Parts Department Professionals

Yes, my people, good day. Thank you for stopping by. This differential cover goes on to the back of the differential for this e46 M3 but hear me out. Excuse me while I step onto my soapbox for a minute. I ordered a part from the dealer and when I removed it from the packaging,

I was surprised to see no gasket accompanying the new part. It would be nice if I was asked. Do I need a new gasket? I’m not saying that these parts breakdowns are good enough to catch everything. Still, one would think that they would design it to enable the parts professionals to identify accompanying items required to perform and complete the task. But maybe it’s me. I should have known to say hey, that cover, does it come with a gasket or is it the parts person that should have said, hey do you need a gasket for that new cover. I have had the pleasure of coming across just a few A1 Parts people in my career, and they’re all retired now, and let me tell you. You cannot purchase anything from those guys or gals without them asking you follow up questions like are you going to need that seal that goes with it or you’re going to need an additive to go with it? It’s not upselling. It is making sure that when I am here now repairing, I can complete the repair in the time that I plan to complete it in, but you know, they’re all retired now, and new blood comes in, and they are learning I must say they’re learning so you have to be kind of patient so maybe I should have caught it but still. So here we are now, with big plans to put this all back together, but then I realized it uses a gasket.

I thought it was RTV, but if it uses a gasket, I’m not going to use RTV if I can help it. But if I have to go the RTV route, I will; that’s the way I am. I want to put the gasket back on there the way it was. So it pushed it off yet another day. Tomorrow we get the gasket hopefully, it’s in stock. Let me step off my soapbox now.