Look what just arrived! Quick Look: It looks good - no cracks or damage. It must be plenty strong - check out the wimpy box it was shipped in(behind it). It had only one thin sheet of padding which covered about 1/3 of the grill. Now to get it painted! Anyone else get theirs? Thanks GSCA! - Bill :TU:
GSCA 70 GS Repo Grille UPS strikes again! Received my grille with some slight damage. It appears shipping carton was damaged in transit.
I havent gotten mine yet and i hope it doesnt come broken, although theyre supposed to be insured. but thats always a PITA to recover.
GSCA 70 GS Grille UPS advises me package was insured for only $100.00. I thought all grilles were to be insured for $500.00. Am I correct ?
$100 is the default insurance that you get automatically when you purchase no insurance. So in other words the sender purchased no insurance which is a real challenge to UPS. They usually find a way to test the limits of a package and that one seems not to be too sturdy given the contents. When I ship a 70 grille the diameter of the package is two to three times the one shown in Bill's pic. George N. will verify that.
Unless there is over $500 insurance on them it's of zero use. I'm not sure what good insurance would be other than to recover your money as these were a limited run, I don't know if there are any extras to replace one if damaged. If mine comes damaged my head is going to explode! :af:
Would you believe I never even opened the box ou: But this thread prompted me to do so and it looks fine. I thought the carton was decent but was surprised it was not marked "Fragile". ou: I know they can be professionally painted correctly but if anyone paints their own, it would be great to see the results get some pointers. Mine is just for a spare.
Bill, You should see how the original grills where package by Buick. very tight box and 3 pieces of foam glued on the grill. SCARY ! The original Buick box weren't label "fragile" neither. Olivier
I'll be doing just that to the grille I picked up at the Nats that a friend of mine ordered. I'll post pics of the process. Stay tuned. There's some detailed pics of the grille in THIS thread.
While that may be true, it doesn't excuse those responsible (GSCA I assume??) from purchasing proper insurance, and proper packaging, for an item that costs $500 and is not readily replaceble. jmho I got lucky when I bought a nice 68 GS grille a couple years ago. It was packaged with a single sheet of cardboard wrapped around it, no packing materials, and the lower point of the grille was poking out of the seam when it arrived. I just about cra**ed my pants when I saw the box arrive. Luckily the post office handled it carefully, and it only travelled here from IA, with no further damage.
Putting "FRAGILE" on the box does absolutely, positively, and not surprisingly nothing at all to protect the contents I worked for UPS for 7 years. Trust me, nothing on the box, not even the address label, is of paramount concern to UPS. Stuffing as many boxes into a trailer, so as to save money on transporting the packages, is all 90% of the UPS facility cares about The other 10% have to actually read the address, but it's all they care about. Condition of the package means nothing, because "It was like that when we got it"
Never write fragile on a box you send to UPS....this signals them to "test" the packaging...or drive a truck over it! Folks who I trust and who've been at UPS for decades verified this monkey business...and I know personally what they can do to a 67 StarWars air cleaner! Should have shipped it in a Gorilla cage (with gorilla). It's nothing personal just the way it is! BTW All the UPS route guys I know are great but they have some real winners working at the terminals. ou:
Well, mine came today. There's a two inch crack right in the center :ball: :af: :ball: :af: :ball: :af: .....Figures! This was a pi$$ poor job of packaging something that someone paid well over $500 for. I better stop typing :af:
I haven't checked yet Ken. I'll probably wait until tomorrow. Either way I think I'm going to end up keeping it and finding something I can strengthen the crack up with. Then I'll paint it.
For the past 6yrs I've been dealing with UPS... the one thing I've learned is that if it must arrive exactly as it left... .then you need to insure it for BIG bucks. Old driver informed me that anything insured for over 5K (or 1K I'll have to ask current driver tomorrow, I don't rember) and it gets red carpet treatment... Hand trolleyed through stations (no conveyors), Drivers actually looked like they were handling Dynamite when they were loading/unloading it to my warehouse...lol. First time I saw this, I was like WTF.... why is he soo careful with just that one...lol. I don't care what I ship... I'll never write Fragile on it.... not after the stories I've heard. I don't think it's all that more to insure it for that much... like $20 according to their shipping calculator. Cheap insurance, as even the USPS will damage well packaged stuff.
