Story time. A while back, I went to put my kids car seat into my Grand Cherokee and realized there's no rear anchor points for them. A bunch of digging and I found a TSB that says Chrysler should install them for free into any Jeep (and a bunch of other Chrysler vehicles) that don't have them. Cool. I call the dealer, and the kit for mine is discontinued. I call another dealer, same thing.
I do more digging and find a copy of the TSB with the actual part numbers for all the kits. There's 1 for each interior colour, duplicated with unique part numbers for the US and Canada, so 4 total. It seems odd, but I figure maybe the Canadian ones have French on them too or something. I send those to my buddy who works at a Chrysler dealer and tell him idgaf what colour they are, I just want any of those kits. He says no dice, all parts NLA.
Yet more digging, I'm firing part numbers into everywhere I can find and expanding my search to add any part numbers that supercede the ones from the TSB. Barely paying attention I search for a "new" part number which is actually the same as one of the other ones, but without the leading 0 that Chrysler uses. I find someone on eBay selling NOS parts that lists the part numbers without the leading 0, which is why I didn't find it before. They happen to even have the correct kit for mine, Canadian spec in taupe, with a generic picture of some car parts.
At this point I don't even know if this is legit or not but I say screw it and order it. I figure worst case I can report it and get my money back. It ships without being cancelled, and I get excited. It bounces through the stupid eBay shipping depot in Kentucky. Today it arrives. I'm cautiously optimistic that I actually got what I need. I pick up the box, and it's suspiciously light for something that should have metal brackets in it. I rip it open, and see this.
Just the trim covers, and instructions, no brackets. At first I thought maybe I accidentally ordered just the covers, but the instructions say "child seat tether anchor kit". Okay so maybe the kit was missing the brackets and that's why it was NOS? I can probably get my money back if that's the case. I decide to read the instructions and see this part:
The brackets and bolts are only included in US packages. The fuck. If I need to order the brackets separately for the Canadian kit, why was the part number not listed with the TSB? I figure I'll see if the instructions list it somewhere. I'm going along when I see this note:
At this point I'm lost for words. I don't really believe this can be real so I cut out one of the templates, grab tape, a box cutter and a sharpie and head outside. After some cutting, the moment of truth.
You've got to be kidding me. I did both sides and popped the covers on and it looks like it should've if Chrysler didn't neglect to install them for some bizarre reason. I would've been fine without the covers, so really I just wasted weeks to get a template on where to cut a hole, which really should be available for the dealers to just give me now that the kit is NLA.
Whatever, it's done now. I'll be scanning a copy of the template so if some other poor SOB stumbles across this they can just print it and go.