Just a quick warning to let you know that we’re planning some downtime on the webshop
For all of you “I’m going to France tomorrow and I needed that part desperately” types then you need to be a little bit more organised and order your parts in good time!
On Tuesday 19th of July you’ll notice the webshop go in to maintenance mode where the propeller heads will be furtling around in the nether regions of our webshop to make some changes and improvements, hopefully back on later that day.
As we all know things like this never go smoothly so please order in good time or be patient afterwards as we play Whack-A-Mole with issues as they arise.
It goes without saying that if you’re really stuck then I’m sure the usual suspects can help you out, Heritage Parts, Just Kampers, Slaughterhouse Customs etc.
Fingers crossed we’re back after the dip with a few more features and less niggles with the shop.
It’s crept up on us again. I’m sure it was only May yesterday!
We’ll be closing our doors officially for the Christmas and New Year holidays on Thursday 23rd December. All orders placed up to our last collection (approx 3pm) will be shipped, any orders placed after that will be shipped on our return on January the 4th 2022.
All of us at Brickwerks would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas… or whatever you celebrate, and A Happy New Year… Im sure we said this last year but let’s hope things are a bit better all round!
As it feels a bit “groundhog day” in general, we’ve just reposted a pic from a couple of years ago, pre “covid times”.
Lets hope the only “variants” we see in 2022 are those rattly old Aircooled things 😀
Now then, just a quick note to say that we’re currently experiencing reduced staff for various reasons and that we’re running a little behind!
We’ve done what we can today and got all the next day packages out the door but we’ve run out of time with the staff that we do have and the added Brucey Bonus of a quarter of our stock being in another unit down the yard as we’re trying to move premises!
We were hoping things would calm down when the school holidays started judging by the amount of parts that we’d sent out during the various lock downs and that your vehicles would all be in tip top condition by now, seems that isn’t the case! It’s crazy busy and the lads are doing an epic job with what they are given to work with whilst we try and vacate our units.
Returns, we’re behind with those too, we know, we’ll do what we can as soon as we can!
Sorry for any inconvenience, rest assured we’re doing as much as possible to keep parts moving out the door but we cannot guarantee we can maintain the delivery times you’ve come to expect from us, we’ll try our best!
Please also be warned that at some point in the next few weeks (that we’ve not yet decided for obvious reasons!) that we’re going to be shutting for a week or so to give us the oportunity to move in fully to our new base.
Just a quick message to say that we’ll be closed on Wednesday the 24th of March 2021 until the 26th of March 2021 for our annual stock take.
Any orders placed after 2pm Tuesday the 23rd March will not be processed until every nut and bolt has been counted!
Once we’ve taken our inventory then we shall start to process orders again as normal but obviously we’ll be a little bit behind so a little patience please as we catch back up.
Still no huge changes, things are continuing to run as smoothly as can be expected under the circumstances.
Please note that as detailed below the “Warehouse Collection” option has been removed from the webshop and in its place is the option for an “Addition to Existing order”. This is only to be used to order additional items to add to an EXISTING ORDER. As this is being abused we are now automatically refunding any orders which don’t have an existing order to add the items to and applying a 5% fee. I’m afraid this is necessary due to the amount of time we have to spend creating credits at a time when we are already operating with a reduced staff, and the fact that Paypal now charge a fee for processing refunds
DO NOT SELECT THE “ADDITION TO EXISTING ORDER” OPTION UNLESS YOU HAVE AN EXISTING ORDER.
**Update 21st April 2020
The situation outlined below in most cases hasn’t changed too much.
We are still shipping most orders out same day.
However some courier services have applied a “Large Item Surcharge” especially for export orders as they try to keep the bulk of their orders moving.
At the same time, the Royal Mail are struggling with the volume at the moment with expected delivery times extending due to the sheer volume of packages. This is affecting UK and export package delivery times.
Many export packages are “stuck” in the UK export depots due to limited capacity of air freight.
Some areas are being served with road freight, which is obviously slower, but means packages are still moving.
We have removed the Royal Mail option to a few countries for the time being.
If your package is delayed we are asked by the Royal Mail to allow 14 working days before opening a claim. Most items are being delivered well before this time has passed.
