Interesting post ... but runs contrary to my experience..

My local dealers ...Skurrays, Swindon, have always been very helpful, and knowledgeable. They have never fobbed me off with "not available", but have sometimes said 4-5 days. This seems to agree with Andy C who has had to get bits for me from Germany.
As I understand the system, dealers don't keep stuff on the shelf, if it does not move .. it gets returned to VX .. but there is no VX warehouse in UK, everything is stored somewhere in Germany. The cost of returning parts to store is met by the dealer .. therefore they don't order stuff they don't expect to sell.
VX, for reasons known only to them, sell to dealers in different "batch sizes" than you and I want .. so if you want 2 items .. the dealer might have to order a box of 5. This means 3 items left on a shelf they might not sell, or might have to pay VX to take back.
For these reasons, I believe, SOME dealers will not order the parts from Germany .. and use the "no longer stocked" excuse. If you find this .. simply tell the dealer you are stopping using them and going elsewhere,... then either find a better dealer or use Andy C ...
Just my views and understanding ... nowt else ..
