Technical check every thing!

just because it is new doesn't make it good any more. quality control sucks these days and my ratio of usable parts to unusable is 50/50. i have found , used parts in boxes, right part number but wrong part in box. box marked "left side" but the part is a "right side", flaking new chrome, to parts that break/bend when installing them. here is the latest.
put a tranny and new clutch in a customers '42 willys, the following year he decides to rebuild the motor. we get it rebuilt [twice, do to quality control] and i notice when i am putting the clutch in it had burn marks on the flywheel and corresponding burn marks on one side of the pressure plate. i measure the pressure plate i had put in less than a thousand miles ago was not adjusted right. i ordered a new clutch [my dime] and put it together and put the motor back in. i decide to try the clutch before i finish hooking everything up and i can not get it to release without the effort of a ply bar in the driveshaft yoke. every time i tried it it came out of adjustment. so i pulled the motor back out.
here is what i found:
throw out bearing was too wide for the forks of the pressure plate and every time i stepped on the pedal it bent the fork a little. after many calls and comparing measurements the manufacturer came to the conclusion that the new stamped arms they are using can not be used with the "wider" throw out bearing. he put a quarentine on all the parts and thanked me for saving him problems in the future.
"uhhhm it just cost me a day labor"
"return it and the store will get you another one"

here is the old and the new, old bearing would work on the new plate, new bearing would work on the old plate.
guys check every thing you buy...........especially the new stuff.

 

We can all use that reminder. Good job on running down the issue!

 

rough way to learn but, at least you got it right

 

It's been a couple of years but I went in after a set of brake shoes and when the parts guy opened the box to compare them with the ones I took in and swap them out for the exchange the shoes in the box while new were so covered in greasy hand prints they weren't usable. Parts dude turns to a kid at the end of the counter and asks if he took them back from _______ , kid looks a bit guilty and the parts dude goes back and pulls another set.
I think there are more issues with parts not fitting exactly right now as some aftermarket manufactures try to set up some items so they will fit a number of applications but maybe not all of them well.

 

So what I take from that is every time we put in a new pressure plate and or throwout bearing, we should first hold the TO bearing up against the pressure plate fingers to see if it fits. Even if it comes in a kit with the PP. Thanks for sharing, and the pictures.

 

"Well"...hmmm...there should be some fine print for the It'll Fit crowd...the if it doesn't fit what we say it will we will insert said part sideways in Our Butt......no lubrication. That could kill somebody literally.

QC has in many places dropped to the point of a pathetic state. A least there was some form of concern with a mentioned quarantine...many times that is probably vetoed by the management. I am sure your facial expression probably had the fella at the desk looking to pacify somehow what you went through. Heck they should have gave it to you free...customer relations what's that worth...?

I will never forget buying a wrench that was not true and I brought it back to said store and after showing the manager the flawed tool and he told me to go back to the rack and find a good one and I overheard him to tell an employee to go put the one I returned back on the shelf so yeah don't worry about contacting the contractor making your highest end tooling and let them know their slipping a little just get rid of me...

 

We deal with it everyday in the shop. I always use the saying --- new = Never Ever Worked before

 

Agreed.

 

Hey Nutmegger, I resemble that remark! Thanks for the tips!

 

So how does it work for the professional wrench benders?

They have to have a sharp pencil, and charge competitive rates or lose business. If they install a bum starter or whatever, then the customer is pissed off, and they have to warranty the part, I get that. The price they charge has that possibility baked in, correct?

So then, the shop bills the supplier for the labor to R&R shitty parts?

 

in my case i eat it, the cost of the second clutch, and the R&R. this is a good customer with many cars i have worked on and made money from............he took care of me, i take care of him. when this is over i am going to press the manufacturer for some kind of compensation. so far he said the parts store [where i bought] will exchange it for another one, and he would pay for the right throw out bearing. but what about the DAY i spent taking the motor in and out, measuring, calling documenting and solving the problem?

 

Never heard of a supplier paying labor . Even in the upholstery business

 

Well that's why I asked, I thought I read somewhere the pro shops can get compensated at least partially. If they have to do every job two or three times, get all these customer callbacks then they won't be in business very long.

I guaran-fvc&ing-tee you, if everybody could bill for the labor involved with R&R shit parts the average quality would return. I could even charge another $10 on top for "shop supplies". A "Lifetime Warranty" doesn't mean anything if ya hafta go through 5 of them to find a good one.