We’re sure you appreciate the difficult situation for couriers and postal services at the moment, not only dealing with unprecedented amounts of packages but also trying to process them all at a time when they are working with fewer staff.
We’ll do everything we can to ship orders as quickly as humanly possible, but we can’t control what happens after it leaves us… we have faith in the services we use to do the same.
We know… your inbox is full of updates regarding the current worldwide situation. Ours is the same. We are getting a lot of enquiries though from the UK and the rest of the world so we’ve decided to make a post to address the most common couple of questions.
Yes, at the time of writing we are still “open”. Externally, it’s business as usual, all orders are being shipped and we are still receiving deliveries as normal from all our manufacturers and suppliers with very few delays.
There are delays in some areas with deliveries, either due to travel restrictions due to the spread of Covid-19, and some staffing issues for couriers and mail services due to isolation or illness. On the whole all the services we us are coping extremely well in difficult times.
Visitors… As you may already know, we closed the workshop completely last year and made the decision to concentrate on expanding the webshop. This is still going ahead with new stuff arriving all the time (we wont clutter this post up with news of those… it would seem a bit too much like ‘cashing in on a crisis’).
We also stopped any kind of counter sale service over a year ago, and all collection orders have had to be pre-ordered since then.
This means that we have reduced on site visitors to our premises already, not through any kind of foresight or planning for what’s happening at the moment I should add, I don’t think anyone could claim to have forseen the current situation, but it does mean we don’t have to take those steps to reduce face to face contact now.
*EDIT*
As of today 25th March 2020 we have removed the “Warehouse Collection” option.
Collection from our premises by the general public is no longer an option as it would not be classed as “Essential Travel”.
We have replaced it with a “Addition To Order” option for those who order and then need to add something.
When using this option, please drop us an email to let us know so we can do our best to combine the orders.
Like many businesses, we have members of staff with families ranging from the very young to the very old, and their health and needs are obviously at the top of our priorities list.
Whilst we’re not blessed with a huge amount of free space (It’s full of parts!) we do have enough to ensure working areas are far enough apart to make sure we’re not all on top of each other so in most areas we can observe the “2 metre” rule.
We’ve also discussed possibly running a “shift system” both to reduce the amount of contact we all have with each other and to help with childcare problems now the schools have closed. At the moment we don’t need to do that, but if we do it won’t have any effect on good leaving.
Another change is that we now have a barcode scanner system for order processing (we’re not quite Amazon yet though!) which means we dont have loads of different people using the computers one after another… again it’s a recent introduction we were planning anyway, and not something done in anticipation of the situation we are now in.
We are in the position that all our units are completely seperate from other businesses so we don’t have the worry of shared areas which may effect the way we operate through the coming weeks/months.
So… at the moment, we are all fit and healthy, we’re doing what we have always done, and for the forseeable future we are confident we will be able to continue to do so. We hope the same is true of all our friends, customers, and suppliers.
Obviously we will follow the advice of the relevant departments with any arrangements we need to make and changes we need to put in place, but at the moment, we’re alright
I know we’ve had a lot of comments from customers who are anticipating a year of cancelled camping trips and postponed holidays, and possibly widespread travel restrictions which for many of us who travel and use campers at every opportunity probably seems like a prison sentence hanging over us… but it won’t be forever and hopefully we’ll be well over the worst by the time the leaves start turning brown and ready for an Indian Summer to catch up on holidays 🙂
For the moment, the daffs are out and it actually feels like Spring… and there’s beer in the fridge… even if theres no Pasta or bloomin’ toilet roll in the cupboards!!
This hateful time of year when we have to close for a few days and count everything.
Here’s your warning that we won’t be available to send packages out at a moments notice!
Tuesday 10th April – last day we’ll be sending anything out, cut off time – 12pm promt.
Wednesday 11th April – Closed, no emails will be replied to, no packages sent.
Thursday 12th April – Closed, no emails will be replied to, no packages sent.
Friday 13th April – If we’ve finished counting, data entry and eating pizza at the cost of the company then we’ll start shipping packages again.
