Whenever possible I try to buy parts for our vehicles locally. For the newer ones this is generally no problem, but automobile dealers seem to be increasingly reluctant to stock parts for any model more than a few years old. And when you begin your conversation with the counter person with, “I have a 1973 . . .” he looks at you like you just stepped out of a time machine. (It would be fun to run with this some time, and as he’s looking futilely at his screen for spark plugs to fit a 46-year-old FJ40, say something like, “So, do you think Nixon will resign?”)
If parts for the 40 flummox the dealer, imagine the situation with a 1993 HZJ75 Troopy that was never even officially imported into the U.S. I don’t even try.
Fortunately there are several specialty Land Cruiser shops around the country that carry at least the commonly needed items for 70-Series Land Cruisers, and a few have surprisingly extensive inventories. In part this is due to the happy fact of a model that has changed very little over its 35-year history. Cruiser Outfitters and cruiserparts.net are good sources.
However, even these enthusiast outlets can’t carry everything. And supposing you’re looking for something really arcane—like say, a Toyota factory floor mat in “sable,” the brown that is our interior color?
Some time ago I was introduced to an online parts source called PartSouq.com—“souq” being the Arab term for a market. (Amazon, I understand, recently bought the English/Arabic-language E-commerce site souq.com; I have no idea if the two are related.) I called up the site, clicked on the Toyota section (the site lists 20 brands and claims 17 million parts in its database). A prompt asked me for the VIN of the Troopy, so I retrieved that, typed it in, hit enter—and was rewarded with a complete catalog of parts for a 1993 Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ75. Engine, transmission, chassis, electrical, body—it was all there, with diagrams. I went to the interior section, hovered over the floor mat part number, 58510B (when you do this, the list on the side scrolls automatically to the correct placement), and clicked on that. It showed four factory floor mats available, three in gray, one in sable. The sable mat was located in . . . Oman? Yep. “Ships in one day,” it said.
Needless to say, clicking “Buy now” on a $310 item located halfway around the world took a leap of faith. Only the rave reviews I’d read of the site gave me the courage to do so. Shipping was nearly a hundred dollars—hardly unexpected.
What was unexpected was finding the large box containing our new Toyota factory HZJ75 floor mat, in sable, at our commercial mail service four days later. The mat was perfect, and a welcome replacement for the sadly (and hazardously) chewed-up original.
So if you can buy your parts locally, please do so to support your nearby economy. But if you can’t find it close, and the factory made it, there’s a really good chance it will show up on a PartSouq.com search.
