The response to last weeks post has about the backfire blowing apart a muffler seems to have struck a cord with the readers and has been enlightening. We have had a couple of stories about backfires and one we have left on the comments for last week which made us chuckle. The other we decided we couldn’t possibly share, it too was a very funny story, thanks Roger for making our day on that story.

A bit of a first this week as we will show you some business documents on what Mustang Maniac gets charged for importing our stock for your purchases and needs. Why? Yet again we are on the brunt of a forum bashing accused of profiting on our stock. Let’s put it into perspective; it’s fine for other companies to make a stupid profit, BP, Shell, Right Move, Legal & General, Amazon, Tesla, BT, Vodaphone, Sky etc. nothing gets said about their profits. But, a little ‘ol car part supplier that dares to try and make a living we get panned for it. TO be honestly we’re not quite sure why. Perhaps it’s the keyboard warriors having a bad day. To put it bluntly, if we don’t make a living from it, then it’s not worth our while continuing. Why would we work hard for nothing? We don’t force you to buy from us, we keep a huge range of products in stock because we can, and it helps our customers as well as ourselves of course for the work we do. We have to pay wages, bills, rates etc. If we sell the parts at cost with no profit we don’t have a sustainable business model. We go into this a bit more later on this post.

’69 Mouse House

A customer had brought their car into us to say that the ventilation and heating is not working in the car. We quickly checked it and confirmed there was indeed a problem even though the hot coolant was getting to the heater matrix, yet but no heat even with the fan working.

Yogi had a feel around inside the heater box and said straight away, we need a new heater box. Yogi started the dismantling of the heater box and it became evident to all of us. A mouse or two had made a nest in the box.

As the heater box was opened the contents started to fall out, eviction notice had been served on the mouse.

Quite how they get in the cars and survive remains a mystery. We checked without the heater box in place and the matrix was heating up fine. The wires were good with no visible signs of teeth marks. Sometimes an airlock can cause similar issues if the pipes have been fitted upside down, on this occasion all was good with the water flow and return. We replaced the heater box and the car smelt fresher and there is heat and ventilation again. We opened up the car for a while outside in the fresh air while we could to give it a bit of an airing. Before you ask; did we find the mouse and it’s mate(s)? Nope, just the empty nest.

’69 Dash Circuit Board

A customer had purchased a replacement circuit board and replaced it last year for the dash area on his ’69. These circuit ‘boards’ are the plastic overlays with the circuits printed onto them for the various connections. A neat idea from Ford and a lead in the industry, but it needed refining.

They look robust, save weight on heavy wiring looms and are relatively easy to fit. But, if you get it wrong, nine times out of ten the who thing will stop working usually down to a shorting out somewhere. Thus was the case here.

From the pic above the customer had been a little ‘enthusiastic’ during the fitting and ultimately it failed. We have these circuits in stock and replaced it correctly.

With everything back in place we did a full dash test and all was good in the world again. 👍

Shipping Costs

We try our very best to keep margins low, but the costs of shipping alone now days is ridiculous. To keep the costs down our margins are constantly getting squeezed, then at some point we have to raise prices to cover it. Adam wanted a chat with us (his social media team), to say he wanted to show you all (our readers) the costs involved. We were a little concerned about it sounding like “poor Mustang Maniac”, but he wants it out there to try and stop the bitching on the forums. As Adam is the boss who pays the wages at the end of he day, as requested we have the evidence for you. We think that people will be a little shocked when they read this.

We have redacted the documents for our private details like bank and the business account details. But everything else is on there for you to see for yourselves. We have highlighted the just the shipping charges in yellow for you.

Firstly, the ‘shipping’ charges are done in one of two ways;

1. The weight of the pallet. This speaks for itself so a pallet of brake drums and starter motors may not take up a lot of space, but the overall weight will be calculated for the shipping costs.
2. The volumetric size of the pallet. If we have a pallet of door rail chrome trims, these are lightweight but are big boxes. In this situation the size that the pallet takes up is charged, even though the weight is considerably less than the brake drums and starters.

Therefore that means that they (being the shipping) company will charge you the most for what they can either weight or size!

The example here is the actual weight of the pallet is 301kg, but the cost of the weight charged for is 523kg. The charge is £2153.21 The actual freight charge is £1104.01 the rest of the costs are for everybody else having their little ‘earners’ out of it.

Secondly:

These ‘shipping charges’ are BEFORE the pallet arrives in the UK where we have to pay the standard HMRC ‘Import Duties’, then after that we have to pay VAT on the duties we just paid!

So that’s the cost of the parts + shipping is then ADDED together for a ‘Pallet Sub Total‘ when it arrives at the UK. Then we pay Import Duty on the full ‘Pallet Sub Total’, (remember that’s the parts AND shipping costs). Then once that has been calculated and then ADDED to the ‘Pallet Sub Total‘ to give us the ‘Imported Pallet Sub Total‘, (which is now inclusive of [parts + shipping ]+ import duties charged). We then have to pay HMRC’s V.A.T (Value Added Tax) on the ‘Imported Pallet Sub Total‘.

So every time somebody says, ‘oh we will stick a “Covid 19 Surcharge” on shipping’, we have to pay import duty on that new charge, and then VAT on the import duty for the new charge. The document is dated 29/6/2022 which of course is up to date. Then another little twist is the subject of the £ to $ exchange rate as well.

We hope that gives you a little insight to every pallet we import. There is no way to get round this, apart from smuggling it in the bottom of a suitcase. But having a 1.7m ’66 Mustang chrome bumper hanging out your Louis Vuitton luggage may just give the game away!

Stay Safe & Take Care!