First Brands Group was the umbrella for so many companies that supplied DIYers, mechanics, and automakers. The company has filed for bankruptcy, and now some storied brands are dying, with hundreds of people getting laid off. Somehow, it gets worse.
I wrote about how America is losing the Centric, StopTech, and Raybestos brands, among others. Matt Sexton gives further context to the First Brands nightmare:
There’s a LOT going on with this First Brands mess.
First Brands was a big vendor for NAPA, as our primary rotor line was from Brake Parts Inc. But as you can see with Raybestos and Centric, everyone is impacted. NAPA has been moving away from First Brands for months now, because this was expected. We got a memo two weeks ago that FB would no longer be shipping out rotors due to court order. So what we have in the warehouses in that product line is all we have access to for now. The switch to a new vendor was planned at the end of the year, this brings that process to a rush basis, and we’ve already gotten our first batch of the new supplier’s rotors.
There are thousands of rotors in BPI warehouses that we cannot access. NAPA is transferring this business to the new vendor in three phases, based on popularity. The third phase will be the least popular applications and I hope that when the dust settles that inventory will come back online. But the new vendor has said they will be obsoleting 700 of the slowest moving part numbers. Which means for instance I can see that they have rotors for my Yugo, but I can’t order them, they won’t ship. I thought I could sneak them out, just to have, but no dice. If you have an older/obscure car you want to stockpile some NAPA rotors for, now would be the time to act, if the DCs or stores have any. They may not be available later.
Trico is a First Brands property, and Trico owns both the Trico and Anco brands. Indications from my perspective on availability is Anco is going to die as a brand (we stocked Anco outside of NAPA). There’s hope for Trico, as it’s an OEM supplier, but as of now I don’t know much. Supposedly the product line they sold NAPA will be relaunched in H2 but I don’t know if someone will restructure/split off Trico or if there will be a replacement vendor. I feel like Trico may have some brand equity and value to the OEMs that it could survive.
Autolite, as far as I can tell will die as a brand also. I believe Carter is also a FB brand, I’ve not heard anything on that yet. Our brake hoses, caliper hardware and master cylinders were all FB/BPI product, and are going to be moving to Dorman. Hoses will be first of the three, converting March 9.
NAPA had been distancing itself from Cardone for quite some time, the only lines we still had with them were ECMs and wiper motors. There is no announced replacement thus far for either.
Luckily GPC (owner of the NAPA brand) has global scale and has options to resource. But this happened very quickly and while they operated for a while under restructuring, apparently the criminal charges stopped everything. All the big chains bought from FB, it’s hurting everyone. There are other brands that FB branded for the other chains to go to market with, but the ones I discussed are the biggies for us.
This all really sucks for everyone, lots of people have lost their jobs. Like you Mercedes I’m not far from the McHenry BPI plant and I feel for everyone there.
Now here’s a chaser from Hotdoughnutsnow:
They’re just doing what they do best; stopping.
Antti wrote about how Volkswagen’s sausage is big in China. Emil Minty:
Caused more toxic emissions than Dieselgate.
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic image: StopTech
Well… guess its a good thing that I’ve been using remanufactured brake stuff for years.
This sort of reminds me of my personal situation. I have a 30 year old Tacoma that I bought new. Toyota stopped making most of the parts for it years ago. Over the years I have experienced the parts I buy for it getting worse and worse. As in, I wanted to replace the fog light lenses which were UV damaged. The ones I get didn’t fit at all.
My daily driver is a 2016 Mazda6. These cars are great and mine is no exception – I’ve had it since it was new in the fall of 2015. But the model does suffer from one shortcoming and that’s the fact that it tends to prematurely wear through brakes.
The OEM ones didn’t last at all and the ones I replaced those with didn’t, either. But, the Raybestos ones I tried AFTER that have been on there for 60,000+ miles now and are fine. A tiny bit of rotor warping, but nothing severe.
I’m wondering if I should preemptively order another set now just to have them.
I would if you like the pads. Its not like they have a shelf life, cheap insurance. Also, you’re not likely experience disc warping but instead pad deposit build up. A good bedding in should clean the surface of the rotor and get the pads wearing evenly again.
100%, if you plan on keeping the Tacoma. Get two or three sets and stick them in storage for when you need them… if you sell or blow up the truck (somehow) NOS brake parts would be pretty easy to sell online.
Good to know Mazda was still putting crap brakes on their cars way back in 2016 as well. My rear brakes on my CX-90 screech like a race. Needless to say, its not a race car
I am rebuilding a set of struts with disc brakes for my 78 Corolla (it came with front drum brakes believe it or not). I wanted as many new parts as I could get my hands on so I went to Rockauto and ordered a bunch of stuff that’s surprisingly still available. A lot of those parts were “First Brands” parts like Raybestos so this was probably the first and last time I’ll be seeing them.
