I found a “no longer available” replacement part for my serger. Okay, it’s not in my hot little hands yet, but I’m fairly confident that it will arrive soon and my serger will stop being a very expensive paperweight.

First, of course, I had taken the broken serger to a local dealer, who tried to order the replacement part. But his supplier said that the part hasn’t been available since the serger had been discontinued.

Next I tried eBay and online businesses. No luck.

Then, while visiting family in Pennsylvania, I called a dealer in PA on the chance that they had the part I needed. They didn’t have it–but they were sure it was still available! I placed the order and asked them to ship it to my home (in California).

A few days later, they told me that the part *was* available but the distributor wouldn’t let them sell it to me (!), because it was to be shipped out of PA. Distributorships are franchises and they honor one another’s territory.

To sum up: If your dealer says a product is unavailable, he means that *he* can’t get it. You may be able to get it from a dealer in another state. I had to order it through a third party (my relatives in PA) and have it forwarded, but the extra postage is worth it to get my machine running again.

Janet