Caselabs is shutting down.

[Jtalk4456]

On 8/11/2018 at 7:40 PM, Furiku said:

I'm sad

 

Caselabs represented the ultimate freedom for highest end custom PCs, something even average consumer like myself would consider seriously when eyeing cases with 1000$/€ budget.

i believe the ultimate freedom is 3d printing your own case

[S w a t s o n]

1 hour ago, Jtalk4456 said:

i believe the ultimate freedom is 3d printing your own case

Clearly, maximum freedom (MURICA Status) is achieved when you build your computer not mounted to anything and then dump it into a cardboard box

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

At the wholesale level, but that was due to Oil running to $140USD per barrel. That 2007 run up murdered so much of the construction industry. 

 

9 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

GPUs. slash ass.

Both of those are explainable observable market trends over time,  so far people are claiming they had an 80% increase in costs and are trying to blame a single tariff for that.  

 

9 hours ago, Foxxer said:

Buds, I strongly believe case-labs was running out a parent company, this final result led by series of chain events. 

Trust me, no company will declare bankruptcy over new imposed tariffs suddenly.  80% is a little bit to much, unless your buying 10-lbs at a time or have limited suppliers. 

 

Much love and respect moose.

This is the most reasonable explanation.   Not that Taf or myself haven't been trying to say this for 4 pages now.

[NumLock21]

I remember visiting their site a few years ago after hearing about them. The first thing I've noticed was, the site isn't that user friendly and their product lack important information. What it showed during that time was, just the case and the outrageous price tag, but the pic of the case it's just a empty shell, which lead me to think, I have to pay over $500 just for a case that has nothing in it. Then came the necessary add-ons, where it doesn't even have the info about which cases it works with, so I could probably be ordering some random SSD mounting bracket and found out it's not compatible with the case I have.

Now their site is a lot more user friendly. When you pick a case, it shows you a list of add-on that's specific to the case, not like before where you pick one and then they just throw into a sea of stuffs and you have no idea what to get.

I like their SMA8 A, the closest out their is the mix of Phanteks Primo Special Edition with the 2 color scheme, and Corsair 900D.

[Trik'Stari]

3 hours ago, Swatson said:

Clearly, maximum freedom (MURICA Status) is achieved when you build your computer not mounted to anything and then dump it into a cardboard box

So basically a Fractal Design case then.

 

 

All kidding aside, I need to find drive cages and sleds for my SMA8 Magnum, if anyone finds some feel free to PM them to me as I detest letting all my drives dangle freely in the bottom compartment. Also I need to add many HDD's to my build as well.

 

I really don't want to have to go to Mountain Mods to put in a less ideal bracket that simply bolts the drives to the fans. I'd much rather use the purpose built equipment from Caselabs.

 

FFS this whole thing sucks.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Aww, that sucks, I was really looking at a Bullet Bh8

[jasonvp]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

All kidding aside, I need to find drive cages and sleds for my SMA8 Magnum, if anyone finds some feel free to PM them to me as I detest letting all my drives dangle freely in the bottom compartment. Also I need to add many HDD's to my build as well.

 

I really don't want to have to go to Mountain Mods to put in a less ideal bracket that simply bolts the drives to the fans. I'd much rather use the purpose built equipment from Caselabs.

Agreed on both.  I think I'll be OK, as I think I bought enough hardware with my original order to keep my case usable for a very long time.  That is unless some wicked new motherboard size is announced and built.  Or I suddenly have an overwhelming desire to load my rig up with 3.5" drives.

 

The beast:

[Pyrii]

This is sad to hear, after seeing them work with LTT on many projects, I was curious about them for my next build, I guess I'm stuck with whatever case makers feel like making for exorbitant prices in the full tower space

[Mihle]

16 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Unsurprised with how expensive their cases were that no one was buying them.  They used to have a niche where if you were doing watercooling their cases supported it easily out of the box...nowadays every case does that.  

 

They should have branched into "weird" configurations like dual mATX or super small (carry-on) ATX or whatever.  And do it at a sane cost.  $600 a case is just dumb when a $100 one will get you 90% of the way.

That's actually false. People where buying there cases. Last time I checked, a few months ago might be up to a year, they had a backlog of orders. Even if no one bought their cases after that, the backlog was a few months.

