Did you ever buy a motorcycle part, pay for it, and then find it’s been delivered to some unknown person 890 miles away? Me neither – until now!

Having left my ailing Suzuki V-Strom in my garage in Plettenberg Bay for the duration of the European summer and the South African winter, I turned my attention to finding a second-hand magneto rotor in the British parts market. Should be easy, I figured. Hah! There weren’t any. A new one would set me back all of £670, or R15,000, compared with the R8,970 I‘d been quoted in South Africa. So no solutions in the UK, then.

Now back in South Africa to escape the British winter, my wife and I decided we’d sort out the V-Strom ourselves. The local repair shop had told me back in May that they’d found fragments of metal in the oil and that therefore they’d need to strip the engine completely and rebuild it, at a total cost of R22,000, which is now about £950, which was both expensive and, I thought, perhaps a bit unnecessary.

My first move was to drain the engine oil, and out poured the cleanest, clearest oil I’ve ever drained. Not a fragment of metal or anything else foreign in there. The oil filter was equally pristine. Even the small magnet in the drain plug was free of swarf. On that basis, I figured there’d be no fragments of magnets elsewhere, so set about stripping off the magneto cover. That showed the stator windings to be undamaged, which boded well – and there was no sign of any magnets, whole or in bits, anywhere! The mechanic at the repair shop had clearly taken them out and not put them back when he replaced the cover and trailered the bike back to me, at my request, unrepaired. If they were all broken or damaged, fair enough, though it would have been nice to tell me.

Mt wife’s ex-husband (a total Suzuki fan whose GSXR 1000 weighs only 166kg) recommended a used parts emporium in Cape Town, which didn’t do used parts anymore but recommended another parts dealer, which did. The price was a firm R5,000 (about £220), which seemed a tad high for a second-hand part but not extortionate, given the paucity of rotors. Shipping to my nearest depot in town was R110 (a mere £4.80).

The dealer was good enough to warn me that extracting the old rotor required ideally a blow torch and a compressed-air-driven impact driver. Not having such exotic equipment, I phoned a friend who has a friend who has everything I’d need – including a trailer with which to transport the bike to his workshop. What a result!

I waited the quoted three business days for the rotor to arrive. There was no sign of it. I asked for a tracking number. The dealer said he’d had trouble getting the rotor off the donor bike due to load-shedding, a peculiar South African practice whereby whole segments of the country are denied electricity to conserve supplies. It’s been going on for ever. Anyway, it was a plausible explanation, so I went with it. Chased the guy again a day or two later, and now he said his air tool wasn’t working properly – please give him a few more days. I had other bikes to ride, so I said fine.

Almost three weeks after buying the rotor, the guy said the part was now off the bike and on its way to me by express delivery. I called next day to get the tracking number, and that’s when he confessed there’d been a terrible mistake and it had been sent by the courier company to Mpumulanga – a province in the north-east of the country and about 890 miles from where I live! He apologised profusely and volunteered to refund the money. Damn straight! The R5,000 price was duly refunded, but not the R110 for the courier. The guy said he’d get the part back and send it again. I decided not to hold my breath.

I thought I’d chase it up again today, not expecting any progress. The guy was again most apologetic, saying that several branches of his nationwide parts business had been seized by gangsters who were trying to extort money from him to get the branches back. You’re thinking, nah! Didn’t happen.

But you know, it could actually be true. I know a guy who went out with a friend to buy a car trailer advertised in the press. They drove to the address they were given, only to be seized by seven armed gangsters who shoved them in the boot of their own car, drove them to a warehouse and roughed them up a bit, then used their cards to steal money from their bank accounts. They released them after about seven hours, dumping them by the roadside. They walked to the first house they came across where the clearly very poor occupants gave them food and a place to sit until someone came to fetch them.

That absolutely true story has an interesting ending – two interesting endings, in fact. My friend went to the police station to report the abduction and theft of money, cards, bank funds and car. He told the cops that he wanted to thank the people who’d helped him. “How will you do that?” the cop asked. “Give them some money?” My friend answered yes, exactly that. “It would be much better if you could give their son a job,” the cop replied. And now their 22-year-old son has a job as a well-paid intern in my friend’s IT firm. Great result.

Another twist was that a week after the incident, the gang tried the same stunt again – but this time their ad was answered by another gang, who showed up armed to the teeth and shot all seven of them dead!

So, in this beautiful but strange country, it’s entirely possible that my Suzuki magneto rotor supplier was telling the gospel truth. Regardless, I’m on the lookout for another rotor!