MR-501 Ohtsu tires available again

[pablo]

In case anyone missed this.

Ohtsu MR-501 new production tires are available from Honda.
Some eBay sellers about $190 a pair.

Dillon Brothers in Omaha $167.xx/pair out the door. Honda warehouse check says 99+ tires available when I bought my pair.

Checkout the production date code.

[ps2fixer]

Looks like the MR501 is stock for the 88-89 TRX250R rear tires. Any more applications it's correct OEM for?

Also 20x10x9 is the tire size if anyone was wondering.

Here's the partzilla link. Pretty interesting, I assume they were out of production before, but suddenly new production now? Wonder what the idea/motive is behind that, I don't think there's that many TRX250R's out there to cover the cost of the new mold and such. They look like a good tire for the back of a 86-87 200x, 250r (didn't check stock sizes), or 350x though even though it's 10% smaller (22in vs 20in).

https://www.partzilla.com/product/honda/42710-HB9-772

[ironchop]

I bought a brand new pair of those a year ago from Babbitt's. I remember it was about a year before I saw them in stock anywhere, so I snatched a pair. Maybe Ohtsu only does occasional runs?

Sent from my Z958 using Tapatalk

[pablo]

I believe the MR501 tire began on the 1999 TRX400EX. So recently seeing it listed on the TRX250R parts diagrams was an eye opener. I know it wasn't listed there last year. Periodically, I check to see whats available because there have been short runs of previously discontinued parts. About three years ago the headlight glass for the 86ATC250R was listed and I was fortunate to get the last one of fifty. Lately there seems to be more parts available for various ATVs and prices have come down on many items.

I'm glad the molds are still around and new Ohtsu rear tires are available again.

Also, a friend just bought a pair of new production Ohtsu 10in. MR101 front tires.

[ps2fixer]

That's interesting here's the partzilla page for the TRX400EX part number and it's related interchange. Appears the images are of the exact same tire, I can barely see the MR501 mark on them.

https://www.partzilla.com/product/ho...f80430f402765c

I didn't know it was somewhat common for parts to go back into production like this, or like random stock to be found and listed for sale again. I figured once a part ends production, it's effectively gone forever. I might have a new project to play with, scrape a Honda dealer site (like partzilla) for all part numbers, current (and maybe past) prices as time goes on, and document parts that go out of production and if/when they go back into production.

Too bad partzilla doesn't give the correlation of part numbers 42711-HN1-004 and 42710-HB9-772 are the same part, maybe another site gives that info? Interesting fact, the ebay listing I found real quickly has both part numbers mixed in the listing and shows both interchanges but nothing new that I can see.

Looks like bikebandit gives better part number data. I wonder if they also don't cut off the interchange list.



Would a site monitoring for old parts becoming available again create enough value to charge a small yearly fee for? I'm talking something reasonable like $5-15 just to cover having a server checking if any parts get listed for sale again. I have to double check the legal side of things, but I don't think public product data is a problem as long as I'm not hitting their site 24/7 with spam requests or an intent to do harm to their site/server. First target would be Honda, but in theory I could do the same for other brands too.

Anyway, back on the topic at hand, I suspect those tires are back in production because they were last used on a 2014 model and there's a min length of time Honda wants/needs to provide parts for those machines. On the automotive side of things, I think they are legally required to provide parts for 20 years. I remember seeing some sort of requirement like that atleast. I wouldn't think the automotive things would apply to atv's, but maybe that's how Honda treats it?

[pablo]

fixer,
Check the listing of the 89TRX250R in Partzilla. It now list the MR501 as the rear tire with the old image of the PV101.

What sucks about the Partzilla/Service Honda parts listing is they don't show all the original part numbers and prices of discontinued parts anymore. Partzilla used to show the prices until a few years ago. While Service Honda stopped showing discontinued parts prices many years ago.
So your idea of a live data base would be welcome. I think most people are like me and check the listings a few times a year.

What would you do with price changes? I.e. chain slider for the 86ATC/TRX250R. 2004-$16, 2018-$32, 2020-$25 on Partzilla.

"Too bad partzilla doesn't give the correlation of part numbers 42711-HN1-004 and 42710-HB9-772 are the same part".
Because it's not the same part. The new number is the new replacement part.

What I do like about Partzilla thats relatively new is the "Related Fitment" list of all the bike models that use the same part.

Concerning your last two paragraphs.
Your idea of monitoring the listing is interesting but I don't think enough people will cover the cost.

There was a magazine article covering an interview with Mr. Honda. The interviewer asked about parts for all the motorcycles he has made. Basically, he said all parts for all his bikes will be available forever. That idea stopped some years after he passed away.

Many years ago, there was a member here or on 3w.org who worked at the HondaUSA warehouse. He stated every year tons of parts were just thrown away because they were not listed in their inventory anymore.

Combined with the fact that many Honda parts are now made in China, Thailand, and the Philippines, and some parts are available again and cheaper makes for a difficult and dynamic inventory management for us old hand trike riders.

