Would you be happy with a parts supplier like this?

[cipx2]

I'm not going to name the supplier yet as I'm interested in non biased replies/votes

The story:

* Day 1:

- I contacted one supplier as I was interested in a propshaft advertised as branded Hardy Spicer and I asked them to confirm that is indeed Hardy Spicer; I specifically wrote that I'm interested in GKN version (the current brand of the old Hardy Spicer) and not a pattern version.

- The suplier confirmed that "the part is indeed a Hardy Spicer" and "Hardy Spicer is GKN, they were bought by GKN many years ago and now use

the Hardy Spicer name for propshafts, UJ's etc."

- I placed the order online

* Day 2

- I tried to contact them by phone for an hour (one of them being a mobile #), no reply; wrote an e-mail as I wanted to add 2 items to the order

- The supplier replied confirming the addition of the 2 items to the order

- I thanked and asked to be notified when the parcel is dispatched and I asked for a tracking #

Everything almost wonderful till now ....

* Day 9

- I emailed the supplier asking if there's news about my order

- ............... - no reply

* Day 12

- I renew the question about my order, if/when it was dispatched, tracking #

- ............... - no reply

* Day 14

- I received an e-mail from the supplier saying that "the part has been dispatched today and it will arrive in 2-3 days"

- I thanked and said I'll get back to them when the parcel will arrive

* Day 18

- I take a look in the bank account, no amount of money withdrawn .....

* Day 20

- a corresponding amount looks like missing from my account, withdrawn this day (I can't have a report sooner than 2 days)

*Day 23

- I receive the parcel

Now the 'funny' part:

- 'Of course' the prop is supplied by Britpart, has no Hardy Spicer (or GKN) markings on it, the only markings are a bunch of numbers and "HSL" here and there (on U-joints and a couple of other places very hard to be read)

- As you probably suspect, the parcel wasn't sent on Day 14 but on Day 20; this is confirmed by tracking the parcel (with the # I never got, I took it from the parcel when it arrived).

The Questions are: Would you be happy with this supplier after all this? Would you use them again?

There's no need to justify the votes or anything (this way it will be an anonymous vote), any form of replying to the questions would be equally appreciated.

Thank you in advance

[disco_al]

considering the amount of time, lack of updates to the despatch and tracking details and everything else - then no, i wouldn't use them again - in fact i would return everything to them for a full refund, including return shipping costs.

[Anderzander]

I'd have liked a maybe on the 'would you use them again' - in the absence of that I put no. But it kind of depends on what they do next.

[cipx2]

Thank you for the input so far, gents. Please keep it coming

I'll give the chance the supplier to reply before disclosing names, of course. I will point them to this thread.

Returning is not much of an option for me as I'm not from UK and the carriage was more than 30 pounds and I'm sure the trip back will cost me more than that.

[Mo Murphy]

Sounds like dreadful service !

[dave88sw]

wouldnt bother using them again, in these times if you want your customers to come back you treat them well, if they cant do that theyll go somewhere else. When they find a decent supplier theyll go back again and again, eventually the rubbish suppliers will die out and the decent ones will thrive.

I'd keep sending email after email until they agree to replace the britpart propshaft with the one you ordered free of charge, because you know the britpart one will last you to the end of the road, you might as well shape one from cheese.

Dave

[reads90]

Personally i don't tend to buy much by mail order. Just because if i need a apart i need it now. But if i do order a part i need it in the next couple of days and not in nearly a months time. I have a company here in Aus that i use and they are in Tasmaina and do a next day (before 11am) delivery of parts to Brisbane .Brisbane and Tasmania are 1100 miles apart from each other . So that makes this lot look pretty carp.

I definatley would no use them again , but i would have thought that would have been a no brainer. There are pleanty of other people doing mail order parts .

[mmgemini]

That seems like the normal type of service in this day and age.

[Les Henson]

This thread just seemsl ike an urge to build-up an attack on a supplier/manufacturer - why aren't you naming them straight off?

Les.

[dangerous doug]

scorpion arnt up and running again are they?

[reads90]

This thread just seemsl ike an urge to build-up an attack on a supplier/manufacturer - why aren't you naming them straight off?

Les.

I have always been lead to belive that the Mods of this forum do not like people to publicly slaging of companies in case of legal problems that follow on .

Least of course unless you are a mod who buys cheap sh*t and then moans publicly about it . Being a Mod allows you to slag of manufactures and companies willy nilly with no problem but for the rest of us Les have to be more carful because we will get in trouble with the mods

[cipx2]

Les, which part of my message suggests anything about any manufacturer or whole seller?!