 

At least the PC computer cases part of their business, aka. Caselabs.

[Trik'Stari]

6 hours ago, Pyrii said:

This is sad to hear, after seeing them work with LTT on many projects, I was curious about them for my next build, I guess I'm stuck with whatever case makers feel like making for exorbitant prices in the full tower space

You could try Mountain Mods, a little more ridiculous and older in design but still very high quality.

 

 

I can't believe there is less than a full page of caselabs parts on Ebay.

[dongsDOTtmp]

On 8/13/2018 at 8:02 PM, mr moose said:

what's the sarcasm for?  Have you seen a single supplier inexplicably increase their prices by 80% before?

I can't speak for the supplier but the US Midwest Aluminium premiums have doubled since Jan 2018. These spikes were fueled by the tariff announcement as well as the sanctions on Rusal, the second largest aluminium producer by output. There's also accusations of price fixing and other factors like crony capitalism but those things are mere accusations and not things that have actually happened. 

 

Caselabs doesn't deal in raw aluminium so those numbers aren't entirely useful anyway, they buy sheets of a specific aluminium alloy from their supplier then CNC cut and bend them to specification. Taf the Ghost's accusation that their large product portfolio helped killed them is not one I can agree with. The smaller parts like hard drive cages were mostly universal and the larger parts like the chassis were generally made to order. I don't have insider knowledge of how Caselabs work but they don't look like the sort of company that stockpiles sheets of aluminium alloy, which would make them especially vulnerable to aluminium price fluctuations. 

 

If I were to guess, the biggest problem with their operation would be the type of aluminium alloy used - I don't know the alloy but it felt excessively good for a computer chassis and several grades better than Lian Li - and their location. Computer chassis manufacturing is low margin manufacturing, being based in California and not the South would be a problem if you wanted to maintain good profit margins. 

 

The company I work at has a subsidiary in the USA that manufacturers custom liquid containment devices and they have struggled to get the exact grade of steel needed right now because the tariffs and sanctions are causing supply chains to freak out with the panic buying, possible price fixing and people not knowing what to do. Smaller companies don't have the buying power of larger companies so they often get steel that isn't to specification (which gets sent back a lot of the time) or they just can't get the amount they require which pushes back orders (and cash flow).

 

Steel costs have gone up by some 40% for the subsidiary, which often can be pushed onto the client due to the nature of the product. That's not quite their 80% but they previously complained about being unable to obtain the exact grade of aluminium they required so I'm not at all suspicious when they cite material costs nailing the coffin completely shut.

[ErickS89]

The tariffs only went in effect in July so that can't b e the reason they're shutting down and only using it as an excuse.

They have been struggling for years now...  I have a SMA8 and the clips they use to hold the doors are utter crap, the clips in general are just awful...   The doors after awhile will push thru the clips thus making it very loose and eventually you can't shut your doors anymore.

 

Them going into bankruptcy has nothing to do with the tariffs, it's due to the fact the company was mismanaged, couldn't diversify, and a lot of ignorance on their part.

 

Edit:

Went and checked the tweet, I guess everyone wants to blame the tariffs for CaseLabs closing when it's CaseLabs own fault for shutting down.. 

Lots of Trump hate when it's not his fault, sooner or later tariffs were going to happen but hey if people want to act stupid(sorry..gotta be PC but we know the word I am referring to) let them...

[Fred Castellum]

On 8/10/2018 at 11:09 PM, Bcat00 said:

Damn, this sucks.

I hate to be in their position right now, getting screwed over by tariffs, something completely out of their control.

 

And before anyone call Bullshit on the excuse, it's not. Just go look at the average cost of raw metals and you will see it rose drastically in the past month.

Not exactly.

 

On 8/11/2018 at 9:00 PM, pas008 said:

Imho

rich got richer investing in American steel because raising the price

Wish i had bunch of money to throw at that

 

We only bought north American which they were great Right before the announcement of the tariff

The 3 companies we deal with actually changed their service and ordering procedures 

Right now it has tapered off and the service has got a little better and price dropped but still 10cents a lb more than before

Actually think the tariff will be lowered mid next year because of next presidential election and establishing stronger American raw material companies

It hasn't been moving up as strongly as you'd think. S&P Metals ETF: XME

 

The original founder of CaseLabs passed away on 07/03/12, Kevin Keating who was Vice President of CaseLabs quit back in May to work on his own company Mod-One. Current CEO Jim Keating hasn't exactly done a good job at internal management, not wanting to go political here but he appears to have a beef to pick with the current POTUS if you look at his facebook so blaming the Tariff's as the major contributing factor to bankruptcy would be more appealing. 

