A tale of two Vendors: not Pelican

[ErikT]

Some of you may recall my trials and tribulations with a simple alternator install last weekend.

I had ordered a rebuilt one from a place called Alternator Express online...and when I took the old one out, found that the alternator housing had been worn and cracked. Not wanted to pony up $550 for a new one... I seached the web and found a "new one" from Vertex for 1/2 the price.

It looked great when I received it, shiny...very rugged....however I soon found that it was about 1/8 to 1/4 inch too large! This made it very difficult to fit into the area under the shroud. Also, there was no top-dead-center indentation and groove, and the unit had 2 bolts coming out of it, for the coil on the Pre Carrera style cars....however mine is an 86 Carrera.

Needing to get my car up and running, I got out my dremmel tool... painstakenly cut off the 2 bolts, painstakenly ground off metal around the rear edge of the Alternator Housing...painstakenly ground down an edge so that it would fit inside of the pulley, and put my own top-dead-center mark on it corresponding to the one on the old, cracked housing.

Ultimately, I got it to fit, though the hold down metal strap then required a new longer bolt to get it to bolt down...hence a trip to 3 hardware stores before I found the correct bolt.

All in all, Id say that it took about 6 extra hours of my time to get this thing to fit.

So, to make a long story short... I get it to fit, put the belt on and the car runs great! End of story? No.... I then find that my Alt Light glows when the revs get up over 1000 RPM and under load from headlights, radio etc. Apparently this replacement alternator may have problems.

So, I call Alternator Express several times, finally getting a hold of Matt, who promises to send me a new rebuilt alternator (but no ship date was promised!!??) ...

I send Vertex a rather pointed email telling them that their part is wrong. A guy from Vertex called me yesterday in response to this.... and says "our machining on that was wrong, our apologies...we are going to cut you a new one and ship it right out!"

Hallejuah. My grip is not with the "customer service" from these vendors.... my gripe is with the expense of OEM parts, the ones that actually work and fit....and the lack of quality alternatives in the market place. I learned my lesson big time.

Next time I will have to go with these from Pelican...as the other vendors knockoffss....are less than spec. I dont have a problem with paying the extra $$, but the value has to be there...and apparently it is!

peace

[HarryD]

Sadly, the price of OEM repair parts continues to grow.

I suspect for two reasons.

First: strength of Euro vs the dollar; and

Second: the fact we have aging cars that need parts. The parts supplier (Porsche AG) can be accused of price gouging, but then again, have you ever tried to get an OEM part for your '73 Chevy? I doubt GM would even bother to look. PAG on the other hand has kept these parts in their system long after the MBA types would tell them to dispose of it to save working capital. Somehow, this cost needs to be recouped.

[scottb]

Originally posted by ErikT
I send Vertex a rather pointed email telling them that their part is wrong. A guy from Vertex called me yesterday in response to this.... and says "our machining on that was wrong, our apologies...we are going to cut you a new one and ship it right out!"

That sounds odd. Do they machine one each time an order comes in, or did they do a production run and all of them were bad? If a bad run, when did they know the run was bad?