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Mepstein wrote:

MickeyMoto wrote:The Mdina web store is infinitely better than the NLM one... As in they have one!

You mean no more emailing Stuart for weeks, begging to purchase a $10 item that ends up costing $100. Thank god!

My alternative view is: I dealt with Stuart for just over 12 years, which is a mere nothing compared to many around here. If he was the type of businessman who purposely oversold parts, NLM would never have been the worldwide success he created. I have probably spent $300 on a $150 item but the rest would have been freight.

Many times, I phoned (from NZ) to order a proverbial $10 item, only to learn from Stuart's lifetime Morini experience (truly lifetime) or from Rob that the problem was nuanced or elsewhere, or I might prevent further work by broadening my view of the repair in question. For someone more used to the age of conversation, email was only ever going to be second-rate communication - I know it's no simple task to even reach Hermy. YMMV.

While others have experienced instant joy ordering online from Mdina, Andrew readily admits he has a task ahead of him. My order hasn't yet arrived but when it does it will be about three weeks since first contact. A webstore might be great on many additional levels but many owners care more about spanners than apps and a phone call will always win.

Morini ownership and patience are comfortable bedfellows. If our bikes had been machine-assembled in 16 minutes it would be reasonable to expect instant spares. I love that my bike was hand-built over a day or two while discussing football/politics/food & wine.

DD

Very well said DD
I agree, although I never ordered anything fron Stuart.

The freight costs always have been tremendous from england even to the european continent. Wonder how this will debelope in the next future

norbert

Mepstein wrote:...You mean no more emailing Stuart for weeks, begging to purchase a $10 item that ends up costing $100. Thank god!

As one of your great men said "...you can't please all of the people all of the time."

A web store is good for most routine parts. I can do a day's work and order my bits in the evening when I have time. I can then see exactly what the cost is including P&P when I buy. I would prefer to leave the talking to the time I need something out of the ordinary. As I have said before, that is when I will test Mdina. Mdina have a lot of experience selling globally on the web, that is not my concern, and to me is a positive.

Well, we can always hope for "the best of both worlds". The last time I spoke to Rob he was very positive about M'dina getting essential items manufactured when needed. So far the parts I've needed (that I hadn't already stocked up with before Xmas) have been easy to order and arrived very quickly (no quicker than from NLM to be fair). There do seem to be some items that are only available 'used' and whilst some examples will be perfectly serviceable or can be refurbished, not all of us have the facilities to repair assemblies that require machining skills. As I have found since taking a more active part in my local VMCC section, this is the way long out of production machines are kept running - other than the big names like Vincent and AJS/Matchless that have comprehensive spares schemes. The other approach is to press parts from other machines in to service that don't keep the much sought after by some originality, but if they don't show who cares? There may be scope for a 'pattern parts' page - for example I can point you to a site where you can discover that you can put Nissan piston rings in to a Gilera Nordwest.

I wish M'dina well in their new role and imagine that sooner or later (hopefully!) I may give them a ring but I do wonder if the 'advice' side of things can ever match the NLM experience. Still, we have this forum for that as this thread shows

Just to let you know the parts arrived in the post today from Mdina. Good service and easy to order.
Thanks again for advice

Just did this on my 500 Camel. You may also need the O ring for the kick start shaft. 18/2.5
Good luck. It's not that hard.