First Brands Bankruptcy - some of our car parts included
 

First Brands (Private Equity firm) bought a bunch of car part suppliers.....

Fram, Anco, Raybestoes, Cardone to name a few.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/firs...-car-truck-suv

Everywhere you look money is a dire issue, every country, every state, every county, every city, One common issue , Central Bank system its crashing.

Yeah, mostly (to me) private equity buyouts and mergers usually means Wall Street is going to cash in and destroy the companies in their fold.

NY Times did a good story a year or two ago about Red Lobster chain. All the companies that bought it, screwed everyone.

Seeing the same thing happening in car parts. This is just one example. Look at Edelbrock and Comp Cams. I waited over a year
for a Edelbrock trans controller. At the Detroit Auto Show last year, guys from Edelbrock booth seemed to care less about anything.

To me, kinda just buying time.

I was never a fan of the global supply chain, sure won't get fixed anytime soon.......

First Brands has allot of product in their portfolio. The one that probably slips under the radar but will effect the most people is A1 Cordone. Not that well recognized, but they supply ALL the rebuilt parts for NAPA, ORiely's, Advanced Auto Parts, KOI, Auto Zone and others. They are a Single Source supplier for water pumps, alternators, Starters, Steering Racks, Steering pumps, Master Cylinders, Boosters, Drive Axle shafts and more. They are huge. Even though almost all their stuff is garbage, many, many people depend on their crap to keep their daily drivers on the road. If they completely go away, wrecking yard prices on all those parts will go up substantially.
My guess is some other "distressed goods", investment group will buy First Brands for pennies on the dollar and run what's left of them into the ground over the next 5-7 years. Time will tell.

Won't miss Fram, won't miss Anco. Raybestos will be a loss. Cardone may or may not be a loss.

Well, they've been selling total garbage to the consumers for the last ten years, maybe that's why they went broke. The restocking or disposal of massive amounts returned garbage is probably quite expensive.

If there is a market for the parts, someone will fill that market, might be a bit more expensive, but I'd pay more for parts that aren't absolute junk.

Yea all the rebuilt parts here are A1 Cardone. And Raybestos is a good brand for brake stuff.
I am sure a lot will get picked up and outsourced to China.

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Dang. Raybestos I will miss, use a bunch of their' stuff, there pads almost exclusively.

.

I think Cardone has most of their work done in Mexico. Not sure about that though. Love them or hate them, FRAM is the #1 filter brand as far as sales. Autolite has been around for almost 100 years. I think many of these brands will live on in some form or another. Mostly living off their name and former reputation. Products may have no correlation to their former selves.

Hopefully the NOS Energy drink remains available forever.... I understand it's owned by a different group

NOS
 

Last few years I ave enjoyed scouring WWW and eBay
For NOS items for my bird. I am not worried about paying a bit more
If I have the right part the first time.
Seems like every time a great deal saved me a few bucks it then bit
Me in the ass later.

Gerry.

Raybestos parts are already produced in China.

It’s unfortunate but it’s happening more and more, generally the brands will get spun off and sold to another manufacturer. Being in the industry and knowing people who are potentially losing their jobs it’s never good when we see something like this but as I mentioned, it’s happening more and more now. Private equity is the driver but also the only ones who can afford these colossal brands so the game will continue on.

Fram and Autolite have been bought and sold a bunch of times throughout their life. Brief, possibly incomplete history of Autolite. 1911-1960 independent company. 1961 bought by Ford. 1973 bought by Bendix, became Bendix, FRAM, Autolite. 1980 bought by Allied Signal. 1999 All of them bought by Honeywell. 2011 bought by the Rank Group equity firm then sold to First Brands. 2025 First Brands bankrupts them. We have the largest FRAM domestic plant a few miles from where I live in Greenville, OH. They recently completed a huge expansion almost doubling their production capacity. They also make a ton of private label filters there. Future is uncertain of course now. Autolite has been making the majority of their spark plugs in China and Mexico for a long time. Once a private equity firm buys a legacy brand or group of brands, nothing good happens from that time forward. I just think of it as a slow liquidation of product and assets. Every now and then one of the brands is split off and can survive as an independent once again. But that's rare.

When I started working in product development, we were educated on the importance of treating our supply chain ethically. The corporate policy was literally to recognize every supplier as critical to our success and was only going to be there if they made a reasonable profit. We made sure the suppliers succeeded.

When I retired, the definition of "good business" had changed to stripping everything possible from the supplier and believing they were doing the same to us.

Somewhere in between, private equity and massive industry consolidation happened.

Ethics were replaced by extortion, coercion, and the pursuit of exorbitant wealth for those running the companies. Employees went from being assets to liabilities.

I'm glad I got to experience that extinct better business world and I'm grateful for being paid by many employers but yes, I am now cynical about all this.