The upshot is that we set the stock levels right and we have less chance of the problems we occasionally have where we sell something we don’t actually have (we blame Angus in the workshop for picking things up and wandering off with them!)
Remember that you can track your orders simply by logging into your account and clicking on the “where’s my stuff” link at the top of the page where you’ll find the current status of any orders and the associated tracking numbers (you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t know about this feature of the shop!)
Get your orders in early if you’re in a rush to avoid disappointment.
Due to the current popularity of the TDI conversion for T3 and even T4 models, we’re now keeping these VW Short Block Engines in stock.
Price to be confirmed… but expect them to be “sensible” especially for a VW unit 🙂
They’re supplied with Crank, Pistons, and intermediate shaft fitted… and even come with a sump (although you won’t need that for a T3).
They also have the piston protrusion checked and come with gaskets.
A short write up and some photos of our trip to Viborg back in February.
Winter had been a little mild this year in the UK. We had a sprinkling of snow but nothing to write home about. So what were a couple of cold loving Northerners to do?
Hop on a plane to Denmark for a few days, that’s what!
We were invited to JP Group last year to have a look around the factory, warehouse and showrooms, but we were just too busy.
We made time earlier this year in our “quiet” month and booked some flights to Copenhagen.
Copenhagen was our first port of call as thats where the plane landed, we stayed overnight in a hotel and had a brief look around the city the next day. It’s a great place and well worth a visit for a taster of Denmark. We’d recommend it if you fancy a weekend away or a base for more exploring in Denmark and Sweden.
We weren’t here to sightsee though, so we picked up a hire car and drove the 320km to Viborg.
Viborg is a city in the centre of Jutland and the place where King Canute set off from to give the English a kicking back when we were much less sophisticated.
Thankfully things have changed and the Danish are much friendlier. In fact its one of the friendliest places we’ve been!
Hotel rooms with saunas, bars where the patrons insist you drink their rum, and give you free t-shirts, and some amazing restaurants. We like Viborg.
Right, thats the Brickwerks Rough Guide out of the way.
Go to Denmark. You’ll love it!
Friday morning 10 am, we rocked up to JP Groups headquarters and factory location a few miles North of the city centre. We were met by Martin and given what we assume is the standard factory tour. Questions were answered like “Why do the boxes smell of Tobacco” – because JP, like us re-use a lot of packaging and some comes from a tobacco company. A good thing in our eyes.
If you’ve bought from Brickwerks you have very likely bought something from JP Group, they supply a lot of parts so they have this massive warehouse, with lots of parts… lots and lots of parts. Its a big place.
So, to help the staff get around when they’re picking our stuff they have these bad boys:
A scooter that’s also a picking trolley! Sadly we cant buy one, and it wouldn’t fit down the aisles at Brickwerks anyway… but we’d find somewhere to play on it if we could!
We could show you pictures of shelves and boxes, but you can see that at Tesco, one cool bit though is the automated picking bays. Basically large moving shelves and a large robot that goes and fetches the complete shelves from high above your head so you can pick the order. It’s a clever system. It’s fast and something we can relate to at the moment… saves space.
We quite fancy one of these too!
Next to the large warehouse is the Quality Assurance dept. This is where new products are checked and any issues that are reported are investigated.
Now we don’t get many returns if we’re honest, but if there is a problem with a JP product that they need to look at, it goes here. The racks are full of test rigs and jigs and the benches are full of test equipment.
Many people have a cynical view of returns and think that when a part is returned to a supplier they’ll just deny there is an issue and look for an excuse to blame anything but the part.
We’re sure that does happen… Not here though!
One of the refreshing things about JP is that, like us, they’re concerned with any quality issues and will look at complaints. If there is a problem, it’s picked up and dealt with. It’s in their interests because if there is a problem with a part people will buy elsewhere.
The people we met there also seem to know the vehicles they’re dealing with and even Simon couldn’t catch them out! Something else that’s refreshing.
Other stuff goes on in other areas. A company with the contract to refurbish Danish train seats operates from one of the buildings. An impressive thing in the days of “chuck it away and buy new ones”.
