Like every economic sector, this has been a tough year for the automotive aftermarket, but most garages are now recovering towards, or perhaps exceeding pre-pandemic business levels. As repair volume has increased, parts availability has been an issue for some suppliers, something that causes delays and problems for garages.

One distributor that has worked tirelessly to maintain its stocks through-out these difficult months has been J&S Automotive, ensuring that trusted local parts suppliers nationwide have the parts a garage needs when they need them. Alan Gaynor, Managing Director at J&S says, “By working closely with a wide range of global suppliers, we have been able to maintain excellent availability. With over 200,000 different references there will always be some stock outages, but we have managed to keep these to a minimum. The key is how quickly these are fixed and through close communication with both customers and suppliers we have in most instances found fast solutions.”

 J&S has also been working with motor factors across Ireland, to open up new business opportunities for independent workshops. Vehicle air-con system maintenance and servicing is one area of business that has seen rapid growth in recent months, as drivers have become more health and hygiene aware and garage owners have recognised the huge potential this service area can offer.

To meet this growing demand J&S has put together a comprehensive range of air con consumables, tools, equipment and recharge gases. This includes a brand new range of air con servicing, cleaning and vehicle sanitation products from the innovative Italian supplier Errecom. This offers OE quality air conditioning and refrigeration chemicals required by a workshop, including specialist air-con service products for Hybrid and Electric vehicles and a full range of POE, PAE and PAG oils and coolant additives.

Also available are air-con service tools and equipment, recharge starter kits, leak detectors, dyes, leak stops and performance enhancers. Plus, as part of the rent free gas range now favoured by many garages, R134A and R1234YF refrigerants are available to order from factors.  

Alan comments, “The increase in air con service work across the independent sector, has meant we have been able to expand our range and also introduce some significant price reductions on replacement air-con parts and consumables. This means that this expanding market sector is now more accessible than ever, as local parts suppliers now have everything that a garages needs to take on air-con service business.” He adds, “We will also be resuming J&S F-Gas training in the coming months, to ensure that garages can also get the skills and knowledge they need to unlock air-con business potential.”