I need some advice. I have had my Delorean for 14 yrs now
and while it has been a mostly joyful union there has been a few bumps along
the way. But the latest issue has been the most frustrating. It has to do with
replacing the clutch cylinders. It has been one problem after another, from a
vendor that won’t communicate with me, to replacing the cylinders, to finding
Castrol GT LMA (found out they changed the bottle to black, DOT 4), to bleeding
the system. The subject of this email has to do with my vendor woes. I’ll try
to keep it short.
It all started back in July when I ordered my parts. Two
weeks go by and no parts. I send an email and get a response, “We’ll get them
out to you right away”. No explanation for the delay but they do show up in a
few days. This is the first time I ever had to deal with a core change and
being somewhat of a tightwad I was a little leery about the process and getting
the refund. I had concerns like, would the parts be lost or misplaced, if I
took too long to return the cores would they remember my order, etc. So I decided to
replace the master and return it right away and at lest get my core for that.
It took a while longer to replace the slave. In the mean time, 3 weeks go by
and no refund and no correspondence from the vendor. Per the USPS tracking
system the master was delivered weeks earlier. So I shoot off an email. The reply was they didn’t receive it. My
fears come true and I had already sent back the slave. A couple more emails and
no response. I send a biting email about the lack of communication and finally
get a response. It basically said they were very busy trying to run a business
and answering the 300 emails that they receive per day and I shouldn’t be so
demanding. They also say if money is that tight I should get rid of the
Delorean and get something a little more affordable like a VW Beetle. But they
did process my refund; at least I assumed they did.
I few more weeks go by and I check my credit card statement
and there was a refund for $50. WTF, it should have been for $125. I send off three more emails asking about the difference and have thus far been
ignored. At this point it is a principle thing and not a money thing. I
really don’t want to fully piss off the vendor because there are other items I
want to purchase from them.
So here is where the advice part comes in. Which of the
following would you do?
a) Forget
the $75 and move on.
b) Bug
the crap out of the vendor until I get my refund.
c) Name
names to try and pressure them to provide my refund.
d) Get
rid of the Delorean and buy a Beetle.
At this point I am leaning toward d).
Thanks
Steve