First Brands Group has just been revealed as an empty shell. They own TRICO and Michelin wipers, FRAM filters, Raybestos and Centric and Stoptech brakes, Autolite spark plugs, Carter fuel pumps, and more. It seems like at least $8 billion of inventory and future sales were pledged to cover loans the company took on and nobody knows where that money went. It's also believed that the inventory and future revenue were pledged multiple times so this number could balloon real fast. Without any comparable auto parts manufacturers of their size in the USA, auto parts availability will be disrupted until First Brands assets are sold to creditors, which could take years because of how much has been fraudulently pledged to multiple lenders.
Looks like a whole lotta shit brands i don't use.Good luck fags!
>>28662558Oh, and their CEO is Patrick James, a Malaysian. Very Malay name, wouldn't you say? Well, he came to the USA for university and founded a private equity company, Crowne Group, which immediately purchased TRICO then started buying up other auto parts brands. Coincidentally, this was at the height of the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia, where billions of dollars vanished from that nation's sovereign wealth fund.
cool junk bro
I like Raybestos and FramRaybestos makes the best pads for normie applications
>>28662558>MichelinOh no!>wiperswho cares>FRAM filtersNo big loss. I recognize Stoptech and raybestos though, that's worrying, plus Autolite- didn't that used to be the Ford/Mazda/Motorcraft OEM?
>>28662593Probably. What FBG did was buy up a bunch of brands and manufacturing supply chains with debt, promise loans based on future sales of those brands, and then hiked the price and cut the workforce for those brands to increase profit ratios.
>>28662593>>28662587Wagner OEX, Brembo Prime, Akebono ProAct, and Bosch QuietCast/Severe Duty are all good commonly available options.
>>28662558>all garbage brands>except Michelin but it's only a license to slap the brand on chink wipersi'm good thanks
>>28662558Cardone sucks. It seems to be the only manufacturer of window regulators for all my cars as well as other small parts that big names don't bother making any longer. I also used Draw-Tite trailer hitches in the past. Decent product.>>28662593I thought the same. Ford did own Autolite in the 60s and sold in the 70s for antitrust matters.
IIRC they’re not going out of business, they’re just doing the debt restructuring thing. Even if they were going out of business the brands would immediately get bought up and you wouldn’t even notice.
>>28662575>private equityWhen your grandchildren ask what happened to the once-great USA, you know what to tell them.Oh, yah, and...>$220 million in total tariff-related costsbecause of reasons (you know what the reasons are)
>>28663117Meanwhile, their creditors (the "ad-hoc group") are throwing good money after bad to keep things running
>>28663122The other concerning thing is how many of their brands compete with each other. In the days of a functioning federal government, such faggotry was not allowed (see White Sewing Machine, for example)
>>28662558>made in china "American" brand eats shitOh no! Anyway
>>28662558Stoptech is the really concerning one to me. They make some of the best performance pads for OEM calipers and really solid BBKs too. They sponsored the race car I used to work on and were pretty good to work with at the time, and we never had any complaints about their products, but I think that was before FBG owned them. ('13-'17.) My old shop/team is all AP Racing now and I wonder if the buyout is why they switched.
>>28663114>IIRC they’re not going out of business, they’re just doing the debt restructuring thing. Even if they were going out of business the brands would immediately get bought up and you wouldn’t even notice.lol no. there was rehypothecation of debt where they secured multiple loans with the same account receivable assets. there is no restructuring, this isnt a business which was ran in to the ground, it is the result of billions in fraud.
>>28662572Based!
>>28662593If trico and michelin wipers disappear thats like half the wipers. Youd just be left with dogshit like rainx and valeo
>>28662558>TRICO and Michelin wipers, FRAM filters, Raybestos and Centric and Stoptech brakes, Autolite spark plugs, Carter fuel pumps, and more.so a whole lot of worthless trash no one should ever use?
>>28663366the michelin wipers are good, but bosch are also good, and rainx isn't bad either
>>28663356Michelin could shit out a wiper factory tomorrow if they really wanted to
>>28663117>$220 million in tariff costs>Needed a $6 billion emergency loan in September and couldn't get it, hence the bankruptcyDrop in the bucket
>>28662558>Autolite spark plugs, Carter fuel pumpsClassic car owners on suicide watch (I am one of them)
>>28663563just buy literally any other brand of spark plug
>>28662558I'm not seeing Brembo, AC Delco, Mann-Hummel, Bosch, NGK, or any other decent brands in that image. Looks like it's a bunch of walmart/hardware store house brands. Nothing of value has been lost.
>>28662558FUCKING JEWS ARE AT IT AGAIN!how many times are they gonna fuck us over?How many times is too many?
>>28663563denso and ngk are gud
Hopefully Raybestos is bought out by someone who knows what they are doing.Their race Brake pads were great.But some bean counter decided to move production to Mexico.And Mexicans were unable to make brake pads properly.They moved back to the US, but they only make a small amount of Race brake pads now.
>>28662558so all the shitty brands that only mexicans buy turned out to be scam bullshit, surprising exactly no one. I'll keep buying OEM/Denso/Delco, thank you very much
>>28663892>>28663946Autolite was the OEM vendor for Ford engines. You can get similar fitments from other brands but since the part numbers don't line up it can be a hassle if you're going off of your shop manual, especially since lots of online storefronts won't tell you the size of a plug on the store page and you have to dig into Boomerlore forums to find parts numbers for alternatives. Others work fine when you get the right ones though; my Ford had AC Delco plugs in it at one point.Carter is a different beast entirely because they were one of the few manufacturers still making high-flow big block mechanical fuel pumps for Chrysler and Chevrolet.>just buy Holley lol3x the price for no good reason, and I say that as someone with Holley parts on my car too.The bigger issue though is that having this many parts brands for older vehicles fold all at once might be an indicator of things to come, especially since this isn't the first time that we've had something like this happen in the past 2-ish years. I'm constantly afraid that we're eventually going to lose the guys that make OEM trim pieces and reproduction rolled / stamped body panels because that's the kind of shit you can't just buy anywhere or have fabbed at a local shop; I myself already had to find used boards for one of my cars from some guy with a junk collection on the opposite end of the country because they stopped making aftermarket repros. I'd rather not live in a world where my only options for parts are pick-aparts, ebay, and Summit Racing.
>>28663969just buy a champion plug, they were around and common as replacements back in the day
>>28663969>Carter is a different beast entirely because they were one of the few manufacturers still making high-flow big block mechanical fuel pumps for Chrysler and Chevrolet.ok now that i didn't know and that's gonna be interesting to say the least since ive got a 383 mopar. i did buy a new carter fuel pump recently but am still keeping the likeky original pump as a spare. there seemed to be nothing wrong with it but still...more than 50 years of operation...
>>28663986They'll likely become my preferred replacements for the Ford. I have a set of Champions in my Chrysler and they're doing well.>>28663996I bought a $70 M6903 for my 440 a few months ago to replace a failed pump. Poked around a little bit ago when I was considering buying a spare and now half the sites are sold out and everywhere else it's just as expensive as a Holley or an Edelbrock. We're in for some weird times.
>>28663939>>28662575
The literal cheapest garbage at the auto parts store that they expect at least 1/3rd of to be scam returned by the meth heads who shop at auto parts stores.I think I'll be ok.
