Can you afford to go cheap? The case for buying original parts

In times of never-before-seen cost pressures, it can be tempting to try and keep your shot-blast equipment running cheaply – by using non-OEM spare and wear parts. All too often, this ends up being a costly, or even dangerous, false economy.  

Here are four reasons why. 

 1. Safety

Using pirate parts can affect the safe operation of your machine in ways that may surprise you. In a wheel blast machine, people will instinctively know not to take risks with turbine parts, due to the forces at play inside the blast wheel. 

Almost more dangerous, because less obvious, are things like filter cartridges, where pirate parts can cause metal dust to escape from the machine and put workers’ health at risk. This can also trigger lengthy clean-up operations and environmental fines. 

The Wheelabrator aftermarket team has seen cases where dust from blast machines had not only settled everywhere inside a workshop building, including hard-to-reach areas like the ceiling, but also on cars parked outside. Damage and clean-up cost can be considerable.

3. Inventory cost

With the largest installed base globally and huge parts warehouses, Wheelabrator holds parts in stock so you don’t have to. This means you can get the parts you need at short notice and only have to keep an emergency inventory yourself. Wheelabrator is committed to providing parts for any Wheelabrator machine and its predecessor brands, as well as many competitor machines, so you can get all parts easily and quickly from the same source.

All this reduces storage and stock management cost and means you only ever buy what you actually need. Parts plans are available to further reduce the administrative burden of ordering parts at the right time.