A Story from long ago...water pumps...

[vandornjim]

I thought I'd share

Originally Posted by Mutt Vette

BTW, Jim, I'm still setting on that spare ZR1 water pump you sold me 15 years ago. What are they worth today?

Ahhhh those were the days. Great story behind those:

Back in 1994-95(????) there was a sudden lack of water pumps for the LT5. Seems GM didn’t have much warranty history for the car because few were returning to the dealers for work and many weren’t being driven much. So… the very limited inventory went to nothing and soon cars were sitting for months at dealerships awaiting the phantom water pumps….but there were none.

Well, seems this guy who owned a major AC Delco warehouse put in an order for 65 of the pumps for the growing backorder. After one month it went unfilled and according to him, his computer automatically re-ordered the backorder. Seems GM was trying to outsource new water pumps from the original manufacturer or was faced with buying back vehicles because of it (and they did). GM had initially looked at the demand, then doubled the order to the supplier. It was for approx 300 pumps.

(Can you imagine the complete idiot-cracy it took to buy back a ZR-1, the most expensive consumer Chevrolet in their history, because of a $200 water pump? Yep…and some wary owners actually took them up on it. One guy told me that if a parts shortage was already in place, what in the world would it be in another 5 years? Visionary wasn’t he?)

In any case, the order bounced again and of course the Delco guy’s computer re-re-ordered them again….and GM’s computer ADDED the order to the number of pumps he had previously ordered. First 65, then another 65, then again, etc. Well, when the order was finally filled, this guy got nearly the entire run of some 300 water pumps.

So I get this call from the guy and he says he has this problem. Someone at GM had told him to call me and see if I could help. He asked if I would be interested in “some” LT5 water pumps he happened to have. Aware of the nationwide lack of inventory, I told him I surely was, I’d take at least a dozen. There was one small problem. As he proceeded to tell his story to me, he then mentioned he had 300 pumps, and all had to be bought in one purchase for a very special price. Seems if he returned them there was a chargeback to his account for some small percentage because after all, HE had ordered them in the first place. So, he offered me a special deal. List was $500+ at the dealers, jobber price was $325. He would sell them to me at his cost as a warehouse distributor but I had to take ALL OF THEM.

Well, the Net was fairly new then but we had quite a few members so I put out the idea to everybody. Back then we all helped each other pretty well so I didn’t need to make any huge profit so I offered the net group a very special deal: You could buy a brand new water pump (available no where else) for a mere $265 (included shipping), less than half the dealer price. I turned off my computer and went home for the day.

4:30am the next morning I took my seat at the desk and turned on the ‘ol Gateway 233. As my aol came up (yep, same vandornjim) I see this huge list of mail. Unbelievably, we had pre-sold over 200 pumps overnight! Thus the concept of internet sales began, long before the thousands of vendors today, long before any forums, just a bunch of ZR-1 nuts

I called the guy at Delco and told him I’d take them all and a week later 3 or 4 pallets show up. You shoulda seen the look on Sherri’s face when those pallets showed up along with a bill for 300 water pumps…..

Originally Posted by Mutt Vette

BTW, Jim, I'm still setting on that spare ZR1 water pump you sold me 15 years ago. What are they worth today?

Now back to your original question. First of all, what are you “setting” on the pump?

Currently still available, LT5 water pumps now list for a whopping $866.00 from AC Delco. Did you get a deal? You make the call….

jvd in BG (man am I gettin old or WHAT???)