ethical parts return issue

[Chuckman]

so Im struggling hard with this. folks hear me out. Im NOT somebody that buys something, uses it and returns it. Im NOT a guy that takes advantage of folks. I DONT steal, lie cheat or put up with folks that do. soooo……


rewind 2 months. I need some parts from Advance Adpaters- specifically a bell housing to mate a LS to a nv4500 for external clutch (the stock setup with donut slave died in <500 miles). call up AA, talk to tech two separate times, come up with parts that I need and they send me to their distributors due to cost and shipping timing. ok, fine I save $$ and get it quicker through summit racing. nice. everything shows up, but needs to be modded to fit a bit - and their instructions say to do so. fine. however once installed it doesn't work - bearing face too far away from clutch fingers. I call AA. they say 'oh you need a so and so'. I order that too (again summit). mate it all up, no dice. call AA back. 'oh you need a so and so'. basically their initial part spec'd was $340 (bell housing) - ok no biggie. the second part, an additional $240 (tall pressure plate vs my diaphragm style) , third part (custom flywheel/clutch/pressureplate), that I didn't buy $650 !!! obviously if I'd have known that I needed all that, I would've gone another route. thats a absolutely shitty work around to mount an external slave. so Im going to send/sell all of that crap back and go with a high end Ram internal slave.

back to my situation. since I sourced all of this through summit, and not AA, do I dare sending these modded parts back to summit? I cut a small ear off the bell to make it clear the frame and I cut the slave cyl mount the same. this isn't summits fault that I am needing to send these back, AA took me for a ride and Im not pursuing their method any further. Ive called AA and they couldn't care less that it doesn't work, and that they've lost a customer for life. they really dont care and their engineering / phone support sucks worse than Fullers welds. its truly miserable. I know that I shouldn't have cut the parts, but dammit they were mine and simply wouldn't fit otherwise. AA lied to me, and thats not my fault either, so I refuse to take a $$ hit. what say ye???? I was lied to, and no longer want the parts. thats AA's deal. to this day, they can't promise me that the parts that are speccing will work and they tell me that they dont believe me that this vehicle worked as a '96 2500 factory setup and won't work with their parts. - vehicle in question was the green CJ doing the tire popping burnouts seen here previously.

 

[jeepinmatt]

Beat course of action would probably be to call Summit and ask them. Since you bought from them, they should serve as a rep on your behalf to the mfg.

Everything I've ever bought from Advance Adapters left me disappointed and with a lot less lighter wallet. The clutch setup on my 4.0 to NV4500 bellhousing was questionable at best, and they sold me several parts I didn't need for that job because I had to buy the "kit" (this was 2007, things may have changed). I bought an AA 29spline D300 input, and the bearing and seal configuration was so poor that I pulled it out, bought a JB Conversions unit, and then sold the AA junk. Everything about the JB was better.

That doesn't really help with your situation, but thanks for letting me vent in your AA sucks thread

 

[rockcity]

I have no input other than I hope you figure it all out. AA had always been very helpful with me and even offered to sell individual parts to me they normally sell in a kit because I'm doing my own thing with them.


Honestly, unless you have written direction from AA to mod the parts, you are likely SOL.

You could buy the same parts directly from AA and send them back to Summit, then take up your modded parts issue up with AA direct

 

[krehel24]

Sell the parts, tell AA to kiss your ass, drink a beer, get happy and move on!...

Summit should not have to take the hit for someone else's bad info and AA is not going to do anything about it, so fawk it!

 

[justjeepin86]

I think Matt is right on this one. Call Summit and see what they say. They may be willing to take it up with AA if their instructions say to cut. Otherwise, I think your screwed.

 

[RatLabGuy]

I think Matt is right on this one. Call Summit and see what they say. They may be willing to take it up with AA if their instructions say to cut. Otherwise, I think your screwed.

This to me is the key.
You followed exactly what the manufacturer instructions were.
You did nothing wrong in this. Their fitment guide is incorrect.

Summit as a distributor must be quite used to dealing with this kind of thing - (bad) vendors providing poor info to their customers, resulting is upset customers who return things.
Really the best thing that could happen is for Summit to get pissy w/ AA, and demand a refund for their loss, then AA is forced into a position where either they have to cave, in order to keep their business w/ Summit, or risk losing a MAJOR distributor. I'd think they'd be fools to do that. It's not like Summit is a little rinky dink fly by night operation nobody uses.