 

Aluminum tariff is at 10% and Steel is at 25%, and there are processes you can go through to get exemptions for certain products on the tariff from what I hear.

 

CaseLabs shut down custom orders in the past for many months before reopening them on 10/20/16 and has had long wait times since then on stock orders. While Tariffs would cause inefficiency in the supply chain, they already appear to have had inefficiency problems in their supply chain before. It's possibly they were sourcing their parts from a unreliable manufacturer or their manufacturer for their cases were sourcing materials from a unreliable supply provider. They've been having internal management problems before the tariffs were a thing so this seems like it's just a compilation of issues stacked up on each other that caused the ultimate closure of the company. 

 

Caselabs statement on how the Tariffs have raised their prices by almost 80% is insane, if that statement was true then they must have been working with some shite partners or had their internal financials wack.

[pas008]

3 hours ago, MyInnerFred said:

Not exactly.

 

It hasn't been moving up as strongly as you'd think. S&P Metals ETF: XME

 

The original founder of CaseLabs passed away on 07/03/12, Kevin Keating who was Vice President of CaseLabs quit back in May to work on his own company Mod-One. Current CEO Jim Keating hasn't exactly done a good job at internal management, not wanting to go political here but he appears to have a beef to pick with the current POTUS if you look at his facebook so blaming the Tariff's as the major contributing factor to bankruptcy would be more appealing. 

 

Aluminum tariff is at 10% and Steel is at 25%, and there are processes you can go through to get exemptions for certain products on the tariff from what I hear.

 

CaseLabs shut down custom orders in the past for many months before reopening them on 10/20/16 and has had long wait times since then on stock orders. While Tariffs would cause inefficiency in the supply chain, they already appear to have had inefficiency problems in their supply chain before. It's possibly they were sourcing their parts from a unreliable manufacturer or their manufacturer for their cases were sourcing materials from a unreliable supply provider. They've been having internal management problems before the tariffs were a thing so this seems like it's just a compilation of issues stacked up on each other that caused the ultimate closure of the company. 

 

Caselabs statement on how the Tariffs have raised their prices by almost 80% is insane, if that statement was true then they must have been working with some shite partners or had their internal financials wack.

its not moving rapidly up because many places arent able to produce and are investing in themselves to handle this new tariff load

i have 3 trucks of steel coming in next 2 months and its about 32% increase in price delivered now

that is a huge jump, we are expecting to increase product prices next yr at this rate

 

which in turn gets passed along to our customers which 90% is from the us

tariffs are hurting americans as bad as the chinese and makes the rich get richer

[DemonGoD]

Moose the whole "the tarriff is not yet in effect" means nothing to them.  As soon as it was announced everyone bought up all the high grade aluminum already over here and backlogged all the non tariffed sources . That then created a shortage meaning if I want to buy high grade aluminum right now at spot prices I would have to pay out my ass to get it.  Sure if they could afford to wait 3-6 months they could get some shipped at only maybe 10% increase but that is obviously not  the case, and this is not pop can aluminum. So yes 80% increased production cost is not some made up number. This is not to say they did not have other problems or poor management but i don't think its far-fetched at all to claim "almost 80%". Also i think the word "blame" is rather harsh its simply an explanation im sure this cost played some part in their problems. Simply put the cost rose making there profit margin go away they got defaulted on payments and when they went to the bank toask for more money to weather the storm they got told to piss off. 

