ASK ARB –
older 4WDs

G’day ARB,

I am thinking about purchasing an older model 4WD, something like a 40 Series short wheel base LandCruiser and of course I would want to make it more capable to take on the tracks. I’m talking bar work, lockers and suspension…all the usual kit.

My question is, I notice a lot of ARB’s time and efforts go into producing accessories for new or current model 4WDs, but I was wondering what the situation is with older models.

At what point does ARB stop producing accessories they once made—I wouldn’t want to go to all the effort of finding a decent truck only to be unable to bolt some ARB gear to it.

Cheers,

– Jarrod

Hi Jarrod,

I’m happy to tell you that my 4×4 is now over 22 years old and that all the ARB gear on it is still very much available.

There is, however, no hard and fast rule on this question.

We do pride ourselves on letting you, the customers, decide on when to retire products. To demonstrate how important we see older vehicles, in the last 10 years, we have released new products for both the 40 Series and 60 Series LandCruiser.

There are certain minimum run sizes that we must make for any product to maintain its price at a reasonable level, and it is only when sales for an item falls well below that minimum run size over, say, a twelve month period, that we take a hard look at them. Even then, there are other factors that we take into account, such as other products we sell for that vehicle that might be affected if the slower selling item was no longer available.

Older vehicles and their owners are definitely important to us and we think we are one of very few aftermarket companies that can make the claim that we support product for as long as possible.

As a matter of interest while researching my reply for this letter, I wanted to find out what vehicle specific product we currently listed was the oldest. Of the 49,750 items in our computer system, the one with the oldest application is
AVM401, which is a set of AVM hubs that suit a 1942 Jeep (we had two sets in stock at the time of writing).

The best advice I can give any potential customer of ours is to always check with your local ARB store before committing to any vehicle purchase. This does not only apply to older vehicles. There are some traps out there you can fall for, especially with some of the more off beat models and versions, and it’s easy for our sales staff to give you a price list of all products we do for any of the popular vehicles.

We will never tell you that you purchased the wrong model vehicle (it’s not very polite or professional), but you may soon reach that conclusion yourself if you have not done your homework.

– Greg Milton, Manager
National Products & Services