Car dealers are scrambling to keep up with unprecedented demand for spare parts and repairs after Hurricane Fabian's onslaught.

They are facing challenges in getting parts in and fixing up damaged vehicles, but said that across the board they were working to repair customers' vehicles as quickly as possible.

In addition, repair outfits were reportedly working with local insurers to ensure estimates were fair and reasonable and cars were fixed in good time.

Anthony Steede, chairman of the Bermuda Automotive Distributors Association, said companies were stretched to the limit by the category three storm's strike on the Island on September 5.

The net effect was a need for spare parts and repairs. But dealers have faced some difficulty in getting parts shipped to the Island, as air cargo loads were being kept open for emergency supplies.

Yesterday HWP Group chairman Don Mackenzie told The Royal Gazette that although his group had anticipated, ahead of the storm, that there may be a requirement for certain car parts, its $8 million inventory was still falling short of demand.

He said: "Prior to and after the hurricane, we have made contact with our suppliers in anticipation of a requirement to have key parts sent by air freight. We have been reassured by our suppliers that our parts orders will be treated as priorities but a time for their arrival on Island cannot be given at this time as full details of the availability of certain parts from their manufacturers is not available at this time."

Other dealers said they were in the same boat, with Continental motors general manager Jeff Stirling saying his company, which sells Peugeot vehicles, had only just received orders placed immediately after the storm.

Despite bringing in parts by air freight, Mr. Stirling said an embargo on non-essential supplies had seen his shipment bumped even before its first leg of the journey. Peugeot parts are shipped to the Island from France.

But Mr. Steede, who is also the operations manager for Bermuda Motors, said his company was doing everything possible to help clients and was doing that with the staff it had.

HWP and Continental Motors on the other hand put on extra staff to meet demand. Mr. Stirling said they had been able to hire one more staff but that qualified help was hard to come by.

Mr. Mackenzie said: "We have boosted staffing levels in our customer service areas and within the spare parts shop to handle the increased demands."

And Mr. Mackenzie stressed that the only additional costs to customers for parts shipped to the Island by air freight would be to cover the costs of the more expensive shipping arrangement.

To charge customers any more than the straight cost of air freight was cited by Mr. Mackenzie as bad business practice: "We want to maintain goodwill with our customers."

He added that those business people raising prices for storm-related goods and services would not be "currying good favour with its clients".

Continental Motors and Bermuda Motors respectively claimed to be either not passing on the cost of air freight fees for spare parts to customers or charging the exact shipping rate to its clients.