[pas008]

3 minutes ago, DemonGoD said:

Moose the whole "the tarriff is not yet in effect" means nothing to them.  As soon as it was announced everyone bought up all the high grade aluminum already over here and backlogged all the non tariffed sources . That then created a shortage meaning if I want to buy high grade aluminum right now at spot prices I would have to pay out my ass to get it.  Sure if they could afford to wait 3-6 months they could get some shipped at only maybe 10% increase but that is obviously not  the case, and this is not pop can aluminum. So yes 80% increased production cost is not some made up number. This is not to say they did not have other problems or poor management but i don't think its far-fetched at all to claim "almost 80%". Also i think the word "blame" is rather harsh its simply an explanation im sure this cost played some part in their problems. Simply put the cost rose making there profit margin go away they got defaulted on payments and when they went to the bank toask for more money to weather the storm they got told to piss off. 

not to mention many places were stocking and hoarding aluminum and not letting it go for anywhere near the price it should have been there are many articles on it

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, dongsDOTtmp said:

I can't speak for the supplier but the US Midwest Aluminium premiums have doubled since Jan 2018. These spikes were fueled by the tariff announcement as well as the sanctions on Rusal, the second largest aluminium producer by output. There's also accusations of price fixing and other factors like crony capitalism but those things are mere accusations and not things that have actually happened. 

 

Caselabs doesn't deal in raw aluminium so those numbers aren't entirely useful anyway, they buy sheets of a specific aluminium alloy from their supplier then CNC cut and bend them to specification. Taf the Ghost's accusation that their large product portfolio helped killed them is not one I can agree with. The smaller parts like hard drive cages were mostly universal and the larger parts like the chassis were generally made to order. I don't have insider knowledge of how Caselabs work but they don't look like the sort of company that stockpiles sheets of aluminium alloy, which would make them especially vulnerable to aluminium price fluctuations. 

 

If I were to guess, the biggest problem with their operation would be the type of aluminium alloy used - I don't know the alloy but it felt excessively good for a computer chassis and several grades better than Lian Li - and their location. Computer chassis manufacturing is low margin manufacturing, being based in California and not the South would be a problem if you wanted to maintain good profit margins. 

 

The company I work at has a subsidiary in the USA that manufacturers custom liquid containment devices and they have struggled to get the exact grade of steel needed right now because the tariffs and sanctions are causing supply chains to freak out with the panic buying, possible price fixing and people not knowing what to do. Smaller companies don't have the buying power of larger companies so they often get steel that isn't to specification (which gets sent back a lot of the time) or they just can't get the amount they require which pushes back orders (and cash flow).

 

Steel costs have gone up by some 40% for the subsidiary, which often can be pushed onto the client due to the nature of the product. That's not quite their 80% but they previously complained about being unable to obtain the exact grade of aluminium they required so I'm not at all suspicious when they cite material costs nailing the coffin completely shut.

You are describing poor business management, not unexpected increases of raw materials by 80%. 

2 hours ago, DemonGoD said:

Moose the whole "the tarriff is not yet in effect" means nothing to them.  As soon as it was announced everyone bought up all the high grade aluminum already over here and backlogged all the non tariffed sources . That then created a shortage meaning if I want to buy high grade aluminum right now at spot prices I would have to pay out my ass to get it.  Sure if they could afford to wait 3-6 months they could get some shipped at only maybe 10% increase but that is obviously not  the case, and this is not pop can aluminum. So yes 80% increased production cost is not some made up number. This is not to say they did not have other problems or poor management but i don't think its far-fetched at all to claim "almost 80%". Also i think the word "blame" is rather harsh its simply an explanation im sure this cost played some part in their problems. Simply put the cost rose making there profit margin go away they got defaulted on payments and when they went to the bank toask for more money to weather the storm they got told to piss off. 

 

2 hours ago, pas008 said:

not to mention many places were stocking and hoarding aluminum and not letting it go for anywhere near the price it should have been there are many articles on it

That's normal for streel/aluminium trading, I live in a country that basically has two economies, one for metals and one for everything else.  Steel price and aluminium price fluctuations is literally 700 jobs in one town.  If you think a tariff of that size has such a sudden impact then you are not looking at the history of steel prices or the fact that Bush introduced tariffs exactly the same 2002 and the results were well noted. Not good in general but if you think they are the reason one business goes under in less than a month when they already had major issues managing their stocks then you are not looking at the bigger picture.

 

Also lets not forget that they have metal futures trading because large companies need to ensure stock supply. It is very possible that all the stock you think is being "bought up" may well have been purchased years ago.

 

 

[pas008]

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You are describing poor business management, not unexpected increases of raw materials by 80%. 