 

Been building cars for years and learned early that aftermarket/reproduction parts take on a "quality of their own". And to make it worse, so many are manufactured out of the country where quality control is just not the same as the good ol' USA............or could it be there is a loss in quality when translating SAE to Metric (where most aftermarket parts are born)? I have learned to implement the ol' saying, "Trust but verify".

 

Good advice. Measure and check everything. I’ve been bitten too, but not that badly.

Send the supplier a bill for “consulting services” for helping them with their poor engineering.




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Reminds me of the time I bought a 14” K&N filter. Got home and found a standard filter. Went back and they gave me the right one. Someone had obviously returned it and counter guy didn’t check contents.


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here is the first pressure plate. this was new and the flywheel was turned and has less than a thousand miles.

 

I have run into this several times with auto parts, but much more with anything bought at Home Depot. I have returned merchandise that someone has opened, removed a part of, then resealed the box
told them what the problem was and found the item on the shelf the next day. I always check to see
if the item has been opened but sometimes you cannot tell- sneaky bastards.

 

Yep sometimes...ahh here's the right one just don't cut it. Sometimes vendor change is an option...you lose hundreds thousands and they give you a replacement part that you have already paid for. At a minimum they should give you the new part and your money back as a do good...minimum.

 

Sealed for life and lifetime warranty doesn't mean your lifetime, it means the life of the part, which in most cases is less than the life of an OEM part. I've had to return parts two or three times for the same failures, they give you another and it only lasts X amount of time and here you go again. I've tried changing parts houses, most of the time it makes little difference, they all sell the same stuff just under different labeling. Apparently there is a certain amount of less quality parts they will let go through with the correct quality parts, they figure if it fails early, most people will just go buy another rather than return a bad one.

 

The guy I get my parts from will get me the 'good stuff' because I'm willing to pay for it. This is for my own use, I don't repair cars for a living. The good stuff used to be their standard line of parts. But because so many shops are dealing with 'price conscience' customers one way to stay competitive is to use cheaper parts which forces him to sell them to stay competitive. Us older guys come from a fix it once and be done mentality whereas the younger generation has a buy cheap and junk it mentality.

One thing I stress to my students is not to throw anything away until the job is back up and running. 33&1/3's problem is a great example of why. With out his old parts he would have known something wasn't right, but what? And if he didn't have a good parts man the answer would have been "That's what the book says."

 

Had a mate building a very expensive flathead for a friend, final cost including all the fancy stuff-heads, carbs , manifold etc was 16k Aussie- over 11k US. Come time to fit the cam, a billet Isky 400 Jr and when it went in it didn't feel right. Pulled it back out and measured it and the center journal was 3 thou under tolerance AND tapered. Cam bearing lands had to be reground, cam bearings pulled and new undersize bearings fitted. That center bearing land is your main oil feeder line so if the engine had been fired there wouldn't have been enough oil in the right spots.
Of course being in Australia -you're stuffed as the supplier and manufacturer just don't want to know you and you're too far away to do anything.
Are Isky cams made in the US or has Isky become part of the Hoffman group?

 

ok, update: i am not making this shit up, new throw out bearing came in, SKF bearing, right part number, right size and type, too bad it would not roll smoothly! brand new and once i broke it free, would only make 3/4 of a revolution and stop.......................glad i checked it before i left the store........

 

Good luck getting any suppliers to pay labor. It just doesn’t happen. Our shop spends $20,000 a month with one of the popular retail chains and I don’t think they have ever paid labor on one of their shitty parts that took a dump. Unfortunately, the shop just swallows it to save our reputation and good name.


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Almost every part I sell has 6 months of labour warranty. They don't pay full door rate, but it's more than what wages costs. So that helps.

Funny. I spent around 20K a month too.


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last nights quality control issue.

 

About 25 years ago, I was working at a NAPA store when NAPA changed from Gates belts and hoses to Dayco. The Gate products had been lifetime warranty, so if someone complained (and had a receipt), you just exchanged it with a smile. The Dayco belts, still labeled as NAPA, had printed on the sleeve "Warrantied for the life of the product" not "Lifetime Warranty". I asked the rep what the difference was and he told me "When it fails, the product has reached end of life and is no longer under warranty."

We continued to exchange them when needed but had to eat some replacements when Dayco refused to back us.

 

That's a universal nut...fits some sae and metric applications.

 

Well, ya see..... that there nut is made to not fit both US and metric.

 

Used parts are referred to as pre-tested.