At 08:22 AM 11/4/04 +0000, the Webbs in the UK wrote:
>"During the restoration of our Coupe (YM1-2558) we purchased a full set of front suspension bushes from the MGOC. These were fitted approximately 10 - 12 months ago, now the car has not yet returned to the road and the bushes are disintegrating!"

Rubber parts in general are a problem, and this one seems to re-occur periodically. Even when all is going well, and some past problem has been corrected, another batch of bad parts can sneak in occasionally. The problem happens when the parts are molded from natural rubber rather than from Neoprene. Natural rubber is not necessarily cheaper, but it can be a mistake. Sometimes the supplier knows about it, and drops the price to liquidate the parts (on some unsuspecting bean counter). Good way to lose a customer. In a case where the supplier does not know about it, they are usually grateful to hear the report so they might be able to do something to correct the problem.

I do not have any good contact at MGOC (not being a member), so I will have to leave this one as a simple report and hope that someone closer to the source may be able to do something constructive.

Addendum February 6, 2024:
Twenty years on we are still getting the same well known complaints. Many of the vendors must have re-ordered more parts for inventory multiple times by now, and they still don't seem to care about the crap quality of the rubber, or the continuing customer complaints. Some vendors do offer alternate upgrade parts, like polyurethane or MGB GT V8 style bushings, whicn are all good. But apparently a large number of customers are regularly shopping "cheap", so the vendoers still supply what the customer wants, and you get what you order. If you want to stop the supply of crap rubber parts, you have to stop buying them. If you do get stuck with such bad parts, you need to send them back and/or demand a refund. When vendors get stuck with inventory they can't sell, and have to do refunds, the crap parts will no longer be a viable retail product.