 

That's normal for streel/aluminium trading, I live in a country that basically has two economies, one for metals and one for everything else.  Steel price and aluminium price fluctuations is literally 700 jobs in one town.  If you think a tariff of that size has such a sudden impact then you are not looking at the history of steel prices or the fact that Bush introduced tariffs exactly the same 2002 and the results were well noted. Not good in general but if you think they are the reason one business goes under in less than a month when they already had major issues managing their stocks then you are not looking at the bigger picture.

 

Also lets not forget that they have metal futures trading because large companies need to ensure stock supply. It is very possible that all the stock you think is being "bought up" may well have been purchased years ago.

 

 

i know I'm just pointing out my experiences lately 25% tariff on chinese steel has made us pay 32% increase on our next 3 trucks from an american company, its just boosting american prices and the us companies and customers are paying for it, not the chinese, not anyone but american consumers

us consumers will be the ones paying no one else even on cheaper items

 

and fact there are many articles aluminum/etc hoarding right before the tariffs

 

and have to go couldnt finish be be back later

[mr moose]

15 minutes ago, pas008 said:

i know I'm just pointing out my experiences lately 25% tariff on chinese steel has made us pay 32% increase on our next 3 trucks from an american company, its just boosting american prices and the us companies and customers are paying for it, not the chinese, not anyone but american consumers

us consumers will be the ones paying no one else even on cheaper items

 

and fact there are many articles aluminum/etc hoarding right before the tariffs

 

and have to go couldnt finish be be back later

I definitely agree the tariffs will have a negative effect, I haven't actually said otherwise, But in context of them having an immediate 80% effect on caselabs sending them into bankruptcy is taking the piss on a grand scale.  

 

If we look at the price of aluminum over the last 5 years it is cheaper today than it was in 2012.  We saw one spike in response to tariff announcements then settles again.  I'm sorry but if caselabs can't account for that one spike then they had much much bigger issues.

 

 

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/aluminum

 

EDIT: I'm guessing your personal experiences are at the coal front, where immediate change is sometimes noticeable.  The difference is the people I talk to about this work to maintain a business 2 - 5 years in the future with forward planning upto 50 years.  And they aren't ignorant to the effects of tariffs and global trading.  In fact when china stopped buying steel from Australia BHP shelved a multi billion dollar mine expansion citing falling commodity prices that weren't even related to the mine.   They were on the money because steel prices hit a record low in 2016 (4 years later). 

[dongsDOTtmp]

Dude, Caselabs is clearly not a huge operation. They're not stockpiling a lot of aluminium just like how our subsidiary isn't stockpiling a lot of steel either. We're not BHP who can eat huge losses because of their diversified product portfolio and immense cash flow. The folks over at the USA are eating a 40% increase in steel costs, that increase isn't trivial no matter how much some people in this thread want to suggest eating 40% increase in material costs are a normal thing to be able to adjust to.

 

Its just fortunate that our subsidiary can get clients to eat the costs because everyone supplying liquid tanks are dealing with the same price increases and there's a lot of profit margin in the design and consulting side. Unfortunately, this is not the same for businesses that deal in consumer goods and consumables who are really struggling right now. Some try and tough it out, some close down and some just move operations overseas like Harley Davidson. 

 

The actual increases in price and shortages were definitely unexpected. This isn't a case of BHP being good at divining commodity prices, something they'd probably be good at since they're miners who deal in commodities, this is a case of a government actually enacting on self destructive tariffs and US metal suppliers taking advantage of the situation to increase costs/strangle supply if recent rumors of price fixing are to be believed. It doesn't help that only the largest companies are getting tariff exceptions.

 

There's no disputing that their business model didn't make sense in this era of manufacturing where the majority of case manufacturers either operate on low margins/high volume or outsource their infrastructure/supply costs to Lian Li in the case of boutique mini-ITX case manufacturers. But to argue that the tariffs and sanctions had little impact on their demise is laughable in my opinion, every US manufacturer that sells consumable goods is struggling right now especially when larger companies are able to get tariff exceptions from the Whitehouse.

