolutely no privacy and everyone will know them by a chipped number.

And we thought the Australia Card was going to be an issue ??

Cheers,
BB.

And just to prove how corrupt the plastic ban was, I was listening to a researcher last week, somebody who monitor supermarket sales and trends and since the one use bag was banned there has been a huge increase in the sales of plastic bin liners. Supermarkets have had another win

The criminals (supermarket chains) of course, don't pass on the savings from not supplying one use bags, and double dip by selling those two to three use bags.
There should be hand cuffs with the names of executives of these ripoff merchants inscribed.
Australian businessman are worse than American businessmen in unscrupulous practises.
A disgrace of a country.

Don't give our businesses ideas.

The government is saying inflation is near zero yet I am seeing quite a bit of price hikes lately mainly due the stupid tariffs that are imposed by tRump. He just don't get it that consumer is bearing these taxes and not the companies themselves. I do see several of my parts suppliers raising their price on me but are expecting me not to pass along the increases as they hold the suggested retail prices the same. I am not going to sell items below cost which they are expecting me to do unless I order more than I need to get to the free shipping levels.

Personally I just wish people weren't so lazy. Here we can recycle these plastic t-shirt bags. They are so lazy that will not will put them in the trash but rather just throw them out the vehicle windows. Then of course we got to deal them all over the place and rescue those animals that haven't die yet from getting trapped by them. Even my mother was bad to throw out trash before we got home. I fussed on her about it as the trash was right by where I parked when I got home. Yet she complained about others doing the same thing.

I got several the reusable bags even they were thrown out. I do carry in all my plastic bags, both the t-shirts and many of my parts bags to the local Walmart store. I grew up when paper bags used and I still them occasionally which I either reuse or recycle them too.

So far the local stores are not charging for the plastic bags but I see it coming as it is spreading across the USA now. Actually the price of the reusable cloth type bags prices actually have gone down here. Sometimes I even get them free new. The only problem I have with them is the handles are to long so I got to shorten them so they don't drag the ground as I carry them to where I am going.

I reckon I got long arms and short legs. LOL. I was looking for pants yesterday and all I could find was 38 x 30 for the shortest inseam. I currently wearing that size with the cuffs rolled up nearly 2 inches.

G'day Mowerfreak ... fair call there.

It appears a self-regulatory code is insufficient here.
Legislation is needed!

-------------------------------
Jack

p.s. I just read AVB's brilliant USA comments. Very insightful of how
global commerce works. Although I feel AVB needs mudflaps on his underpants.
[Maybe with that 'backoff logo']

Jack, when it wet here on my place I could use something like snow shoes to across much of my lawn. And if really rains hard I need scuba gear or a small flat bottom boat.

And Sorry Jack no place for mudflaps to attach to as no underpants. I did however recently lost a boot crossing the lawn so it is definitely muddy at times. The backoff logo Yosemite Sam with both guns drawn on the mudflaps I have seen.

Man I would love that as a rear bumper sticker with the caption BACK OFF!!! It would be handy around here for all the impatient lug nuts who sit on your tail.

MF, that Back Off sticker has been around for years, usually on the back of big wheeled 4WD's, don't think they would have much impact stuck on the back of a Huyandai

Or Fiat 500's for that matter which apparently are all over the roads in Melbourne nowadays. Very intimidating car...........Not.

How's this for a beast? My first car a 1978 Chrysler taken circa 1998.

Preferred the HZ in it's day to be brutally honest, sorry to let you down gently, btw is that a flanny ?

Even though it was made in your home town??
I love the HZ too as well as the XC Falcon (especially the later batch with the blackened grill and blue oval Ford logo in the centre).
The hemi six engine jib the Valiant was the least affected of the sixes by the 27A emission requirements of mid 1976. The 202 red motor in the HZ was a dog's breakfast in comparison to both Ford and Chrysler. 66kw out of a 3.3l inline six was appalling and not much better with the 253 V8 at around 80 measly KW. Only the 308 managed a three figure amount of 120kw. The 265 hemi six achieved the same.
Ford' s crossflow version of the 4.1 fared better but neither compared to the more advanced 245' and 265 hemi sixes.

G'day all

Many thanks AVB for the famous 'Back-off' image!
An iconic image that has so many places nowadays.
I wish so many people, things, politicians, commerce ... life ... would back off!

Mowerfreak, that is a fantastic image! I love the composition ...
- the centred new tarmac
- the centred grill
- the centred light post

You - the handsome young man - sit off centre, a sign of independent thinking,
and rebellion. You dictate your self-created lane in life. A somewhat confident stance.

