OZ Manufacturers What's Still Here and What's Gone and Missed?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

Hamilton Rd, New Gisborne VIC 3438 although an aerial view doesn't seem to confirm this.

Long gone - abandoned in 2012, its basically an abandoned building with a few smaller businesses within sections of it.

Flexible Drive is still around - located Keilor Park, only employs around 35 people nationally these days compared to 700 across two manufacturing plants in the 1970s when they were a tier 1 supplier to our manufacturing industry.

[FordJuventus]

VDO from what I know are gone. Howard Instruments imports them from memory. VDO was massive in its day.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by FordJuventus

VDO from what I know are gone. Howard Instruments imports them from memory. VDO was massive in its day.

VDO based out of Singapore now (part of Continental), used to be in Bundoora, then they decided to throw in the towel on their Australian warehouse, become real hard to deal with and charge everyone up the *** for everything.

Flexible Drive is one of their distributors, but has **** stock levels, they just carry a core range - they also used to manufacture Stewart Warner instrumentation under licence decades ago, then it turned to **** and the distribution and manufacturing rights of SW instrumentation in Australia was taken off them, now its hard to get your hands on and costs an arm and a leg. If you want SW instrumentation its way cheaper (and quicker) to buy it out of Summit Racing ex USA.

Howard Instruments also resells VDO.

Shepparton Speedo & Instrument service carries a large range of VDO stuff on hand,

As far as interstate stuff goes, I'm not too sure about other states but those are your three bigger sources of VDO stuff in VIC.

[Bill M]

Moss Industrial is still here in Dandenong South.
https://mossindustrial.com.au/work-samples/

[stefcio007]

Wilson Transformer Company in Glen Waverley.

[DRU842]

Go Faster Bits (GFB) in Peakhurst (Sydney).

[EBSXR6]

I was told Bond still make some Batteries in Australia.

[DJM83]

Originally Posted by stefcio007

Wilson Transformer Company in Glen Waverley.

Wilsons is still around though.

[swamp]

hi
Since Bosch purchased PBR brakes they have proceeded to delete all PBR overhaul kits.
Bosch is not the company they used to be .

[stefcio007]

Originally Posted by DJM83

Wilsons is still around though.

Sure is, that would put it in the “What’s still here” category as per the title

They are probably in the critical infrastructure category one of the reasons they’re still around. Add to that the things they make are difficult to ship cheaply.

[swamp]

hi
Besco batteries in S.A. Far better batteries than others especially Century . Century eventually purchased Besco batteries . Once purchased under a cheaper redesign they were being resold but only as a badge engineered Century ghost product .
Besco ""copies"" were never as durable as the original .

Maintaining a huge fleet of cabs does shows up poor quality . Bleeding acid , short lifespans , random failures
Ever wonder why u only get 2-3 yrs outta a battery .

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by swamp

hi
Since Bosch purchased PBR brakes they have proceeded to delete all PBR overhaul kits.
Bosch is not the company they used to be .

I was taught that the acronym "BOSCH" stood for Back Order Something you Can't Have.

Dr Terry