Especially if they have been in business for over 50 years. You never know what they will have. I bought a pair of 83 XT yamaha's a few weeks ago. Been going thru them and making sure there good and sound bikes. I decided to replace the battery on the XT200 so i called my local dealership. To my surprise he had a original Yamaha battery Part # BTY-6N4A4-D0 which is a Yuasa 6N4A-4D. This has been discontinued years ago! Look carefully at the date on the box! 3/14/2008. Good price too! I had them fill it with acid and put it on charge all day and picked it up before they closed. See picture below. 



 I have a old friend that still works at this dealership! He started there in the late 60's when it was a Yamaha,Honda, Penton and Husqvarna dealership.I was just a kid back then in the early 70's. He's an Einstein when it comes to part numbers and cross reference numbers. Can't believe he is still working and has not retire. The dealership has changed hand 3 times since the 60's. I worked there after the 2nd owner (Ed) bought it from the original owner and at that time he was the only local Suzuki dealership in our small town for the last 40 years. I was only there for about 7 years as it was just a fun job for me.  So it became a Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki dealership and we took on Cannondale later on.

However that didn't last long as we all know Cannondale went under real quick. I did get to go do a factory tour of Cannondale's facility and watch them in production and spent time in there engineering and engine development rooms. Also got to test ride all there model bikes and quads on there motocross test track. I think i was there for 3 or 4 days.

I always remembered Ed the owner telling me when he took over the Yamaha, Honda dealership he took most all the old parts inventory out to his house property and took his backhoe and made a big hole and buried it all! I about cried! This was when i was just getting into restoring Yamaha's and e-bay was becoming a hot spot to buy and sell NOS parts. Don't get me wrong he still had thousands of NOS Yamaha parts at the dealership ready to make the trip to his back yard grave site. Then I showed him E-bay and for the next 2 years all i did was inventory, list and sell NOS parts on E-bay for the dealership. I even sold the last few new Cannondale bikes we had and all the parts on e-bay. He just wanted it all gone.