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Originally Posted by speedshopmike
let's look at a few facts here, not play footsie.
PLEASE READ MY ENTIRE DIATRIBE BEFORE GETTING UPSET OR REACTING:
first, on a personal basis, i'm glad to see you're here and standing up for your company, and communicating with the public, and i've no beef with you, BGT.
here's my reality and how BG policy's afected me as a retailer:
first - holley now offers a lifetime warranty on their avenger line of carbs.
this refutes your mention of like coverage among the big players.
second - i buy carbs thru WD's 99% of the time for convenience - if i have a defective holley or edelbrock carb from a customer guess what i do?
call it in, have a new carb waiting the next day for my customer (so he's happy) and return the bad carb and get credit for it immediately from my WD.(so i'm happy)
i never see it again nor have to worry about it.
holley now actually makes us fill out the warranty tag for returns, which takes 20 seconds.
that said, it's RARE, REAL DAMN RARE, that i get a bad carburetor from them.
and i know full well half of what i get back isn't actually bad but i know a replacement will: 1)shut the customer up and 2)prove his problem is elsewhere (ignition or fuel delivery issues) as i already likely explained to him.
in the case of my personal experience selling the few BG carbs i have, back when i was direct with BG and later with you-know-who as a distributor, i had a significant percentage of defects, and the return process was a contentious nightmare, and BG's attitude was basically that "our poop don't stink".
i got stuck a few times with carbs i waranteed for customers in good faith (hey, there's that word again) and got flat stuck with.
this is why i now absolutely refuse to sell your carbs to anyone, and why i mentioned above about others getting left holding the bag - it happened to me.
not being a summit or jegs-sized speedshop, i really can't afford to eat losses like that, so i've removed the potential for it to occur.
there are several MAJOR, MAJOR lines i no longer carry that had good profit margin due to various reasons; i don't suffer fools well.
you guys don't seem to understand what a damaged reputation's effects will be long term, especially with the instantnet working away.
i'll provide another very recent example of this sort of thing:
a customer ordered a crossflow aluminum radiator for an early A-body car, auto tranny.
the first one came in wrong dimension - customer's fault when measuring, no big deal.
got correct sized unit in, gave to customer.
the manufacturer (it's the big one who's NOT griffin) had done a very poor job assembling it; the trans cooler loop was actually hitting the rad core inside and wasn't properly lined up when the fittings were burned on, so the lines had to go in crooked (ugly, generally amateurish)
we exchanged it for another like unit after calling company and being told "impossible, we never **** up, every piece is checked 'fore it leaves".
ok, send me another, they did, and guess what? - exact same problem.
called them; they said "well, just try and retap the fittings so your lines will go in straight".
well, anyone who's ever tapped anything knows that won't fly, but we did anyway just to shut them up.
of course, it didn't help and we sent it back again for exchange.
customer is getting real pissed by this point as weeks are going by.
they promised to INSPECT and resend a third out right away.
one showed up.
with the exact same condition!
one can look right down the fill hole and see the loop smashed into the core; it's quite obvious to those with eyeballs.
given once bitten twice shy (ok, twice bitten, whatever) i ordered in a griffin unit, paid shipping outta pocket to help appease my customer, and it fit perfectly and everyone walked away happy except me, who had to eat 3 return shipping trips and was made to look bad because of bad product followed by uncaring, unhelpful service from those who caused the problem and repeated the same mistakes.
guess who's radiators i'll never sell again?
guess who's i'll sell every time?
i'd LOVE to see you guys kick major ass, as i'm extremely pro-american in general, and make an effort to sell as much usa-made product as possible and discourage customers away from imported parts when practical to do so, especially chinese stuff as it mostly is subpar still; they're improving all the time, however, so places like you gotta go the extra mile to keep customers happy.
so your 100% made in america concept scores big with me, excepting that the parts aren't turning out as people expect, and service has been, a least in the past, arrogant in nature and poor in quality.
i'm super happy you guys are working towards fixing these issues as claimed and wish you nothing but the best luck and utmost success as things hopefully improve.
my main point is your company and everbody in it should, for the time being, be doing anything even REMOTELY reasonable to yield a happy customer - if it means eating an intake, do it.
give up a new one, melt down the old one and pour more.
now for a thumbs up for BG - i think you guys produce the best rebuild kits on the market - i sell lots of 190003's and -4's, and they're complete, well done, and have nicer parts then holley provides in their kits, like your improved needle/seats, for example.
i've also found your regulators nice.
these are parts i proudly sell currently; point is i'm not anti-BG and this isn't an attack on you or them; it's a plea to make things better.
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