The Best of Both Worlds By Mike Athay The world of rebuilding is constantly changing and very competitive. Twenty-five years ago, if you had five alternators and five starters on the shelf, you could supply 90 percent of the vehicles on the road. It seemed like any given unit could fit many different vehicles and many different engines. It was in this marketplace that the “big” rebuilders began to appear and flour- ish. The big rebuilders built their units on a production line. They could uti- lize relatively unskilled labor to clean and assemble parts and create large volumes of relatively cheap priced units. Since that time, the world has changed. We stock over 800 units, by far the largest inventory of starters and alternators in the Oakville area, yet hardly a day goes by when we aren’t asked for something that we do not have in stock. The marketplace has changed—almost every vehicle and engine has a unique starter and alter- nator. The large rebuilders must look farther afield and reduce prices to get orders for large enough numbers to keep the assembly line moving. Cuts in pricing sometimes means cuts in quality, or even bankruptcy. Over the last few years, we have seen the demise of two large rebuilders in Canada and several more in the U.S. However, some of the large rebuilders have managed to maintain their quality and pricing on the more common units. Usually this is done by boosting the cost of the less common units. Often, two units may be virtually identical ex- cept for a housing and the large rebuilders will have vastly different prices for these items. The price dif- ference has nothing to do with the cost of the components—tt has everything to do with the popularity of the unit and how many they can build at a time on the production line! The smaller rebuilders in today’s marketplace have the advantage of diversity. Small rebuilders employ skilled people who understand the complexities of auto- motive electrics. They can easily adapt and build whatever is needed. For this reason, the small rebuilder is not only well prepared to serve a diverse mar- ketplace, but is essential to build those special units which wouldn’t be avail- able otherwise. We recognize, however, that even in this marketplace there are some ad- vantages to production line rebuilding for those more “common” units and we have been progressively working to give our customers the best of both worlds. We have the skilled, knowl- edgeable staff and have been working to build alliances with large rebuilders to give the best prices on the more common units. This approach has been part of our business plan for a few years but today we are at the point where we feel confident that we have obtained our goal. It hasn’t been easy but we now are distributors for three large rebuilders— Wilson, Alternator Ex- change, and our newest addition, BlueStar. BlueStar batteries have been a great addition to our product line and now BlueStar starters and alternators are also available through us. We feel confident that we can give our custom- ers both the advantages of a large rebuilder as well as a small rebuilder. Alternators and starters are the heart of our business and we would not sell a unit without knowing that it is up to JUNE/JULY, 2000 our quality standard and covered with our one year warranty just like our own units. In fact, the Wilson automotive units are not covered by a two year warranty. Who else can offer the best of both worlds! Mike Athay is president of Oakville Starter Alternator, Ltd., Oakville, Ontario. Page 1 of 1