Attn: Rich Stern ( and any other 01-05 St owners concerned about discontinued parts)

[Todd Z]

Rich, I am posting this here because you brought up a good concern in the chat the other day.



I made some phone calls concerning how long a manufacturer must offer parts for a discontinued model of car/truck.

The industry standard used to be 10 years... So if your 05 ST needed an OEM part you should be able to get it from ford until 2015.



BUT, This has changed, Now they drop mechanical parts earlier because of all the aftermarket production of parts. Trim items are still warehoused for this time, But if an item has no demand, it will be canceled. BUT, sometimes they will run a lot if the demand goes back up.

It is really based on popularity now and the jobber numbers. All parts are sold in a category. A,B,C D, W, Z. There are not all 26 letters used. About 5-6. A W Number is a warehouse only( most places will not stock passed a B rating number) and Z is discontinued and stock is being depleted.

But again with all the after market stuff now, There should be no worries from the members here with older Tracs. BUT this could be a good excuse to buy a newer one..



Hope this Helps

AND if any one knows anything about this for sure Please let me know, AND if you think something is wrong, Well you can tell me that too..:lol:

Todd Z

 

[Rich Stern]

Todd, my question during the chat was whether it was mandated by law. I didn't think so. You used the term "industry standard," which leads me to believe it isn't a regulation, just a business practice.



Personally, I'm not worried about parts availability for older Sport Tracs. They'll be available for a long time.

 

[Jim Johnson]

In my experience, Ford has been pretty good -- usually -- about providing parts for older trucks, but not necessarily so for cars (e.g.: by 1996, it was getting hard to get common parts from Ford for my 1990 Probe GT). Now, I hope they treat the ST like a truck!

 

[Tom Schindler]

Jim,



For the Probe GT, for the most part, you are just as well getting parts from the Mazda dealer.





Tom

 

[Jim Johnson]

Tom - That's exactly what I did! I just lied to them and told them I had an MX6 GT, because I found out that, if I told them I had a PGT, they were reluctant to sell me parts. (Don't have the PGT anymore -- replaced it with the Lightning after 13 years).

 

[Nelson Atwell]

Even if Ford stops making parts today, we'll have plenty of parts in the junk yards for years to come, due to the popularity of the Explorer. Some Sport Trac unique items may become hard to find, but that will take longer than most of us will own our trucks.