Let us start with ease of obtaining. Obviously newer car parts will be easier to get than older ones. A friend of mine still has a 1975 Pontiac Lemans. To obtain parts for this car he has to literally go to junk yards and even online. No new car dealers keep parts beyond 10 years or so and even auto parts stores limit their inventory to cars under 20 years. A 30 year old vehicle is almost impossible to find parts for. Plus, if you can find the part, depending on where you get it, the cost could be anywhere from 20 to 100% over the original part cost. To say that late model car owners are taken advantage of would be a gross understatement.
Today more than ever, people are seeking subaru legacy parts and not new parts. Therefore, it won’t be hard for you to find a high quality part in your city. Usually your local mechanic may not have everything that you need; but, you need not worry as there are special shops opening up across the country that focus on used parts.
Most of these shops restore and recondition old parts. A few manufacturers make new parts for classic cars. Normally however you will find parts that actually came from a dismantled classic car.
Second item that we are going to need is our battery. You are going to need a rechargeable battery that you can get at your local auto parts store. Get any size deep cycle 12 Volt lead/acid or gel battery (gel battery is more expensive and it last longer). Deep cycle batteries are designed for prolonged use. It’s the kind of battery you have in your car. You can pick one up for as little at $60 or some gel batteries for as high as $250.
This is not the case with shopping for car parts online. Many websites that sell car parts have advanced search options. You can search through their databases for the exact part for a car using the model, make and year as search criteria. Such a search can be finished within seconds as opposed to the hours that may be required to find that part offline.
Look around you when you are on the road. There are millions of cars, buses, motorcycles, boats and not to mention sports vehicles. They all require or will require some maintenance or parts down the road. It is just a matter of time. In fact according to the U.S. Department of Transportation Statistical Records there were 241 million registered vehicles in 2007 in U.S. alone, and this does not include the vehicles in stores, salvage yards, auto auctions, and countless other places. Now, multiply this many vehicles by the number of parts an average vehicle has, and you get into trillions.
