This week we have been a little lost for words with some customers whom have now also been given the honour of the black list or the “C” button, remember the “C” is for cancelled future purchases. More on that later, but we start with a onion!

Park & Pic

“The Onion” is back with us during the week and we were pleased to see how she was getting on.

The car is obviously up and running and has a few little tricks up her sleeve. It’s hard to imagine that parts of this gorgeous car was nothing more than a pile of rust which was swept up at the end of each day. Very few cars have the level of detail that this car now has. She’s not quite finished yet, but it won’t be long, just in time for the winter maybe!

Stock & Customers

Not quite sure how to approach this one in a diplomatic way, Adam’s response was less than diplomatic. It’s a known fact that the men of this world don’t need to read instructions – no arguing! It’s only when things go wrong that the ‘Book of Words’ is then consulted to see what went wrong with the product’s design. Obviously it’s not the individual’s fault, oh no – it’s the manufacturers at all times of course. One such example is this fuel filler cover. We have fitted plenty of these, customers have bought lots of these and none have been ‘faulty’. In fact Scott Drake offers a satisfaction guarantee on their products, they are that confident they work.

A customer who purchased this item and gave it to somebody to fit for them. He went to look at it was not happy with the fit. Then we receive the email(s) about the item, saying it was a poor product and quoting the sale of goods act as it was not fit for purpose etc. Adam accepted the return and checked the item and found this:

Yep, it had been broken by who ever tried to fit it, pointed out by the arrows. The reason it didn’t fit properly was because one of the clips had bee broken off and could not be held in place correctly. Nobody said it was broken out of the packaging before fitting it, why would you then go to fit it? Of course we accept that things could be damaged in transit. Adam refunded the customer out of courtesy promptly followed by the “C” button and the increasing list of customers.

The moral of the story is; if somebody takes time to produce a instruction guide (as in this case), and you have never fitted one before, please read the guide first! Ninety nine percent of our customers are awesome and some even admit that they have messed up. In fact Adam has even given some of those customers a replacement at a discounted price to help them out.

Own Brand Stock

It’s becoming clear that some standard stock items are becoming difficult to get hold of from our normal sources due to the Covid issue around the world. So we have had some more items made to our own specifications, these new lowering blocks being an example of that.

Our new lowering blocks are billet and 1″ thick. They have been made so that they can be stacked to give more lowering if required and interlock for stability.

We are just waiting on the extended “U clamps” to come in to us, then we can sell them on the WebShop as a kit. The main advantage of our kit? They are solid and not cast.

We recently came across these gaskets for the I6 blocks. If you are on a budget and the cylinder head gasket has gone, these gaskets will reduce the imperfections of the cylinder head and block without having to pay out to machine them. We don’t expect to sell a lot, but it could be a life saver for somebody.

Customer Cars

Yogi has been working on a car that needed some proper know-how to sort out a number of issues left by a well known company, that’s all we are going to divulge on them. We don’t need to name and shame them as their work says it all. On Yogi’s investigation he found some rather disturbing shortcuts and a potentially dangerous issue. First up was the carburettor vacuum ports were covered with rubber hoses and bolts shoved down the other end.

The correct fittings are only a few pennies to buy, so why waste time doing it the hard and unsightly way? Correct below on the right – botched on the left!

Next was the door hinge. Unable to get the door to fit correctly an ‘adjustment’ was botched into place. The bottom of the hinge had washers marked by the arrows, not even the correct sized washers at that.

Yogi sorted out the hinge without washers and a few more well placed adjustments.

Then we come to the dangerous. The car had new rear brake cylinders fitted and pipes. That’s all well and good, but, if the brake fluid hadn’t been fed and bleed correctly so the rear brakes weren’t even working they had a problem. Under emergency braking the car would have been unpredictable to say the least. The flexible brake hoses were completely dry and the car was only ever stopping on the front drums.

With the brake hoses replaced and the rear cylinders checked out for damage, we could re-use the cylinders and bleed the brakes properly with fluid being where it should be. The car stops much better now as you would expect.

Another customer car:

Sufficient time has now passed where can reveal more problems with rear brakes. A customer brought their car back to us to say that their car was not stopping correctly after having the brakes replaced by us.

Obviously a real cause for concern for us. So we started the investigation to find out why. It didn’t take long to be honest once we had the rear drums off. The brake shoes were in a sorry state and looked like the handbrake had been left on as they had scorched and cracked.

The customer did later admit that was indeed issue once we informed them what we had found. A new set of shoes fitted, a prep for the drum surfaces and all was good in the world again. That customer tried to get one over on us, but we are to long in the tooth for that old story. 😉

We’re not sure if the Covid 19 thing has made people go a little bit mad or not, but it’s worrying. There are a few customers that are buying online from us and sending the items back after they changed their mind, then wanting us to pay their return postage too. We don’t have the business model of Amazon who can afford such luxuries of free returns. Do these people do the same to other companies like Ikea who deliver a wardrobe and then they don’t want it? We suspect not. However, if you need to return an item please email us first so we can work out what is best for you.

Keep safe!