I'm gonna kick this thread off, hoping it'll get 'sticky' and become the definitive rumor mill on TOYOTA Marine Sports parts, service and warranty comments.
I spoke with Bill Nichtern this morning about the TMS parts inventory. My main questions to him involved the spare parts situation. To summarize his responses:
TMS is winding down. He was and is director of TMS, is based in Kentucky, and is working TMS only two days per week now. Jeff Dorge has in fact gone over to the automotive side. This leaves Bill, Rick Cohn and the dealer network. His words and demeanor reinforced to me that TMS will be shutting down as scheduled.
TMS has been making some effort to move overstock inventory items (one of the items he mentioned was boat covers) by sending letters to dealers offering discounts. TOYOTA is not able to offer sales of any items directly to owners; parts must go through dealers.
I asked what it would take for me to fulfill their requirements for becoming a 'dealer' in hopes of being able to arrange a group buy or something. I told him that I wanted us (the community) to be in the loop if it ever came time for TMS to 'dump' inventory. My fear is that once it's dumped, we lose all track of it. He replied flatly that the only 'dealers' he's gonna be able to sell to are the current ex-dealers.
I asked if he would be willing to let us know what's in the inventory. He replied "no", and "what parts are you concerned about?" I gave him examples of tough stuff like ECU, alternators, manifolds, starters, etc.
He explained that there are two general groups of parts: off-the-shelf stuff and TOYOTA-specific parts, specifically marinized TOYOTA parts. Eventually, they'll just provided sourcing info for the former. As for the second group, he did his best to convince me that 'there's more of them parts than you'll ever need."
I do believe that there are probably a BUNCH of headers, alternators, fuel pumps, etc., etc., but am still uncomfortable about the idea that at some point TMS may flush these parts at super low prices to firms that aren't dealers or to dealers that have other uses for the parts, like to support our Australian friends with their 1UZ efforts.
That specific issue is getting kicked up recently. The 1UZ builders have relied on non-VVTi engines in the past, and have adapted aftermarket ECUs to these. However, more VVT-i engines are showing up and they're having issues getting the aftermarket ECUs to tune for the added functions. From what I can tell, the non-VVTi engines are pretty weak. Out VVTi engines are almost as strong as a mildly-boosted non-VVTi engine; as the newer engines start becoming more available and inexpensive, demand for them will increase. Here's how it impacts us: they've mentioned that Ski Masters has Epic ECUs, stainless headers, alternators in inventory. They're expensive and I'm not sure why the TMS ECUs are more attractive to the tuners than regular Lexus ECUs, but I'm just afraid that our pile of Epic parts (see "more than you'll ever need") might be big enough for us Epic owners, but not big enough for Epics AND the marinized tuner market.
It's important to me that we keep a level head about this and upcoming issues. I'm pretty sure that Bill and Rick and Jeff visit this site. It'd be easy for us to get pissed off and vent here at Epicmarine. Doing so (at least at this point) can only hurt the effort, because I feel that we do not want to alienate them.
We need to start thinking strategically. For example, (haven't really thought this through, so it's just an example at this point), it seems reasonable that it might be beneficial and reasonable to broker a deal with TMS that they allow a new 'dealer' to be added at an appropriate time that would be offered the same discounts and access to inventory that the existing dealers have. Then, if one or some of us stepped up and ran the necessary paperwork (business license, etc.) to become an Epic parts house, we'd be able to pool a$$ets or whatever. I've got other ideas, too, like maybe TMS offering to provide a little training to a few private individuals as techs or to digitize all the drawings and other documentation and allow us to post it.
I ain't done here, but that's the recap on our conversation.
