I have had RM exhaust parts on the shelf for a few years now. My turnover of these is not as great as Martin D's, as there is in effect more "competition" in the south east for repairing RMs. However, many of us talk to each other. roy and I are in fairly regular contact with each other as we sometimes work together and exchange technical information and parts availability information. there's also a couple of commercial workshops in the area who know a bit about RMs but they sometimes use roy's or my services for out-of-the-ordinary problems.

I've personally turned people in the direction of others in other areas for distance reasons.

If you need one, I've got an RM silencer on the shelf at the moment, it's seen a few months service on our generator set, but has never been on a vehicle. However, to re-stock with an RM exhaust system you're now looking at well over £1000 to have sitting on the shelf for years, like we've had 2 new short half shafts in stock for a long time, and they set us back about £2k each. This is an awful lot to have tied up in stock for what is basically a one-man and one-woman business!

A tale I will reiterate which I've told on here before about the stop flag, an occasional client had a Scania or DAF engine open topper which was used a lot in Europe. It came to me for a service about 5 years ago. It had to ready "tomorrow" to go abroad again. It had an odd problem with the stop flag, no they didn't want the brakes stripped out, just adjust them and a quick safety check. Horn not working, stop flag defect, other bits noted, brakes adjusted, they didn't want a rolling road test, no time, save money.. A few months later I heard the bus was in Spain in winter, going down hill into a village. The brakes didn't seem to work, the flag dropped. Driver applied handbrake, that didn't work either. Sounded the horn approaching traffic light, that didn't work either. Luckily he didn't hit anyone or anything, bur it stopped eventually. When it arrived back with me a couple of months later having been on the rest of the European tour, I found the back brakes well out of adjustment; rollers seized; front brakes out of adjustment and linings worn out. The rear linings weren't touching the drums with the brake hard on. The accumulators needed charging, I had to change them as they wouldn't hold a charge. Wiring broken on the brake warning microswitch.

The driver told me the flag had been dropping at odd intervals throughout the journey but the owners didn't want to spend money fixing it. It wasn't for my lack of trying or giving advice.

The stop flag is there for a reason.

My bus number (if any): RML2532