Thankfully, this hobby helps me feel better about the world.

Filing for chapter 11 does not mean they are going out of business or the brands and parts will disappear.

True, but I'd hazard a guess the $500M the court approved to restructure and fix the company will get pissed away in short order.

Private equity is there to make money at the expense of the companies they buy, not to make anything better.

In my opinion, greed, greed and more greed.

Another trade group I belong to, we had a member from FRAM. Long time ago they saw the wrong direction FRAM was going.

They committed themselves to Made in America and high quality products.

Another member noted they are expanding there plant again in Ohio. My guess is most of these companies get sold or gutted and the equity
parent either sells them off to more private equity buddies - or everything goes down the toilet.

In the back of my mind, I'd say this is a huge push to the repair industry to get pushed aside.

The OEM's are doing as good job at it. Could have sworn in the last 10 years GM said the repair world was a $1.5T market, and they wanted to control all of it.

I think they are doing a good job with modern cars, we're close behind.

It isn't good news, that's for sure.

There will be significant pressure to cheapen the product(s) and raise prices.

Anything made in the USA will move to China. Anything made in China will move to Vietnam, or some other hell-hole with lower tariffs.

WE NEED HIGHER TARIFFS.

Some or all of those changes may come to pass but as long as the brand names and products have value they likely continue. Quality might change but seems most of the manufacturing costs have already been sucked out. Most people like cheaper stuff so that is what gets delivered.

It's painful to hear, but one of the driving factors in the destruction of quality US brands is .... us. The consumer constantly puts pressure on manufacturers to lower prices, at the auto parts counter if they have a few choices they will pick the cheapest one. Companies have to go to greater lengths to turn a profit, cut quality, off-shore manufacturing etc.

Bear in mind WE here do not represent the typical part buying public, we consider quality, 99% of parts buyers only consider price.

Back in the days of no internet and less mobility people shopped at their local auto parts store, often only one was within a reasonable distance, there wasn't much window shopping for cheaper parts. Many auto parts stores only carried one brand or tier of products.

I'm not certain of it, but it sure feels like (inflation taken into consideration) that parts are cheaper now than they were 40 years ago. I remember things like alternators and water pumps etc being a not insubstantial amount of money (but then I probably had less money to spend back then)

Kinda like the airlines, if you wonder why a modern flight is like taking a standing room bus in a bad neighborhood ... we'll people got online and searched and searched for the cheapest flight .... that's what the airlines started providing.

I agree and this is one of the things I really appreciate about Rock Auto. They list the part you want to buy and all of the choices they carry. They start with the cheapest crap that will last a couple months in daily use and move up to the best stuff they sell, usually at the highest price. Then the customer pics what they feel is best for their situation and budget. I love to have choices. The problem is as quality legacy brands go bankrupt, are acquired by equity groups, or go away, those choices become fewer. A good example is an ignition rotor for our old points distributors. As far as I know, there are ZERO quality ones you can just go to a parts store and buy. Even the ones sold by NAPA under the Echlin line are the same crap they sell under their junk Performer line. Even looks like quality on line until you open the box. It's the same see through paper thin piece of crap for double the price. Old stock is the only choice now. That hurts us all and shops trying to do quality work. I stopped buying Cordone alternators and starters 15 years ago for the same reason. I have a local rebuilder that uses quality parts and does an excellent job. But no cost savings. Usually cost more than a pretty Cardone unit. But they are always busy.

Just as a point of conversation, you couldn’t give me a Cardone branded anything. They’ve been on the verge of bankruptcy and restructures so many times it is a well known fact that they have lost a majority of their business to other remanufactures due to a serious lack of quality, brands like Terrepower (BBB) are making much better quality remans, so much so that Cardone has lost some large customers due to quality concerns FWIW.

Just now seeing this & surprised by all the bad comments on cardone. I have used many AI cardone parts over the years as well as family & many friends, never had a problem with them, they may not be OEM quality or the best brand out there, but they have worked fine for everything Ive bought recently or in the last 15+ years, & if there is a problem they have a good replacement/refund warranty.

Just installed a set of their rear disc calipers for 79-81 Firebird and they were good quality, adjusted like they are supposed to & bled out good on the first try, much better than the "brake best" brand that sells these calipers. Used a Cardone alternator on my 4.0 jeep daily driver that lasted 13+ years for me and was still working fine when I sold it. Used many other parts from them, never a problem.
Im sure there are problems with them, just like almost everything out there nowadays... but also like most things, you only hear about a small % of problems, doesnt mean the entire brand is bad when theres probably millions of good working parts from them in service out there.