I just wanted to find out what's other people's opinion about the service and the whole story. I'm not building anything here, rest assured.

I already stated the reason why I didn't give names. What if the people involved were your friends/family? Would you have voted the same? I guess not.

It's the third time something like this happens to me with first time orders so I wanted to know what other people think about it, is this something usual within UK?

I hope this answers your question.

[steve_d]

.....It's the third time something like this happens to me with first time orders so I wanted to know what other people think about it, is this something usual within UK?.....

No, not usual.

Ordered something yesterday mid morning and it arrived middle of this morning. Rather good I thought but would have been surprised if it had taken longer than tomorrow or Monday.

Steve

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

Some compnaies have great service, not many in fairness, and less who always have good service

but they are out there. A few companies have "Off Days" .....I guess we do to,.... but, some companies have

more off days than good ones, ....and they frankly lie (a la HS vs Britpart etc) knowing 99% of the idiots

giving them their money will huff puff and do..............absolutely - Nothing

I am very staright with companies I buy from, esp if I ask as you did, I would never ever then accept the goods,

and with credit card support you can get you money back toot suite.

I doubt we will be suprised at who your talking around, but we might be, but more important is the "Put up shut Up"

-ie if you are not happy then send it all back, if you don't and accept the sh*te sent then you are part of the 99%

and why they get away with it.

I tend to only use compnaies I know will either supply what they promise, have good service, or recomended by others

the poor companies exceed the good massively, but long term quality wins repeat busineses,recomendations and word of mouth

Poor Customer service just gets word of mouth, but some will still buy from them becuase they are cheap, and thats why some of

these muppet firms survive, there is always a new bunch of mugs to fleece when the last customer says "No More"

Nige

[cipx2]

I agree with you, Nige. If I were in UK I would definetly do that. But I have doubts I can get a refund on the carriage (both ways) and this would mean a 65-80 quid loss on my side. Of course, I can ignore the loss and return it for the sake of the principle.

In the meantime I discovered that AllMakes supplies a prop shaft that looks to be from the same manufacturer and I trust AllMakes parts more than the Britpart stuff.

Anyway, the issue here is not the quality of the part that has been sent to me but the service and a couple of issues covered by the Sales of Goods Act.

[tuko]

Allmake's quality is in the same class as Sh!tpart's.

Bearmach is the only aftermarket supplier that can offer a reasonable quality replacement product.

Todd.

[Daan]

Bearmach is the only aftermarket supplier that can offer a reasonable quality replacement product.

Todd.

Apart from the pattern waterpump they send me which lasted 1 day. When I phoned them about it, there reply was: oh, we heard that one before, we will send you a proper one.

[Guest noggy]

so... who was it then?

[geoflse]

There are so many suppliers around now that they can't afford to mess people about.

I do know, however that the guy who runs Beamends has been quite ill recently, hence a delay in his orders.

geoff

ps I've found Britcar to be excellent.

http://www.brit-car.co.uk/

[simonr]

Although most companies deliver next day - legally they only have to deliver (in the UK) within 28 days. Anything more than that is a value added service. However people have come to expect next day and take it as an insult if it is not.

I think most companies also do their best to give a good service - but no matter how much money and effort you put in, it sometimes goes wrong. I do not believe anyone can provide perfect service to everyone all the time.

Supplying the wrong goods however is a different matter. A lot of suppliers would not know a GKN shaft if it came and introduced itself but if that is not what they are supplying they should not say they are. I would be asking for the correct part to be sent out and the other one collected at the same time. Using this thread as leverage may assist.

Britpart have come in for some criticism lately. They do supply many 'Christmas cracker' patterned parts - but they are cheap. They also supply many good parts. If people have economised and bought cheap they have no right to complain when what they get is - cheap!

Someone was complaining to me this week about UJ's he had bought only lasting six months. But, they cost him less than £3. He said there was no way he was going to buy a 'gold plated' genuine part for £30 - I thought he had got pretty good value.

I have a motto I stole from a Land Rover mechanic - "if it turns, seals or is safety critical - use genuine"

Si

[Les Henson]

If you post about your personal experience of a company, then there's no problem at all - Mod or not.

If you lie, make speculative comments, etc, then anyone is open to legal action by that company. Getting people's opinions first wouldn't help in any way at all from a legal standpoint. This website has been threatened with legal action a couple of times, so we are are sensitive to it

Les.

[cipx2]

Les, you have a PM.

Thank you for your input, gents. After more than 90 votes/opinions, it's now obvious that I didn't misjudge the whole thing.

