Karl, Call them and deal with them on the phone and tell me you are happy. They could not awnser any of my questions and he would not even tell me his name! There was no mention of sending it to JW from them either. Its not JW problem in my opinion. It was basically send it back and deal with it. Is that good customer service?
I look at it like this. GM builds a car. A defect is discovered in the early models. GM asks you to bring in the car for a free repair. The later built cars are fixed before they go to the dealer. Are you hosed because the people who buy thier car later in the year do not need the repair? Should you get another car? Should GM pay you back for the gas you used to drive it to the dealer? Are you saying the ones repainted by Jim will be inferior to the ones that are correctly painted from TPP? Sorry, still don't get it.
Dustin, I have and yes I am happy. I've talked to Joe many times and always found them helpful. The sending back to Jim has been on this board for quite sometime. Did you not see it? JW made it his problem. JW made an agreement with TPP to fix them. He is a big boy, I'm sure he know's what he is doing. I don't think you need to made a big deal out this by inferring you're helping him. Did you call them before or after posting your complaint here? I'm not trying to start a flame war, just trying to grasp what the problem is.
The first guy you talked to on the phone told you that you were able to send it to JW on the Buick Board, you railed him until you got the next person on the phone who said simply send it back and get a full refund... Bottom line is you called looking for a fight and pressed until you got the reaction you wanted... If you want someone to be nice to you on the phone, try being nice yourself. Your tone is negative on here and on the phone. That is it.
This is to meant in the nicest way possible. If you dont get it by now never mind. I am done with this board and done with TPP. I will be moving as many have done and will do. Good luck to all when dealing with TPP. If you think this is lame for worring about 25 dollars shipping thats your problem You are missing the point the way I see it! Those who need to contact me know how to otherwise. Later V8 Buick.com Im out. :af: Dustin
This is ridiculous..............send it back and get your refunds... and let it go...... BTW, has anyone seen the parts Rex is looking for? p
Shane, just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated the quality of the grille. Mine came in today, well packaged, exceptional quality and painted correctly. Being a construction contractor for 20years I can sympathize with not always being able to please the public no matter how hard you try. That being said I have never given up working in a particular neighborhood of town just because 1 or 2 residents refused to have reasonable expectations of a service or product provided by us. I would hope that your expectations of the buying public aren't so high as to let a few complaints over relatively small issues on one product compel you to alienate the vast majority of the Buick family who sincerely appreciate the products you have brought to market. I can't imagine anyone preferring to buy an NOS grille at twice the price for a truly inferior piece that's 30+ years old. Some people wouldn't be happy if Harley Earl delivered it personally in a Y-job.
I really don't want to add to this, but as I sit here and wonder about all of this, I just have to ask what you do if you got screwed out of 700.00 and lost some parts to boot like I did at that chrome shop in BC (Electroshine)??? BTW, if the BBB in the States is a as good as it is up here, don't waste your time, its a joke. Jim will repaint them, TPP will refund money, people have offered to pay money for YOU to get your parts repaired (wow), I just don't understand why its such a big deal that people are leaving the board, etc. Its annoying but s**t happens, there is an avenue to fix it....get it fixed and carry on. I've had to re-paint parts GM sold me, re-align panels after paying someone else $$$ to do it, etc. If you are super fussy (and thats good in my book) then you are going to have to expect it as 95% of the others out there are not. I think this has been way overblown. Later Tim
Shipping charges. It cost me $13.40 to ship the grille from the Deep South to the "Great White North". Not enough money to fret over. Peace Bert
The only problem I had....was not getting mine soon enough. Hell, I don't care if the damn thing came in pink and purple! $399 for a NEW 70 GS grille...... I can remember looking at $1000 used grilles........ I guess everyone forgot those days...... Sometimes everyone....including myself forgets what it actually takes to get something like this to market. It isn't done overnight........... Thank you TPP...... and I am sorry if I sounded ungreatfull in the other thread because I didn't have my order yet. Mike
Pat, unless I missed something here you should reconsider your jumping ship. I'm glade to see more and more parts comming to light for us Buick guys. Pat, your a great addtion to the Buick group and hope you change your mind. We need to stay together as a team instead of dividing and complaining. AL.