And no 'flano' shirt in sight. This was South American chic fashion for youth of the day.
The vertical stripes present binary opposites - black and white - that remind
me of Robert Frost's, The Road Not Taken.

The Road Not Taken

A very good and clever composition - even if not intended ... maybe ...

Many thanks for sharing.

--------------------------
Jack

G'day everyone,

Nice old car there Mowerfreak! Is that the CL or CM Model Valiant? Seriously when I was looking to buy a first car there was a family friend down the road that had one of these same cars I think it was a 1980 model CM Valiant, it was like a gold coloured model sedan and it had the ELB 4.3 litre inline six? I think that's what it was? Anyway he didn't drive it anymore as back then he had retired and had just bought a newer VS Commodore or something like that. I think back then they wanted something like 1 grand for the car as it was. Anyway he let me take the keys and drive it around for a day to see what I thought of it and if I wanted it I could buy it or just return the car to him if I didn't want it. This must have been around 1998 or 1999. Same era as your photo there Mowerfreak!

It did have quite a bit of rust especially in the plenum area under the windscreen in the engine compartment. Also the interior was pretty worn out and stuffed. The engine also felt like it was missing on a cylinder all the time and felt like it was low on power. I had a look at the engine and it looked like it was recently serviced so I thought back then that the engine had problems and needed a rebuild or something. Anyway in the day that I had it I ended up fixing something where the handbrake lever was and got it working properly. Sadly in the end it needed to much work to get it into roadworthy condition so I returned the car to him, I said sorry but it needs a bit too much work to get it into roadworthy condition. I think after a few months of sitting at the front of his house someone ended up buying it as a parts car or something.

Back then I was also looking at buying a first car, I looked at a few HZ Kingswoods and also a few XC Falcons, as you could imagine even back then most of them were rustbuckets and they were asking around 3 to 5 grand for them! I was looking only at the V8 models though.

Cheers!

CyberJack, great breakdown of the one picture! You possess a gift of the abstract!! You made my day.
Thanks for pointing out that was not a flannels shirt but a pullover. I had forgotten about that top until I recently discovered this long forgotten gem inside a book as I was helping my mum to pack for moving.
I had long been lamenting my lack of a decent photograph of my first car, the Val and was overjoyed to find this print doing a task I didn't look forward to.
Converse, that is a CL with either a CM grill out CL Charger grill I fitted as I never liked the standard CL Valiant grill with the horizontal slats it came with. This, as well as painting the inner part of the headlight surrounds gunmetal grey, as with the CM, lifted it's appearance greatly to my (and others) eyes.
It was dual fuel but the petrol part stopped working due to lack of use. It became a gas only vehicle for most of my time with it. After the manifold spung a leak, the local muffler shop fitted extractors as they said they couldn't source an original exhaust manifold.
While it gave a very sporty sound, I missed the distinct 245 hemi exhaust bark it made before and it kind of lost it's character. Performance lifted though and It really took of at the lights, so there was a silver lining and others commented they could hear it coming long before they saw it, but I was a purist and always wished I had hunted out a used original manifold as I loved the factory original note.

Hi Mowerfreak, great stuff mate. Takes me back to an almost forgotten point in time!

My mates who had various Valiants back in those days actually didn't have one of these CL or CM models. I think theirs were the older models like the 1969 2 door Pacer as used in the Wog Boy movie. I remember they had a couple of them with the rumbling V8 engines and the twin exhausts out the back. Gees it seems so long ago now. My neighbour had a mate that had the same style Valiant as yours. I tell ya he kept onto that thing until literally the police eventually caught up with it and put a sticker on it making it unroadworthy, which was probably around 5 years ago now. It was rusted pretty badly all over. I remember my neighbour telling me that he had shoved scrunched up newspapers in all the rusted body holes around the cabin as the wind entering the cabin was pretty bad when it was quite cold outside! lol. Well anyway at least that owner did drive it and keep that beast until it's very last day it was on the road! Good old Valiants!

I might have to try and find a photo of my first car and my mates first cars from back in the day. I think we took a photo of all 4 cars lined up back then. I hope I still have it somewhere on an old backup hard drive in the cupboard. I still remember when I bought my first car back in 1999 which was a 1977 XCGS sedan all factory original 302 V8, t-bar auto, LSD, 4 wheel disc brakes and the twin exhaust system, the price of leaded super petrol which was still available in late 1999 when I bought my car was around 79 cents a litre.

Cheers!