These are the things I personally wasn't happy with:

- lack of communication

- I was notified the package was on it's way on Day 14 and it wasn't; the lack in providing a tracking # made me do all sorts of 'engineerings' to make sure someone's at home all this time to take delivery and all was done for nothing;

- I wasn't notified that it has been an error or something, the parcel wasn't dispatched when supposed to but at a later date etc

- no tracking # provided although I asked for it a couple of times

- after all these, the part sent wasn't the version I specifically asked for

I wouldn't have minded all the glitches if I'd have received the part that I was after.

I don't really mind a delay, usually I'm not in a hurry to get the parts as nothing ever broke on the LR I have, everything I replaced so far was maintenance or preventive work - like I did now, the rear prop's splines are a bit worn but not that much so it can't be used no more (slight noise/vibrations on high engine loads at low revs).

I decided to get a new rear prop and also a new front prop (which even if appears to be ok, it's probably not too far behind). The front prop I bought was then OEM version (advertised as GKN Hardy spicer, with a G suffix part#, Bearmach origin, stamped/marked accordingly). Unfortunately they couldn't supply the rear prop as they were out of stock. So I started to look for another place to get a GKN/Hardy Spicer prop. You know the rest.

I notified the supplier about this, I also gave the link to this thread. They're welcome to reply here if they wish to.

[BogMonster]

Britpart have come in for some criticism lately. They do supply many 'Christmas cracker' patterned parts - but they are cheap. They also supply many good parts. If people have economised and bought cheap they have no right to complain when what they get is - cheap!

Someone was complaining to me this week about UJ's he had bought only lasting six months. But, they cost him less than £3. He said there was no way he was going to buy a 'gold plated' genuine part for £30 - I thought he had got pretty good value.

I have a motto I stole from a Land Rover mechanic - "if it turns, seals or is safety critical - use genuine"

All very good points Si. I think the thread is dragging on a bit - the identity should be revealed now - but I assume it perhaps involves one of the "sacred cow" companies that everybody worships rather than being another bandwagon job.

Reality is not always black and white with suppliers - I have had bad experiences from one of the aforementioned sacred cows, and shock horror good experiences dealing with Britpart for various things. I wouldn't buy their own brand stuff same as I wouldn't buy own brand stuff from most places, because I know what a lot of it can be like. Britpart, Allmakes, Bearmach, all make some carp bits, all sell a lot of good stuff too. Ten days and 150 miles (mostly on road) out of a set of shock absorber bushes? You could rip them in half with your hands. Your motto is pretty good.

Reality is that:-

1) most people who read the forum should know by now that own-brand stuff is very often "variable quality" and if you spend 50p on something which somebody else is selling for a fiver then it probably isn't going to last 10 years

2) even the best companies screw up occasionally and what matters is how they sort that out more than whether they screwed up in the first place

Si, like me, supplies stuff to other people for a living and I'm sure knows just what I mean when I say that often the way to keep a reputation is by sorting out the problems. Another good way is to only sell stuff you would use yourself, or rather not to sell stuff you wouldn't use yourself.

Another motto is "you get what you pay for"

Where's that "three quid for a wheel bearing - what could possibly go wrong" graphic that Fridge produces from time to time...?

[Les Henson]

If anyone has a proveable grievance against a supplier/company/whatever, then you will be doing the members of this website a favour by naming and shaming them. Myself and others have justifiably flamed the likes of Britpart for the poor quality of their parts, and others - such as repairers, have recieved the same criticism. I have repeatedly flamed Britpart and in the past - Bearmach as well for parts quality (or lack of).

The risk lies in speculation/second hand comments/assumption.

A thread such as this does everything to inform the original poster that he/she is right, and the responsible company that it's wrong, but is of zero benefit to other members that may get the same treatment (having not been pre-warned about it).

With one exception, no company has ever posted on here in response to such a thread as this, so again - no benefit to the members.

I can understand you not liking my posts, cipx - but this thread is pointless without a name. I hope you can see my point?

Les.

[cipx2]

I clearly see your point but this doesn't mean I agree with it.

Do all the threads regarding suppliers have to be "name and shame"? Do all threads in this forum have to be or are/were of benefit to the rest of the members, except the thread initiator? In case you want me to give examples just say how many

Or look at it this way: After almost 1200 messages on this forum, of which only 4 or 5 were questions (half of them replied by myself later on), may I, a member of this forum, have a thread for my own benefit only, please?

The main purpose of this thread was to help me find out if I was entitled not be too happy with after all this and that this is not a normal type of service people get in UK from LR parts vendors. A fair number of votes showed me that I'm entitled to make a complain to the supplier - which I did after a short while. No reply yet as I e-mailed them on Friday evening.