My poor experience with performanceyears.com

[Chad82]

I've ordered from performanceyears.com before, and always received what I ordered no problem.

On Sunday I placed an order like this:
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/8720/motormount.jpg

My profession is a buyer. I make my living ordering stuff. Unit of measure has a very specific meaning. When unit of measure states "2" that means that for each order quantity, you multiply that by unit of measure. Normally I would expect to see "pair" or "set" there, but since they were both right hand units instead of a true pair of left hand and right hand, I didn't question it. 2 is 2, not 1.

So much to my chagrin, last night when I opened my package, there was only 1 motor mount. So this morning I called them up. After getting with "Ed" who "deals with most of the online orders" he was looking at internal screens and order confirmations, not the online catalog I ordered from. He was completely unhelpful, stating "I don't see unit of measure anywhere" and "if it does say that that is a recommendation on how many you should normally buy".

I am done with performanceyears for ordering from now on. The measure of a company is not how they treat the customers when everything goes right, it is how they treat the customers when something goes wrong, and they treated me poorly being utterly dismissive of my complaints. They apparently don't care about customer retention. This was a $20 item and they could have kept me happy and continued being a customer if they had only made a reasonable attempt to listen to what I felt was a legitimate concern.

So now this is screwing up my plans for the weekend. I had coordinated with my friend, who has an engine hoist, who is as equally busy as me. So now I probably won't get my engine in there for another month or two when the planets align once again.

[MrPbody]

Chad,

The ad is hard to read on my machine. Probably the antique monitor I use...

I've done business with PY for years. I also deal with Ames Performance. These are the only two I will buy Pontiac-specific parts from, because the other resto-houses are Chevy-oriented and may not supply "pure" Pontiac parts.

I've never had an issue like this. I don't use an on-line catelog, though. I've found them (regardless of the company) to be less than complete. This is particularly true where technical data is concerned.
The people that create the "on line catelog" are NOT "car people", they're data migration people. We get the same problems when a so-called parts person can't find simple information on their screen at the modern "copnvenient" parts stores like Advance, A-Zone, O'Reily's, etc. Much gets lost, probably because the data people make "judgement calls" in a subject they nothing about.
When I worked for IBM, writing software for data migration (when they changed from mass storage on tape to "optical" in the late '80s), we saw a tremendous amount of this, and that was "internal IBM". I can only imagine how contractors work...

I suggest two things. First, don't write them off forever over a single (isolated) incident. Second, get a real catelog and see if that doesn't help.

I was in Phoenix last week for "Pontiac Heaven XI". Steve Barcak puts on this show every year, and allows "no corporate nonsense". Pontiac V8s ONLY. Jim Wangers' "Ponte-Carlo" was there, running his 8 second times as usual. Robin Roberts' '76 T/A was there, too, making 8 second passes on pump gas. And of course, "Dirty Bird" (FKA Drunken Injun) was there, putting down new "records". 6.596 @ 213.7 MPH. Currently it's the quickest and fastest Pontiac V8 in the world! (and I helped...!!)

Jim