This sucks.
This is not limited to aftermarket parts either. First Brands owned companies that made OEM parts for manufacturers as well.
My employer is struggling to quickly resource parts and keep our assembly lines running.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Are you going to Verticon?
Aw, hey! Been a while since I got one of these, thanks Mercedes!
You deserve it! Your comment was as informative as any article on this great site
Do we know why?
I figured with more people keeping cars on the road longer that the parts business would increase, not go the other way around.
First Brands was bankrupt. The guy that owned it was siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars to himself and his lifestyle. But worse than that he was securing financing multiple times for the same falsified order contracts. Billions of dollars were illegitimately borrowed. The were in reorganization at first but once the scope of this became clear the authorities shut it down.
He pulled a Crazy Eddie.
His prices are INSANE!!!!!
ah, so it wasn’t ‘market forces’ and was just the old standby…. greed.
Legit question – who needs Hundreds of Millions to maintain a lifestyle??? Maybe I just think too small. Give me a hundred million I’ll drop off the face of the earth, be a ghost. I could more than comfortably live many lifetimes, travelling as desired with that sort of money.
I’d be fine with 2.5 – 3 million. Pay off my mortgage, do some remodeling, some new furniture, a new car or two and live comfortably on a reasonably attainable 5% interest.
You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that’s your base, get me? That’s your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you! Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don’t drink. That’s all I have to say to anybody on any social level.
You get me.
A wise man’s life is based around “fuck you.” The United States of America is based on “fuck you.”
I’ve actually seen discussions about this on retirement forums. Stuff like “If I work 5 more years can I afford to buy my own private jet instead of sharing it with other filthy rich people?”
Also stuff like, “Well, if you retire at 500 million you’ll never be able to buy a pro sports franchise.”
So I guess that’s the answer? People who want to own pro sports teams.
Me? I bought a $250 share in the Packers and now I can legitimately call myself a part-owner of a franchise. Check that one off the retirement bucket list (and I’m not even retired 😉 ).
I’d probably be happier just hitting for enough to pay off the mortgage… Keep working, just not have to worry.
these were all individual companies that were profitable. they got swallowed up by a conglomerate that was using the profit to spin off more mergers and aquisitions and the cost of the debt was not sustainable and the conglomerate went belly up. the conglomerate is trying to liquidate as much as they can to pay off creditors.
first brands aka last brands lol
Too soon lol
Matt Sexton, thanks as always for your deep insight into the situation. This is crazy.
His knowlege is always a highlight here. Every time I’m in a Napa, I have a strong urge to ask the kid at the counter “I need a wiper blade for my BMW Isettta.” “type type type huh that car does appear to be in the system at least.”
I needed a sparkplug for a 1974 Velosolex. Wasn’t in the computer but we found it in the paper catalog. Go NAPA clerk! She knew her catalogs. It was even in stock!
That’s why you gotta keep those old catalogs too! Lots of times even if the part number you find in there is obsolete, you can reference it to something you have. Some of our paper catalogs are decades old.
Maybe that’s why it’s taking RockAuto so goddamn long to ship me my shocks.
Thanks for delivering the bump stops, but they won’t help my rotted ahock absorbers!
I love when the least needed part of the project is the only part I have by the weekend.
Every. Damn. Time.
Now more than ever…
NAPA:
Never
Any
Parts
Available.
“We don’t seem to have that in stock, but we can order it.”
You’re about to find out how broad First Brands’ reach was, there’s not a single chain out there that will be immune to this.
I stocked up on oil filters for 5 out of our 6 vehicles already.
And wiper blades for 3 of them.
That’s the problem with almost all retail nowadays. “We don’t have it, but it says we can order it”. I feel bad for once shooting back “If you guys can order it, then so can I” because the parts guy there didn’t deserve that. But that really gets on my nerves these days with physical stores – someone 10-15 years ago thought 2-day shipping was equivalent to counter service. It is positively not.
The bad part is when you check online and they show the item in stock at your local store. When you arrive, they don’t actually have any on hand. Should have saved myself the trip and hassle of finding someone to verify they don’t actually have any and just ordered it online.
Many times, when you go to the store, you need the part right now, so can get to work tomorrow!
Year or so ago, Daughter’s alternator went out. Went to Advanced Auto…none in stock at any of the area locations. Found one in stock 20 miles away at AZone. It’s a plain ole Ford Fusion! WTH?
What a mess.