There is even a display cabinet for items found down the seats… if you’ve ever lost a toy car on a Danish train there is a good chance its in this cabinet.
If you’ve lost a dildo, its kept somewhere else away from prying eyes, apparently.
You can probably have it back if you ask…
JP source parts from all over world, they also make a lot of parts on site. They have a large manufacturing unit where Exhausts and body panels are made, among other things.
We spotted T3 Petrol and Diesel exhaust being made, front to rear coolant pipes, Front panels. All stuff we see every day but so much more interesting when you’re seeing how its made.
And forget what you may have heard about the way this stuff is made. Theres is a lot of laser this, CNC that, and robotic others. There are also a lot of skilled workers there welding and fabricating. Some of the new lines of Porsche exhausts are beautiful!
From the manufacturing area, we moved onto the showroom.
This is the area where some of the JP Private Car collection is displayed, as well as samples of a lot of the parts they supply. We think there were maybe a few more of Stuttgarts finest crammed here than is usual, due to building work and the current expansion going on in other areas.
Obviously, we’re Transporter guys, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ogle at some sleek curvy models from time to time!
Not just Porsche either. There is a Trekker, a few Beetles, a couple of Golfs including a Mk2 Cutaway that a VW dealer didn’t have space for, a few Mercedes and and even the only existing prototype of the Logicar. Details of that HERE if you’re into quirky cars. Its in German but Google will help you translate if you’re not fluent. There is also some info on JP Groups facebook page HERE.
After we’d had our fill of exotica it was off to the Workshop.
This is an area where JP Group work on their own vehicles. As soon as we saw the 2 T3’s parked outside we knew we were amongst friends here.
Inside on the ramp was a perfect Brown and Cream T3 undergoing assembly.
Again, seeing a T3 in pieces on a ramp is something we’re not new to, but when you see it at the company who are supplying your parts it kind of makes you realise that this isn’t just a company shifting boxes around, they have a definite interest in the stuff we drive, and also in keeping them on the road.
They’re doing what many claim to do but few actually do… fitting the parts they sell themselves. We can relate to that.
After a mooch around the workshop, it was off to lunch and then the “work” bit of our trip… spreadsheets, powerpoint, pie charts and graphs. We won’t bore you with the details of that bit.
Lastly an evening meal in a steakhouse in Viborg followed by an early night and a drive back to Copenhagen via Dollerup to check out some scenery before we hopped back on a plane.
All in all, a very interesting and rewarding few days.
Loads of photos below. You can click em to make em bigger and everything!
Enjoy!
Black Diamond Brake discs – T3 Syncro 14″
Mud Flap kit – T3 Front
VW T3 Dash Light
Bumper End Cap – Front Right/Rear Left
Black Diamond Brake Discs – T3 [ late]
Mud Flap kit – T3 Rear
H7 headlamp bulb upgrade
T3 Mirror Left Hand – Syncro Style
T5 Electric Heated Mirror [LEFT]
Manifold to Downpipe Gasket 1.6D/1.7D
T3 Syncro Reconditioned Propshaft
T3 Pickup Drop Side Bolt Kit
Gasket – Rocker cover 1.9TDI
T5 Electric Heated Mirror [RIGHT]
T3 TD Stainless steel tailpipe
Holdsworth tailgate Decal
Tectyl 190 Stone Chip 500ml
Radio Codiert Replacement Decal 357010049E Radiocodierung Sticker Aufkleber
These are one of our most requested panels… and one that we’re almost always out of stock of when you need them most!
So we’ve just taken delivery of a pallet (actually a stillage!) of Genuine NOS side panels to try and make sure they’re in stock in the UK when needed.
We guess the popularity of restoring the LHD models is why these are so in demand, but as well as the Westfalias and Multivans they also fit RHD window models too!
And the best bit is that buying em like this spreads the shipping cost to get em here and makes em a bit cheaper for everybody 🙂
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![Black Diamond Brake Discs - T3 [ late]](https://brickwerks.co.uk/black_diamond__b_4d10fa6406037.jpg/)
![T5 Electric Heated Mirror [LEFT]](https://brickwerks.co.uk/t5_electric_heat_4d67e12845308.jpg/)
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