[Benjamin Ranaei]

F

[DemonGoD]

I don’t think anyone said that was the only reason this includes casslabs. In fact reading the message posted on thier website they even phrased it to not only explain the reason for their cost increase but how it was the combination of that small profit margins and large defaults on payments. I was simply pointing out that in fact it seems very likely their material costs did go up 80% mostly because people seemed to think it was impossible when it actually seems quite legitimate and in line with what I have heard about the price of high grade aluminum in general. I don’t think anyone was claiming that alone was the problem just clarifying that “a 10% tariff not yet in effect” could very easily have increased their current costs by 80% in this case. I read thier message as “if all these things had not happened at once maybe the bank would have gave us more money”

 

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, dongsDOTtmp said:

Dude, Caselabs is clearly not a huge operation. They're not stockpiling a lot of aluminium just like how our subsidiary isn't stockpiling a lot of steel either. We're not BHP who can eat huge losses because of their diversified product portfolio and immense cash flow. The folks over at the USA are eating a 40% increase in steel costs, that increase isn't trivial no matter how much some people in this thread want to suggest eating 40% increase in material costs are a normal thing to be able to adjust to.

 

Its just fortunate that our subsidiary can get clients to eat the costs because everyone supplying liquid tanks are dealing with the same price increases and there's a lot of profit margin in the design and consulting side. Unfortunately, this is not the same for businesses that deal in consumer goods and consumables who are really struggling right now. Some try and tough it out, some close down and some just move operations overseas like Harley Davidson. 

 

The actual increases in price and shortages were definitely unexpected. This isn't a case of BHP being good at divining commodity prices, something they'd probably be good at since they're miners who deal in commodities, this is a case of a government actually enacting on self destructive tariffs and US metal suppliers taking advantage of the situation to increase costs/strangle supply if recent rumors of price fixing are to be believed. It doesn't help that only the largest companies are getting tariff exceptions.

 

There's no disputing that their business model didn't make sense in this era of manufacturing where the majority of case manufacturers either operate on low margins/high volume or outsource their infrastructure/supply costs to Lian Li in the case of boutique mini-ITX case manufacturers. But to argue that the tariffs and sanctions had little impact on their demise is laughable in my opinion, every US manufacturer that sells consumable goods is struggling right now especially when larger companies are able to get tariff exceptions from the Whitehouse.

I'm really not sure what you are trying to say here.  40% is not 80% and for the most part WAS expected, it was not sudden and out of the blue. Anyone who is watching the market regularly could have told you this was going to happen.  No one is suggesting anyone should be able to eat an increase in cost, I am saying that there is no way the increase was 80% and no way the tariff "played a major role".  Remember they said this:

Quote

The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80% (partly due to associated shortages), which cut deeply into our margins

Hmmm, could it be that some of the shortages were due to other businesses who had the foresight to see the spike in cost and buffer their stocks?  Yep, absolutely that happened.  Could caselabs do that?  nope, why? because they were already heading to bankruptcy.  The tariff played little role in that.  At best the tariff was the straw that broke the camels back.

 

 

Look at all the posts of people saying how over priced their products were and how they have so many orders that the wait time was months. That is not a sign of a business about to go bankrupt unless the reason the orders are taking that long is because they are not managing their stock. 

 

You seem to have missed the point by thinking that the size of BHP somehow changes the message.  Commodities change price and futures trading is a thing.  If your company depends on base metals being below a certain cost then you buy when it is and you stock pile when you can, failing to be able to do that means your business model is not feasible, tariff or not.  You don't have to have a business degree to work that out.

 

 

[Lathlaer]

36 minutes ago, mr moose said:

That is not a sign of a business about to go bankrupt unless the reason the orders are taking that long is because they are not managing their stock. 

I remember when Jay was talking about visiting them sometime in 2015 - it was a +- 10 man operation with a machine shop, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have a single case ready for next day shipping. 

 

TBH I got the impression that they were basically making the cases to order and the wait time was always at least a week if not longer.

[Mihle]

6 minutes ago, Lathlaer said:

I remember when Jay was talking about visiting them sometime in 2015 - it was a +- 10 man operation with a machine shop, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have a single case ready for next day shipping. 

 

TBH I got the impression that they were basically making the cases to order and the wait time was always at least a week if not longer.

They sort of did. If I remember right the most common parts they had some of but the less common was made when you order. At some point, when the orders where at max and they litterally closed for new orders (wait time was few months, don't remember exactly how long) they had very few to no parts in stock.