Something odd about eBay

[andy5]

2 Xantia cars for sale

168,211 parts for Xantia, or claim to fit Xantia

(this includes a steering wheel with an Audi logo in the centre, so some folks are pushing things a bit)

[Skull]

Hours of fun

[Mandrake]

Lots of parts fit many models of course...

Also a buy now ebay listing doesn't necessarily mean that the seller has the items in stock - only that they can source and supply them to you in a timely fashion.

A few times I've ordered parts on ebay only to find that they were then back ordered from the manufacturer and there has been an unexpected delay doing so. In this sense ebay (like Amazon) is more of a store front with a promise to provide the purchased parts than a guarantee that the seller physically has the parts on hand.

[van ordinaire]

Really, I've invariably got an e-mail within 12 hours saying it's been posted (albeit at some improbable times of the day - & night).

Something odd I have noticed though, a total lack of consistency with how returns were dealt with: 3 different processes/procedures within a week or 2.

[andy5]

I was trying to point up something of a paradox that although the cars are slowly vanishing the supply of items claiming to be spares for them are getting more plentiful all the time.

I reckon there must be loads of businesses with free listing offers, and automatically composed and posted listings for every type of car, and it gets almost like spam

Luckily you can put a minus sign prefix in the search to exclude certain words, but sometimes you need about 10 exclusions

[van ordinaire]

Far from being a paradox, it's exactly the pattern I'd expect to see: as a model becomes scarcer so the need to off-load spares for them increases (unless you are a Jaguar main dealer, in which case your stocktaking programme will order a skip & instruct you to fill it)

[xantia_v6]

But I think that you will find that most of the "spares" offered are not actually specific to a Xantia, or they are as generic as after-market wheel trims and phone hands-free kits or turbo cores (part number not specified).

[van ordinaire]

Can't say that's been my experience but, in any event, I don't see how that fits in with more coming up when Xantia's included in the search terms.

[Fake Concern]

Yes well these come up as fitting a Volvo C30 aerial


An actual C30 aerial looks like this...