TLDR: Global supply chains are slower and pricier due to the Iran war closing the Strait of Hormuz, China's rare earth export limits, volatile tariffs, and stricter customs enforcement. Unity Performance is doing their best to stay on top of changes, and serve customers in a timely manner.
If you've ordered parts from us recently and noticed things taking longer than they used to, you're not imagining it, and you're not alone. We wanted to take a minute to explain what's actually going on, because "supply chain issues" has become such an overused excuse that it barely means anything anymore. So here's the real version.
It started with a war most people didn't expect to affect their car parts.
Back in February, a war broke out between the US/Israel and Iran. One of the first things Iran did was effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz — a narrow shipping lane that a huge chunk of the world's oil and gas passes through every single day. Tankers stopped moving almost overnight. Insurance companies stopped covering ships willing to risk it. Major shipping lines like Maersk and MSC pulled out of the route entirely. And because oil got more expensive and less predictable, so did the cost of literally moving anything by sea or air, everywhere in the world.
It's been on-and-off since then — ceasefires, closures, reopenings, closures again. As of right now, nobody can promise you when it's fully sorted out. Some estimates say full shipping through that route won't be back to normal until 2027.
Then there's the raw materials problem you've probably heard less about.
China controls the vast majority of the world's processing for rare earth metals — the stuff that goes into magnets, sensors, electronics, and a bunch of components used across the performance parts industry. Over the past year, China has tightened up who it'll export those materials to and under what conditions. That's caused real shortages for manufacturers making everything from aerospace parts to semiconductors to the electronics in a lot of the products we sell. When a manufacturer can't get the materials they need, they can't build the part, and we can't ship it to you.
And then, tariffs. Always tariffs.
US tariff policy has been genuinely chaotic this year. Courts have ruled some tariffs unconstitutional, the government's appealed, new tariffs have gone into effect on things like semiconductors, and customs has tightened up enforcement across the board. Every time the rules change, it adds paperwork, adds inspections, and adds time at the border. We're not exaggerating when we say customs clearance timelines have genuinely gotten worse this year, not better — through no fault of the carriers or us.
What this actually means for you as a customer
- Some parts take longer to arrive because our suppliers are waiting longer on raw materials.
- Freight costs have gone up, which is part of why pricing on certain items has shifted.
- Backorders are more common right now than they were a year or two ago, especially on anything with electronic components.
- Customs delays are real and can add days to shipments that used to move through without a hitch.
We know none of that makes it less annoying when you're waiting on a part for a build you're excited about, or a repair you need done. That frustration is completely fair, and we're not going to pretend it isn't happening or that it's someone else's problem. It's a global mess right now, and it's touching almost every industry that relies on imported parts and materials — not just aftermarket performance.
What we're doing about it
We run a 3,000 sq ft warehouse with shelves stacked full of inventory, and beyond that, we hold stock at multiple distributor and manufacturer warehouses so we can ship directly from those locations when it's faster than routing everything through us first. Whichever method gets your order moving fastest is the one we use, whether that's off our own shelf or straight from a partner warehouse closer to you.
Here's the honest reality, though: no shop can hold every part for every build in stock at all times. Us included. Nobody's sitting on $20 million worth of inventory just in case. So when something's not on our shelf, that can mean a delay of days, weeks, or sadly sometimes even months while it comes in from a partner location — and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
We're staying in close contact with our suppliers so we can give you accurate timelines instead of guesses. If you want an estimated shipment date on something, just ask — reply to your order confirmation or shoot us an email and we'll check for you. If an item's out of stock or delayed, we'd rather talk through substitutes or alternatives with you than leave you hanging. And that conversation is with people who actually build these cars — we're not an outsourced support line reading from a script, we're a small crew running our own 10th and 11th Gen Civic builds, so you're talking to people with hands-on experience with the parts you're waiting on.
We're also just busier than we used to be. Between the backorders, the substitution conversations, and general order volume, we're handling 500+ orders a month and 100+ emails a day with a team of three people. We do our best to keep response times fast, but during our busiest stretches they can run past 24-48 hours. We'd rather take the time to give you a real answer than a fast, empty one.
If you've got an order that's running long, reach out to us. We'd rather explain exactly what's happening with your specific part than leave you guessing. We're dealing with the same global mess as everyone else, but we're not going to disappear on you while it sorts itself out.
Thanks for sticking with us through it.
— The Unity Performance Team