Bruzilla was out trying to coax a driver's side header onto his engine.
Okay, I got the rod in from Tony's yesterday. Seems like a nice piece and worth the money, so no problems there. I did read Tony's post, and I would like to respond to some of the things he mentioned.
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Like most shipping companies cost is based not only on weight but the size of the box" This is very true, as any of us who mail parts to people know very well. But... the rod is about 11" long, the box was 22" long, so basically I was paying to ship 11" of metal and 11" of wadded up newspaper. We all like padding, but that's a bit much. And the box had the part information stamped on the end, so it wasn't a case of someone grabbing a generic box and putting the rod in. Also, stuffed inside was a fairly robust Tony's catalog, so I was also paying to ship his catalog, which I had not requested. Seemed like the box was more about sending the catalog than the part. Lastly, and this was odd, I weighed the box on my postal scale, and it came out to 1 lb 9 ozs, but on the shipping sheet the weight was 3.0 lbs. I don't know where that other 1.5 pounds came from.
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In regards to you not receiving a tracking number if you would have asked we would have gladly provided one to you." I have no problem with this, but I would say the standard these days is to provide a number automatically, which is why I didn't ask for one. It might have been nice to have been asked "would you like a tracking number?" if one isn't provided automatically.
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In regards to you thinking that it was sent express an overnight letter cost about $25 today" True, but the cost to mail that package via USPS would have been $7.87, which is why when I saw the $17 charge I thought it might be coming second day.
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We ship 98 percent of our orders taken with 24 hours" This is an adequate turnaround time, but when I call in an order at 9:00AM, and pay for it, and see the credit card charge come though immediately, I don't think 24 hours is very impressive. The standard for a lot of vendors these days is same day, and many of them will get a part out to me same day as long as I order before 4:00PM their time. Again, a 24-hr turnaround isn't necessarily bad, but its' not worthy of commendation either.
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If your order was taken online you automatically would have gotten a tracking number. But because your order was taken over the phone we didn't have your e-mail address" Unless I'm missing something, there is no way to order online. If there was I would have placed my order Saturday night instead of waiting until Monday morning. From what I could see, the only way to place an order without calling is to send an email, to a non-secure AOL account, with my credit card information on it... yeah, that's just not happening. Also, the instructions state you have to call or write to get a shipping total as there is no calculator or standard shipping costs provided. So if there's an online ordering option, I'm not seeing it.
I want to make it clear, I'm not busting on Tony's, nor discouraging anyone from using him. I'm just saying that I wasn't thrilled with my business dealing with him, and sorry, but I'm not going to sing the praises of a vendor who's doing an adequate job as well as I would a vendor's who's really hitting the mark. I want to encourage businesses to do better, and you don't do that by treating those who do the best, and those who are adequate, the same.