TPP..thanks for the parts!! Mike You are so RIGHT :Smarty: ...How soon people forget how HARD a 70 GS grill was to come by just a few months ago...now they want to throw stuff on this site and set the Buick community back a few yrs :af: ..what a shame :ball: .. Bill
I guess I should complain to GM since there NOS fenders fit like crap,and took around 8 man hrs to fix???? o No: o No: o No: Stuff happens,they offered a solution,and your still not happy? I`ve bought some stuff from TPP,it arrived fast,and it fit. I guess your other grille option is buying one from the GS club for more than TPP,and its not painted ou: ,or paying out the :moonu: for a NOS one on Ebay Thankyou TPP for making stuff for us..I for one will be buying a 71 GS grille from you in the future,even though I have an extra original one
Shane, First of all I would like to Thank You for reproducing parts for our cars. I do think however that you need to research the parts before production. 70 GS grilles have different color paint depending on whether it was originally installed on the car or supplied by GM as a NOS part. Originals were made from Grey ABS plastic. Later NOS black plastic. From what I understand your 71 GS grilles have a different mount in the center, using a shorter stud than the originals The 70 to 72 front marker lights were supposed to be contoured to match the fender, not flat like the rear lights. A 70 GS fan shroud is made of polyproplene not ABS plastic as you plan to make. I am not sure whether this will make a difference. ABS plastic may be less heat tolerant near the radiator and my possibly warp. Then you would have more complaints. There is a lot of knowledge on this board regarding our cars. All you have to do is ask and the members will be more than happy to help. Especially since we will benefit with better quality parts. Dave
If you take on the task of restoring a car then a little masking and spray bomb paint on a grille shouldn't be beyound something you could or would be willing to take on;but try making one. ou:
I don't ever want to hear that I spent too much time complaining about my past vendor problems. There are way too many fools on this site going on and on about a minor vendor issue like this one, especially when the vendor is making it right. Some of you guys act like cranky little ol' Ladies. TPP RULES!!!!!!!! :beer
Shane, I really think Eddie is on the right track. Did TPP make a mistake? Yes. Are they willing to fix it? Yes. Are you going to have dissatified customers when the parts was not what they expected? Yes. Do you cancel complete lines of product every time you get complaints? I hope not. The way I look at this is The Parts Place is a buisness and as such wants to make a profit. The reason they are making parts for our cars is becuase they see a need and can fill it. I personally think it is great to have someone interested in making parts which benifits the hobby and TPP is also benefiting because they are making a profit as they should. So it really boggles my mind when you come out and say you are rethinking your business plan because you have a few dissatified customers. I bought a grill, waited for months, read all the comments about the paint and I did not call you and cancel my order or post anything negative. My guess is that most the other people who ordered grills did not cancel their orders either. How many grills have you sold and how many complaints and cancellations have you had? Are we not allowed to express our concerns or complaints without a vender threatening to quit making parts for our cars? If you had recieved a part with an expection and it was not filled what would your reaction be? If you think the people that are complaining are being unreasonable how do characterize your own actions and comments? I am not passing judgement either way just wanting to know why you would consider not making parts that are profitable and needed? Compared to how many Buick parts you have sold and how much repeat business you have had has there been no profit in Buick parts for TPP? Do you really feel like everyone is against TPP? Do you honestly believe that your company will not have people that no longer do buisness with you because of past expereinces? In your first post you indicated that you have had very few complaints yet you are no longer going to make Buick parts. This does not make any sense to me. Just some things to think about. Mark Macoubrie
Well, let's talk about this for a while.. Hell, who needs to sleep? ou: First off.. Mark, I am pretty sure that what your seeing here is the guys at TPP just blowing off a little steam.. trust me, today the product of TSP was discussions with those guys in this matter. We need these parts.. and need to keep the TPP train rolling.. Don't sweat it, we will get it together. I can assure you though, that TPP is well into the 6 figures on Buick part developement now, and there is no way they have sold that many buick parts in the last couple of years. They will be invested in this community for a long time. That investment demands our thanks and respect. Now, since I saw that picture that Pat/Dustin posted, and then TPP pointed out as being the one that made them think that the bottom of the grill was black, I actually went back and reviewed the pics that I had sent.. now when this came about, they mentioned they thought it was one of my pictures that lead them to believe they needed to change the paint.. But they had maybe mixed up some of the photos.. and who sent them. I am quite sure that all the pictures that were sent in were done to be helpful, and I certainly am not doing this to point fingers, but a few among us seem to indicate that their information source might be inaccurate. Since that is me, I of course want to be clear here.. This does not mean I won't fix them, or will even give this much of a second thought, but the record does need to be set straight. In this, we will also discuss painting differences in OEM INSTALLED 70 GS grills. There are differences, and while I understand that a standard needs to be set for concours judging purposes, I have always felt that we all need to be very careful about what we say as "absolutes".. the only absolute that I will attest to when it comes to these production line built cars is this "There are differences". First off, let's examine the picture that may have lead TPP to actually change the paint, from the pre-production grill that I inspected.. this picture was not sent by me..
Now, I think it is clear that we can see how they may have thought the bottom of the grill was black.. Here are a couple of the pics that I sent them, of what I KNEW were Original 70 Grills, knowing the history of both of these cars from day 1. I sent these pictures to illustrate paint scheme, as well as factory differences. You will note that the two factory installed grills here are different colors. Different colors of argent silver (not a fading issue due to the fact the paint is different under the chrome trim). Also, the grill closest to the wall, which I personally was the first person to every remove from a 55K mile 70 GS convert, one family owned and complete history known, does not have any paint on the eggshells.. none.. it is argent silver.. Joe on the grill paint assembly line must have had a bad day.. or they were training in a new guy.. or it was Monday or Friday.. or they ran out of dark grey to paint them.. Pick your reason.. The point here is there were differences.. there can be no question about this. Here is one of those pics..
