>Maybe someone (Ed himself?) can explain why he chooses to do business this way? I support his right to run his business however he wishes, but I cant help but be curious as to WHY?!< This is purely speculation on my part and is based on experience with other businesses facing similar issues. Any service business is based on the knowledge and skills of the people working in the business. The company makes money when people recognize the value of the skills within the company and buys service or parts or whatever from them. In order to bring new customers to the business, an owner can strive to be helpful over the phone, provide catalogs, advice, and other services without fee, presuming that the new customer will eventually do business with the company. This kind of helpfulness can be abused by prospective customers who take up the time of the employees getting help and then purchasing parts or service from someone else. In the worst case, a company could spend all of it's time giving away freebies and all of the customers would buy from someone else. In the best case, every caller is so impressed with the quality of service, they all buy from the company. Reality is somewhere in the middle. I am sure that DeLorean One, and in fact all of the primary service centers, get lots of calls from people looking for deals, workarounds, or other lower cost solutions to problems that detract from the business at hand and don't generate any income. Some businesses can tolerate the distraction, others can't or won't. For the record, I have had excellent service from all of the DeLorean vendors I have used, and I have dealt with almost all of them. I have also bought parts from all of them I have called. I don't think that is a coincidence. Michael A. Griese Storage Software Development Manager Tivoli Storage Management Rochester, MN 55901 Internet: magriese@xxxx office: (507)253-1853 mobile: (507)254-1859