I know one thing with dealing with people for most of my life, customers are not always right, only to those who really need the money will say the customer is always right.

If your busy and you have people lining up to have work done by you, you are right, end of arguement. Who got the final word here, Phil did. Who is pissed because he feels he wasted his time when anyone who have ever worked on cars knows that this **** is not a f'ing McDonalds drivethru window.

Just because someone does something on the side does not make he or she any less dedicated to doing good work. But when you do work on the side, yes, you are probably going to take longer than a business, but the trade off is your not paying top dollar. But it seems that some people want top work in very little turn around time and get the **** at a very discounted rate. Not gonna happen. That is why you should buy a set of cores and you ship them and when they are done, they are done. Me, I have a work vehicle so I get the luxury of f'ing off and being patient, I can. But if you can't, you got into the wrong hobby.

 

Kinda what I was trying to say. But "cantonracer" used a sledge hammer, I used a scalpel

Rich Krause

 

Well, that is you. I have been involved in the business side most of my life, as far back as I can remember being my dad was self-employed most of his life and I dealt with enough morons to know that rule of the customer is always right is bull....only is if you want to take people's ****.

Call up Microsoft and bitch about their software...?

Do you really think that this thread hurt AI? No, all it did was reinforce that you get a good deal but have to wait awhile....

 

Yes I am a friend of Zack's. No he did not ask me to come support him. I actually was thinking about ordering a set of those heads till I read that post. That is why I came over here. Now I think I will go somewhere else to get heads.

 

Well, I know 96Blackbeast & Blurrr. Beast is right. Blurrr is an idiot.

As far as the dealings with this "company", I know Beast was under the impression he was to have his heads completed some time ago. Everytime me or anyone asked him how they were coming along, there seemed to be a new excuse he was getting from the guy doing the work. Rest assured, if someone had a thousand or so dollars of mine & every time my "estimated time of completion" was being pushed farther & farther back, I would be calling. Alot, in fact. And yes, I might even call many times a day if I didn't get an answer. As far as the customer always being right, yes, for the most part that is how business SHOULD be run. Perhaps the reason Phil does this on the side and has a primary job of working for someone else is because he has the opinion that they are not. I would figure a guy dropping $50k on a TA motor would damn sure want some answers if his motor kept getting delayed... Alot. Said person might even request a little more of a discounted price or something of that nature to compensate for inconvenience. And if in the end, if Phils boss said, "Here is your $50k back. I don't want to do business with you anymore because you offended me," he might just get a visit from a lawyer for not holding up to the verbal agreement(s) that were made. Least of all, he is going to get mentioned on several message boards as a person that isn't good to do business with. What "business owners" need to understand is, be it $1000 or $50,000, it's someone else's money until the job you do is completed to the best of your ability & in a timeframe you, as the business owner, give. Sure, things will happen to cause difficulty. That's part of having any type of business. As the owner of that business, it's your job to try to make the customer happy. In this case, free shipping, $100 discount, an apology with a decent explanation telling why you can't give a discount would even be a good idea. But noooo... Phil wants to "have the last word" and foolishly just send the money back stating how "offended" he is by the mere suggestion to "do the right thing." Imagine how offended Beast is because he accepted every line, excuse or reason you threw at him for over 3 months only to have nothing in return from you. Great customer service Phil. Good luck with your future transactions.

Also, I really don't think refunding Beast's money deserves such a large pat on the back. Sure, big companies might try to give him a store credit in place of actual money. But one has to have a "store" before that situation works.

 

I've known Phil for a while as a business associate and a friend.
As a business associate I can say he runs a clean business. I've dynotuned several of his customers cars and they consistantly outperform everything else we've seen (AFR, CNC, GTP, etc) Needless to say the customers are very happy. This is why I've bought a set of AI heads myself and have recommended them to friends and good customers.

Anyone with any business experience knows there are good customers and bad customers. There is a line that a customer crosses which starts to cost the company business (time is money.) A customer that costs more money than they generate isn't conductive to good business, common sense. Phil made a command decision, it's that simple. If a customer tried to bully me I'd do the same thing.

I'll be glad to do business with Phil anytime.

-Christian

www.carprogrammer.com

 

Do you guys know 1fastTA or Beast96Z ?

 

From the Shreveport area maybe? 1Fast95TA sounds familiar. If it's who I am thinking of, his car is VERY fast!!

 

i have not had the chance to meet 1fastTA i think has been working on his car when we made it out to Red River.

 

There is a difference in being late and taking more than DOUBLE the time you quote for turnaround. If you can't see a problem with that, then you are not a very intelligent or thinking individual. If everyone knows how much time porting takes why wouldn't Phil quote more time? Why did I get multiple shipping dates? Is Phil totally in the dark about events taking place in the shop? It doesn't add up to me.

What is this discounted rate??? The price before Jan. 1st 2003 was 1500, after Jan 1st the price went up. How can you get a discount when you pay FULL price? If you want to say I paid less than the industry average, you're right, but does that mean it's a discount? NO. Customer is always right, try doing business without them. Does it mean that you have to like or agree with what they say no, but p*** off a few people and observe how it affects your bisness. I would like to know what I cost Phil, he had my money and last time I checked emails didn't cost anything.

 

And could someone remind me how many sets of heads that Phil has done .... just here on cz28.com???? Too many to remember that's for damn sure. Ever heard one bitch??? Hell no. Bottom line.....I don't think anyone is going to heed your warnings.....hence lost cause.

Joe

 

Well, you've heard one bitch now. If nobody heeds to the warnings listed, it's their choice. I know of at least 1 definate customer Phil lost. I know of no less than 6 potential customers he could have gotten had it been a more positive ending to this situation. If he handles future customers in the fashion he handled Beast, there will be more he will lose.

 

Like B-ron and Zack said, Im an idiot.

 

When someone is happy he tells 3 people, when he's pissed off he tells 9. When you do as much work as Phil eventually you are going to **** off someone.

I'm not defending Phil because he worked on my heads but because I know what its like. I've been involved in racing 2 sprint cars for 3 years now and I've learnt to expect set-backs and time delays from the guys that do the heads and engine builder to ordering special parts. The guys that do the heads on the 410 sprint car make GTP look fast and these are 5000$ heads.

If you dealt with getting custom engine work as much as I have you'll learn to accept it. Its not like they pull this stuff off the shelf and ship it to you. Sad but true.

EDIT: I'd still recommend Phil to anyone whose interested in cylinder head work. He did an extremely good job with the heads on my car and he answered all my questions.

 

First off, the customer is not always right....... what about all the people that go out to eat, and say the food sucks to get a free meal, yet eat every last bit of their "bad" food.

With that said, all of these businesses that are more or less moonlighters, that take on too much business than they can reasonably accomodate, and take on this business with little or no foresight of what events might happen to keep them from getting their other business done never cease to amaze me.

I don't care how much lower the price is, that's still not an acceptable substitute for being at the will of someone that is going to push your work back as much as that. I honestly hope he does not do business like this(which apparently this is an isolated incident) because if he does I don't know many people that want to get jerked around on getting some heads done.

John