I think we need to put all this in perspective. I am old enough to have restored and run classic cars pre-internet in the late 1980's. I remember when it was necessary to jump on an airplane to the States and Europe then spend three weeks touring swap meetings and car shows chasing new and used parts than to buy bits here. Not because they were over priced in Australia, but because you couldn't buy them here at all!
What about 32% sales tax in the late 1990's and parts only coming in by sea freight? I still have my old Agfa microfiche viewer for spare parts catalogues that I used in the 80's and 90's. Service and spare parts books could not be purchased unless you were an authorised dealer and I had to bribe a service manager $200 cash to accidentally sell me a set of fiche for my car!
But the fact is, if it wasn't for the efforts of the "Stealership" in the first place, then none of us would have a 116 now. We should also be thankful that we have a choice, we can order the parts from our local authoroised dealer, we can support an independant, we can cross reference any Bosch part because they all have that 9 digit code on them so we can buy direct from Bosch if we need to. We can order parts electronically from just about anywhere. Freight charges are moderate and fast, pretty hard not to have anything in your hand within 6 days from order from overseas.
Finally, we can jump on this great forum and ask people all around the world what they do, we can whinge and bitch, but the fact is, we have never had it better. We can get a part number, download the workshop manual, even check the colour chart and decipher the options codes. We can even swap parts amongst ourselves. People on this forum have even sent me parts for free!
My 280 SE cost $17,650 AUD on the road in early 1974. That was about the same price as a single story terrace house in Carlton which would sell for about $500,000 of todays money. We are lucky that 116's are very very cheap now and haven't gone the way of Ferrari Daytona's and Porsche 911 RS 2.7's.....just about any 116 can be bought for no more than 4 months depreciation on a new Commodore.
I'm not saying that some parts are not expensive, because many are, but we must all be thankful we have so many resources at our fingertips today.
Regards,
Carl.