Quote:
I like to have a couple of these on the shelf, but having done ELG's pump last year and having let Marino have a kit I was out of them. Previously I've bought them from Hart Racing Services, the Stag specialist through his ebay listings, but as I searched to find his listing one for the Stag Owners' Club also came up at a very reasonable £18.99 compared to HRS's £25 or so. About to order a kit, I saw in the listing a note that UK based customers might get a better deal through their website, so I had a look on
https://www.socspares.co.uk/ and indeed, by buying two kits to offset the postage costs, I bought them, including VAT and P&P, for pence over £16 each.
They arrived today and look to be as good a quality as the ones supplied by HRS.
Stuart Souter at SOC spares, from what I gather on the Stag Forum, was instrumental in setting up the Stag Owners Club back in the day. Initially he sold spares linked the SOC. Then they went their separate ways. He still uses the SOC moniker (perhaps so long established customers can identify him?) but I believe he is totally independent of the Stag Owners Club. Confusingly, his ebay name 'british-car-spares'.
The text below is from the Registrar of the Stag Owners Club, copied from a forum post about 12 months ago:
----- SOC Spares was set up by the Club in about 1987 as a totally separate entity so that a) the Club members could not be held liable for faulty parts and b) the then Club spares officer (Stuart Soutter) could take the Club spares operation a step further, acquire premises and pay wages to staff - something the Club was not prepared or set up to do. The original directors were all Club members and I believe that the Club held some shares which were vested in Ken Hudson for the purposes of attending directors meetings.
Stuart ran this as a commercial concern until the competition started to over-compete by offering higher volume sales items too cheaply, this taking the bread and butter sales away from SOC Spares. The doors were closed about 15 years ago (my estimate) and Stuart has since been concentrating on assisting with parts manufacture through his extensive expertise in the Stag parts business. Stuart holds various tooling for the manufacture of parts although the SOC Club directors removed themselves from the operation some time ago.
This operation no longer has any direct ties with the Club but I see that Stuart has started to sell Stag spares via a new website. I wish him well and, to some degree, a purchase from SOC Spares assists the process of Stuart interacting with SOCTFL in the future as it helps the Stag World revolve just that little bit more sweetly. One thing is for certain, Stuart knows the difference between good parts and bad parts - but if in doubt about quality or provenance, ask him. -----
I have no personal connection btw, but generally try to buy my Stag bits from Stuart because he sources (and/or commissions the manufacture of) good quality parts. As an example of this, a lot of Stag owners have bought new rubber boot seals that are too 'fat' and prevent the boot shutting properly. It was recommended on the Stag forum to buy the seal from LD Parts (another excellent specialist Stag parts dealer - perhaps worth looking at for Dolly parts?) The LD Parts boot seal was the correct spec but apparently they get them from SOC Spares............
It could well be that Stuart supplies Tony Hart with the Dolly water pump kits that you were buying???
The other thing I picked up off the Stag Forum was that in the early days Stuart was spending lots of time answering queries on the phone from stag owners and perhaps this led to a parting of the ways in order to concentrate on actually making and selling parts.
Anyway, I hope the above info might be useful!
Cheers
Keith
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