Motor Factor Delivery Across the UK

A garage does not order a part in advance. It strips the car, finds what has failed, and rings the factor — and from that moment a technician, a ramp and a customer are all waiting on a van.

T&C Logistics delivers for motor factors, car parts distributors and commercial vehicle parts suppliers. Companies House records around 990 active UK companies trading explicitly as motor factors or parts suppliers, serving many thousands of garages. Our drivers hold ADR certification directly rather than through partners. Quotes from £50 (ex VAT), quoted in full upfront before you book.

Why does the trade run so many rounds a day?

Because the demand is generated by work already in progress. A garage identifies a part only after it has the car apart, which makes the order urgent from the moment it is placed.

A typical factor runs a scheduled early round then repeats it through the day — commonly three to six times — picking up whatever has been ordered since the last van left. Density is what makes that viable.

The measure that matters to a garage is not delivery time in the abstract but whether the part arrives before the technician has to move to another job. Once the car comes off the ramp, the cost has already been incurred. See our same-day courier service.

What in a parts order is classified?

Rather more than most people in the trade realise, and three items in particular.

Airbags are the item most often moved incorrectly. They are safety devices containing a pyrotechnic charge, and they are shipped every day by people treating them as ordinary spares. See our hazardous goods service.

How are EV and hybrid batteries handled?

As high-energy lithium consignments, with the added complication that a damaged pack is treated far more strictly than an intact one.

An intact traction battery or hybrid module moves under UN3480 or UN3481 with specific packing and state-of-charge requirements. A damaged, defective or recalled pack has its own more demanding provisions, and it is not a job for a general courier.

This matters increasingly as the vehicle parc shifts. Factors and garages that never handled a classified consignment now do so routinely, and the honest position is that our ADR certification is held directly at driver level. See our lithium battery courier service.

Do you handle bodyshop supply?

Yes, and it is largely a Class 3 flammable liquid operation. Paint, basecoat, clearcoat, thinners and primer are solvents, and a bodyshop takes them in quantity.

Mixed paint is the urgent variant. A bodyshop waiting on a colour-matched mix has a vehicle in a booth and a schedule behind it, which puts a paint delivery in the same category as a part for a car on a ramp.

Bodyshops also generate a return flow of waste solvent and empty containers, which is hazardous waste with consignment requirements. See our bodyshop paint delivery service.

What comes back from a garage?

Three streams, and they need separating. Warranty and surplus returns go back to the factor, old units go back as cores, and waste goes to its own destination.

Cores are the distinctive one. Alternators, starters, calipers and turbos are sold on an exchange basis with a surcharge refunded when the old unit comes back, which makes core collection a direct financial flow rather than a courtesy.

Waste is the regulated part: used oil, filters, brake fluid, coolant and lead-acid batteries are all hazardous waste. T&C Logistics holds Environment Agency upper tier registration CBDU654368 as a waste carrier, broker and dealer.

Does the part have to be the right one?

Utterly, and it is the trade's defining error. A part supplied against the wrong registration or a superseded number is worse than no part, because the garage has waited for it and now waits again.

Transport cannot fix a picking error but it can stop compounding it. Checking the reference at handover rather than counting boxes means a wrong part is identified while the driver is still there and the correct one can be on the next round.

Wrong-part returns are also why the return leg is heavier in this trade than most. A factor's van comes back fuller than it went out on a normal day.

Can you cover commercial vehicle and plant parts?

Yes, and the urgency is greater still. An HGV off the road costs an operator its earning capacity for the day, and a fleet workshop waiting on a part has a vehicle and a driver both idle.

Commercial parts are also physically heavier — brake drums, clutches and starter motors for a truck are substantially heavier than their car equivalents, and a routine parts run can reach real weight.

Roadside supply is a distinct pattern: parts taken to a stranded vehicle at the roadside or in a lay-by rather than to a workshop, with a fitter meeting the delivery there. See our urgent courier service.

How does a factor's trade round actually work?

As a fixed route repeated at intervals rather than a set of individual jobs. The driver leaves with everything ordered since the last departure and covers the same garages in the same sequence.

Sequence stability is what makes it work. A garage that knows the van reaches it at roughly the same point in each round can plan its own work, and a driver who knows the route completes drops that a stranger would fail.

Density decides viability. Twenty garages within a compact area support five rounds a day; the same twenty spread across a county support two. That is why factors cluster branches rather than centralising.

Do you deliver to independent garages and franchised dealers alike?

Yes, and they receive very differently. An independent garage has one counter and a technician who will come out to the van; a franchised dealer has a parts department with its own goods-in process.

Dealers are more structured and slower. A dealer parts department books goods in, checks against an order and issues a reference, which takes longer per drop but produces far fewer disputes.

Independents are faster and more informal, which is efficient until something is wrong. A part handed over the counter without a check is a part whose error surfaces an hour later with the car apart.

What about oils and lubricants in bulk?

They are heavy and they are a spill risk rather than a classification one for most grades. A 205 litre drum of engine oil weighs around 180 kilograms and needs mechanical handling.

Smaller packs are the common trade flow — 5 and 20 litre containers by the pallet — and those are simply dense. A pallet of 20 litre oil containers is close to a tonne.

Spillage is the practical concern. A split container in a load contaminates everything around it, which is why oils travel upright, on the floor, and separated from anything absorbent or finished.

Can you support parts distribution overnight?

Yes, and overnight positioning is how factors have first-round stock ready. Stock moves from a central warehouse to branches overnight so that the morning round leaves full rather than waiting for a delivery.

That makes the overnight leg a different job from the day rounds — larger volumes, fewer stops, and a hard cut-off because a branch that receives at 9am has missed its own first round.

Night working also suits the trade's geography. Trunking between a national distribution centre and regional branches happens on empty roads, which makes it both faster and more predictable. See our overnight delivery service.

The cut-off is what makes or breaks it. A branch whose trunk arrives at 5am has stock on the first round; one whose trunk arrives at 9am has a morning of apologies to garages that ordered the night before, and no amount of speed later in the day recovers that.

What does motor factor delivery cost?

A rate per round on a standing arrangement, or one fixed price for an urgent single part, quoted upfront with fuel and goods-in-transit insurance included.

From £50 (ex VAT). Final price depends on distance, vehicle, urgency and time — quoted in full upfront. Related: tyre distribution delivery and bodyshop paint delivery. Call 0121 720 3841 or use our contact page.