Best place to buy parts

[Paulro]

Im going to have to replace my thermostat and my idler pulley is chirping like a deranged bird. I looked on eurocarparts and they have what I need but being new to this car and buying bits generally I thought I'd ask for your help.
Are there suppliers you recommend and those, or parts that I should avoid. I can see that I need a 32mm thin spanner and perhaps a holding tool so any help you can provide will be well received.
Thanks

 

[Grumps]

I replaced pullies, thermostat, belts etc last year and all the parts came from eurocar parts apart from the viscous fan which came from another forum member so I don't know where that came from. Everything is running well a year on.

 

[mrscalex]

Horses for courses but my preferred approach is to identify the OEM supplier (or OE quality) and shop around usually on Ebay.

My thermostat was Behr which I believe is the OEM for my 2.2 and I got a Meyle water pump.

I also replaced the viscous fan which was also Behr and which I believe to be the OEM.

I paid the same or less than Eurocarparts but got the proven quality. If you do buy from Eurocarparts make sure you sign up to the newsletter and wait a few days until they send you a 30% discount code. They send out a daily newsletter and do 30% at least once a week usually. The current code is 'xmas'.

Also look at carparts4less which is the online arm of Eurocarparts. One other word of warning. Every Eurocarparts store I've been in is chronically slow to serve you and they often have queues.

You also have GSF another nationwide parts store. Possibly with a better reputation than ECP. You can get a 30% discount there too easily enough. It flashed up something for me when I did my first order recently.