The Reverend Bluejeans wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:52 pm
I think they're selling anything they can to make money and pay wages - it came from Copart next door. If Brexit happens, I suspect U Pull It will be fucked as it relies very heavily on Eastern European business. I bet 70% of customers are Polish/Lithuanian etc and you're always seeing vans and trucks loading up with cars and spares.
Leavers don't think about that however.
I've noticed the Polish less and less and I've been visiting York for a while. Back when I 'had' (I use the term loosely) an A4 quattro, you'd be fighting for VAG parts from York as eastern Europeans were buying PD TDIs by the literal truckload, and any cars in the VAG section were being constantly pillaged. You'd be guaranteed to see at least one Polish registered Ducato in the car park at any given time. However even cars as unusual as the B5 A4 quattro were in stock...
Last time I went, there weren't any Polish people there - everyone was English, and there was even a sense of community amongst those looking for parts - everyone was helping everyone else find parts etc. It was odd.
Sadly I've also noticed over the last two years, support for older cars has almost completely dried up - in 2017, when I had the A4 (which was N plate), I could actually find parts for it easily, as well as older cars like E36s, 190Es, Audi 80s etc. There was a fucking Saab 96 in there for a good old while... Now there's next to nothing older than about fifteen years, and a lot of it is tat nobody even wants parts for, or they're so cheap it isn't worth going to UPI for. Granted, I do find the odd useful part there, and it's all luck of the draw: for one, the website isn't kept up to date - on one trip I was pleasantly surprised to find an intact Volvo 850 there that yielded many useful parts - I hadn't been there for it though, I was going to look at a V70, alas it'd been pillaged of its entire interior and all the engine ancillaries.
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Daft bugger left the SC-805 radio with the code written on it though - I took that, UPI charged £15, they're £50 on eBay (Volvo OEM radios of the period are Alpine and sound very good). That went in the car as it worked properly and had a CD player, so a winner for me and paid for the trip.
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I'm not inclined to go to UPI again, the place is going downhill a bit IMO, but that could just because my cars aren't getting any younger. If I'd bought a snotter Golf/Bora I'd be all over the place for any better parts I could find.
I've noticed they're also stocking a lot less French cars than they used to, and they've basically stopped taking in Rovers altogether. Granted, the odd interesting 90s car comes in, but they're often in sorry states, and word quickly gets around and anything of worth disappears.
It's definitely not the place it was two years ago...
Watch for pedestrians...