[ps2fixer]

Well to be honest, I wish I had direct access to the dealer network/inventory systems, but clearly there's legal issues with that, I'm sure Honda wants only Honda employees to have access.

The very basic concept is a web scraper, also called a spider or bot. Basically it would load the part pages like a normal person and log price, if it's available etc. There should be a pattern for discontinued vs out of stock, like on Partzilla they just list no price for discontinued now. I've been using partzilla for years for looking up part numbers and interchanges, so that fitment data has been there for atleast 6-7 years, the latest update cuts the list off if there's too many machines, before it listed everything.

Anyway, each part would have an identifier in the system, probably just a typical each row gets the last row's number + 1, and that number is used to track different data points about the part. This goes a bit into database design, but basically the main table would be the static never changing details about the product, like current part number, interchange, part type, etc. For the pricing data, that would be another table, so it would log that id number, time stamp, and price. Grab the latest date and it's the most current price, grab the oldest, and it was the price from that time. Can use that data to create graphs etc for price over time. I suspect the price table could be dual use and also log if it's in stock or not, discontinued, but it might be more efficient to store that data in another table depending how often that data changes. Like if the price changes every week or so, pretty much would just log all the data every scrape so all in one table. If the price changes say once a year, the in stock vs out of stock would change so often, it should be in its own table to save space and reduce duplicated stored data. I've built a lot of databases, so I'm pretty good at making things work fast.

On the money side of things, my raw costs for a small site would be next to nothing, I already have a computer running 24/7 to run the bot on, data logging would be done to the same server as my atvmanual.com site so I'm already paying for hosting for that. Pretty much the real cost would be the initial effort building the system, and the running maintenance to keep it working. Time and effort wise, I'm not sure how long it would take me, probably $500-1000 worth of time, but I work at home so it's hard to value time like that. If I spread say $1000 of effort across 5 years, I'd need an average of 14 people paying $15/year to cover initial costs not including hosting costs. I'm legit running the numbers as I type this, so kind of seeing how feasible it is in this reply lol. Actual hosting costs is around $20/mo, there's cheaper options, but for what I get for support and pre-setup security/hardening, etc it's pretty worth it. If I had to, a cheap VPS (machine to run the bot) is about $15/mo. Ignoring the fact the host is already used for other sites, $35/mo translates to $420/year plus the domain name, call that $20, so $440/year for raw hosting fees or $260 w\o the VPS setup. Need 18-30 paid users at $15/year to cover the bare min costs ignoring payment processing fees etc. I agree this is a very niche thing, not even sure how I'd find more people that would be interested in it.

On the other hand, it's an interesting project, I don't get a lot of free time to mess around, but this is the kind of stuff I do in my free time since I enjoy programming, databases, etc. I'll likely build a very basic/simple version of this idea for personal use in either case since it could be valuable info and great for an investment. Like say the ATC350X fenders went back into production for some reason, you know they won't last long and if they aren't too crazy priced they would give very good return on investment after a few years once they sell out and the demand for them jumps up again with no supply. Say $300 investment, 5 years later the NOS fenders are worth $600, that's 100% gains across 5 years, or 20% profit per year. Clearly that's a real winner in almost any situation, not all parts are that easy to determine if it's a good investment or not though.

I guess I'm kind of interested in NOS investing, it's really interesting how a $3 part from Honda suddenly becomes a $20+ part once it goes discontinued. Like for example, I was selling these on ebay shipped for $10, I'd make something like $2 after fees etc. I basically was just providing the service of hey, look this part is available new, don't buy the garbage looking used ones for this price or more. I do the same thing with the brake adjuster parts, but I had some people copy me so not a big deal, I make next to nothing off them anyway, wasn't worried much. I still have like 3 of these on hand though, brand new. Wish I had more, I was going to restock 30-50 because they sold somewhat well, I think I sold like 15 or so before that.

https://www.partzilla.com/product/ho...0440694503848d


I don't know the TRX250R models that great, not 100% sure what the OEM stock rear tire was. If it was the MR501 then it should be the same tire, but I see they list two parts, and the second part effectively links to the MR501 listing as well. 3 part numbers all using the same exact photos, if you order any of them, they'd ship you the same part, I've tested that stuff before. The price generally gives it away if there's no pic.

Back on the NOS part finder idea thing, I could make it a sub section of my atvmanual site. If I do anything paid on that, I could link the two services together. I'm not one to charge for one service, and require payment for a second similar service, I'd rather combine them even though that's not the best logical option for making the most money possible, I'd rather have more people happy with the product/service than make tons per sale. It's an interesting concept, I'll probably have to run it privately for a bit to get a grasp on how how it is to keep alive. I'm always open to more ideas like this though, I effectively work online/at home, so if I can create enough value online to live off of web services, that would be neat. The parts stuff is a ton of work and income is pretty low because I don't charge super high prices, I also don't focus on it well enough to keep my parts in stock too, double edge sword lol.