SERVICE FAILURE(in my opinion)
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so, as i continue dressing up the engine compartment and working on the performance aspect of the truck, most everything is going along pretty well. of course, there's always bumps in the road, and of course, i'm the guy who finds them.
with a smallblock under the hood, the engine sits down in there a bit. considering other stuff in the way, it's difficult to add oil without spilling some of the stuff, and before, with the engine compartment looking like a rats nest, i didn't care. now i do. so, to help solve the problem i decided to add an oil filler extension pipe to make things easier and drip free. besides the mess, oil ain't cheap anymore and it does no good on the ground under the truck.
so, back to autozone in noblesville in. where brian, the manager ordered the thing, and i pre paid for the part with a delivery time of next day. i bought a few other things i wanted to justify the 30 mile round trip, and headed to the house. today, i went once again to autozone only to find out that edlebrock cancelled my order (without anyones knowledge) and the oil filler tubes were on back order. nice, huh? another 30 mile round trip for nothing and wasted time.
i have an edlebrock carb under the hood along with their manifold and bought a dress up kit with their name on it. we PAY for the part, and give edlebrock free advertising in the process, and in return, get jerked around because some nose picker can't keep track of inventory or can't figure out how to type "not availble" on a computer screen. i doubt there is some sort of huge crush of these things being ordered and nobody noticed the shelves were getting low on inventory. either way, it doesn't matter because i now will have 3 trips in a filler tube that costs $16 bucks and will end up getting the thing from mr. gasket, (who the manager confirmed actually has the thing and is shipping it today and, as it turns out, for less money).
i understand inventory goes down from time to time. i also know you can't sell what you don't keep in stock, and in the end, it's the CUSTOMER who pays the bills. considering i'm gonna have a total of 90 miles in this thing, at way too much a gallon for fuel, this thing is gonna cost way too much, and i doubt edlebrock could much care. i'm wondering, since i've been a customer of edlebrock products for over 30 years and have spent a ton of money on my own vehicles as well as customer vehicles if maybe things haven't changed a bit. either way, it won't take much of this to have me looking elsewhere. yeah, i know, it's a little thing, but considering how many "little things" go into our machines, it adds up into a major cost. if we consider how many items we buy for under 50 bucks, add shipping and gas and time running for parts, these "little things" become huge things. i know in this case, i'm going to have probably 30 bucks and 2 hours in a part that costs nowhere near that.
like i said in the "part is parts" post, we need to do our homework to keep costs down.
hope this helps.
by the way, alternatives for edlebrock include mr. gasket and offenhauser (who makes EXCELLANT products).
http://www.summitracing.com/search/Brand/Offenhauser/?gclid=CPTnvpPiyrUCFc5AMgodIVgARwhttp://mr-gasket.com/