Rebuilt auto parts have a place in the repair world. So I hope some brand is always available. A1 Cardone private labels a large percentage of their stuff. So very likely many of the good parts and defective parts we have all used were from them. It also depends on the year of the car your working on, the specific parts, and the condition of the cores they have available. I could go on forever, but some of the crap I have purchased from them could have caused serious failures if the defects were not discovered.

Here's a pretty detailed article on First Brands and it's shady founder.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...be60d846&ei=12

Eric

The cardone stuff and the other "economy" brands listed when you browse on rock auto for your specific replacement parts is what all car flippers / peddlers install on the cars they sell.

You know when you see an ad on CL or Marketplace and there's a grocery list of balljoints, bushings, tie rods, shocks and brakes freshly replaced... those are the cheap replacement parts for purpose they serve, to fix and sell quick with a 30ft/30 minutes warranty.

Just ask yourself why someone would spend all that money to put new parts on a car only to sell it immediately after.

When I buy parts for my cars , I only buy the good stuff with lifetime warranty and even those sometimes will leave me stranded on the side of the road.

I cant imagine going on a road trip with 12$ Ujoints, 8$ brake pads and 24$ balljoints from the 30 days warranty economy crap.

Nowadays parts are cheap compared to labor costs, better put the odds on your side with a better part that youll pay only once to get installed.

Peter

Shady is an understatement - this is outright fraud to me.

This is only going to get worse as Evs have around 50% less total parts and each year their % on the road are going up.

For you OEM purists this is going to be a tough decision since the aftermarket updates aren't an option. These company's are going to really penny pinch like crazy.

As long as there will be a lucrative market for replacement parts, someone will produce them, will the choice get smaller, will the prices be higher yes,

But I can still buy new replacement parts for a 1961 Renault 4 in north america...so I am not too worried about popular muscle cars or trucks.

Peter.

Honestly take a wider angle view of the consumer market in general for anything made offshore your likely to see major short and long term disruptions even
terminations of a lot of products with priority starting back up onshore given first to critical needs for our society....

I knew when the trade imbalance with the commies first started that it was going to get ugly in a matter of time because we couldn't sustain the path we were on and they strongly believe the world is there's so in reality posturing and negotiations will not get it done its going to take force either very strong economic or biological force or kinetic force with extreme prejudice .... Every now and then China makes a move clamping down on exports that matter to us and they have influence on other commie countries so don't focus solely on China.... So its a race for us to become self sustaining again to unleash the ultimate FAFO to the commie world.... At times we may be ahead or behind in this race and until its over it isn't over

Might want to get the parts you can foresee a need for while you can in a prudent manner of course.. This country may be building factories for drugs, electronics, bombs, rather than a water pump, starter, connecting rods for a 1970 Pontiac

I have personally been believing that the market as a whole is going to collapse;
Fewer and fewer cars are being kept around via proper maintenance ect;
It seems like once cars hit about fifteen years old - if they are kept running that long - their days are numbered;
with the increased complexity, and electrification of vehicles, I expect this trend to get exponentially more drastic.
(hopefully that made sense)

Another way to summarize my opinion;
What was once a large market of private vehicle maintenance/repair has been shrinking by the year for probably twenty years now, and I expect the rate of reduction to amplify.

The only factor which might serve to reverse the trend is that the unbelievably high market price of new vehicles stays put… that and that alone might convince more people to to maintenance/repairs.

Today I got my first taste of what the AI Cardone part of the bankruptcy may look like. Pricing some drive axle shafts for a customers GMC 4X4. Brand new axle shafts were about $40.00 less each than the re-manufactured units from Cardone. This is pretty unusual. Also, the overall cost of the parts are up about 50% from a year ago. Sticker shock has begun in the repair business.

This will continue as quality cores have increased in cost/value over the last 10 years, the labor cost to remanufacture the part increasing plus the large majority of shops, dealers, jobbers, etc prefer to NOT deal with cores due to cost and liability (of having huge sums of dollars sitting in a pile waiting for credit)

Add the fact that the American consumer always prefers new and shiny to rebuilt, reman, etc and there you go.

This cannot help

Link to Article - Tariff Fraud?

Most China made parts suck in my opinion.

Two days ago I just had an issue with Mopar heads I was finishing up.

I I got the two different type of freeze plugs for these 440 heads, all of which had the correct Doorman part number on them and 4 out of 8 that where stamped made in China where over .012” too big and of course would never go in.

I myself when buying parts yrs ago would by top quality period price was not an issue. Fit and ccx reliability were. Now my 2015 GMC has been as good truck. Just recently the drivers side oxygen sensor went bad at 96k. I let the tire shop do the work. He knows what parts work. Lately 'Life of 'Reilly is getting more of his business over NAPA who was there forever and they bought from NAPA totally. I havent been NAPA for months.Just saying. I'm stopping at O'Reilly today for some grease,why? Easy in easy out location. They put a tonnnn of money in that new location!!!!