Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

[minuteman62-64]

I guess you are not supposed to bad mouth vendors on this site - but I can't restrain myself.

Went to West a month or so ago to get control cables. Told the guy at the Customer Service counter "I want a throttle and a shift control cable for a 1982 Mariner, 30 HP, electric start." The guy spent some time looking in catalogs and finally ended up calling Mercury. Bottom line, special order, 3 weeks delivery and shipping charges.

After 3 weeks and a few days I was in West for something else and asked about my cables. Yep, they were in - there was a note that they had called but no answer (I have a functioning answering machine). Got the cables home - argggg! - control end OK, motor end wrong.

Spent that night researching on-line. Located the Teleflex cable made for pre-1993 Mariners under 40 HP. Next day, back to West to return cables. No problem w/return, but they wanted to charge me a handling charge plus shipping. Wait a minute - I said I wanted cables for a 1982 Mariner and they ordered me the wrong cables. They screwed up and wanted me to pay their costs for screwing up. After some discussion they waived the handling charge but still hit me with the shipping charge.

Went back to Customer Service and told the guy I wanted Teleflex CC21015 cables. He looked in catalog and found them - but the picture of the cables in their catalog was different than the picture that the on-line sources showed (didn't look like the cables to fit my motor). On top of that he said 3 weeks for delivery. I passed.

Went home, ordered the cables from the i-boats store on 8/19. Delivered today (8/24 - 5 days for delivery) and they were the correct cables.

I'll still go back to West because they are convenient, and a lot of the stuff I buy I want right now. But, I won't rely on their counter persons to order parts for me - I'll do my best to figure out the parts numbers on-line before I go in.

 

[veritas honus]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

You're not bashing anyone if you're simply stating fact.

You'll find that iboats prices are very competitive. Their service is great; and think about all they do for us without so much as asking for a dime. We all need to give iboats at least some of our business. Look at what they provide for us.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

Next time take the old parts you want to replace with you so they can see exactly what you have and what they should order, then bring them back with you when you pick up the parts.

In a perfect world you shopuldn't have to do this, but.....

 

[minuteman62-64]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

Next time take the old parts you want to replace with you so they can see exactly what you have and what they should order, then bring them back with you when you pick up the parts.

In a perfect world you shopuldn't have to do this, but.....

I did that - and they still got it wrong. I'm not sure who actually made the mistake - the guy at the West counter or the person he was talking to at Mercury (who obviously didn't have the advantage of seeing the old cable).

I also had to pay the entire price, including shipping, up front. So, even if I'd brought the old cable in when I picked up the new cables, I wouldn't have been able to simply refuse to accept them to avoid the shipping/handling costs.

 

[veritas honus]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

Unless the parts were being shipped somewhere other than the store, why would you agree to pay shipping? If you want to pay for shipping, you can order the parts yourself and not have to drive to the store to pick them up.

 

[woodsyfeller]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

I usually do something similar with my local shop , I'll look up the part numbers online and see if they have them in stock.It seems so much easier thqat way then to have the guy at the counter spend 20 mins to look up wrong part.

 

[ufm82]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

It's been my experience almost 100% of the time that the aforementioned vendor is ALWAYS more expensive than other vendors. Why they are still around is beyond me. I loved their catalogs though- great reference books.

 

[GrandDad]

Re: Bad Experience Followed by Good Experience

I am not usually one to stand up for West, since they ARE expensive. I like them for the convenience, but I do most of my shopping for boat stuff online.

However, it seems to me that they did the right thing to try to get the right part for you. When the sales person couldn't find the right part for sure in their catalog, he called Mercury. You would assume that Mercury would know what they are talking about. Assuming that the West person gave them the right data (year, hp, etc), then Mercury made the error.

Other than wanting the shipping costs from you, it seems like West did the right thing.... you can ALMOST see their point in not wanting to eat costs for Mercury's mistake, but paying shipping costs for the wrong part would have upset any of us.

And - it is great to here how good the service was from iboats. I just ordered a water-fuel separator from them andit almost arrived BEFORE I ordered it!