"ajcrm125" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> 2 meesed up transmissions and torque converters and you think this is
> coincedence? Come on....

No, but as I said, you elected to be your own project manager
on this deal.

Here is how a professional mechanic would have handled this, who
had never dealt with Phoenix before, and was testing them out on
a customer.

At the point you were at, on the second broken trans and converter,
the professional would give up and eat the cost and get the transmission
from someone else. He would of course never use Phoenix ever again.
But, he would have the attitude that this was a test, and would not
have set his expectations too high. To him, the value of learning that
Phoenix is a POS rebuilder is probably worth the cost of a rebuilt
transmission.

To you, since your only doing a single transmission, finding out
that Phoenix was a bunch of ****-heads doesen't have any value
at all. So far this is understood..

But, what your not recognizing is that when you decide to play
in the big boys arena, you always take the risk that your going to
find out that a supplier is a ****-head. The big boys consider
this an acceptable risk and part of doing business. You aren't,
when you need to be.

When I decided to go ahead and do the R&R on my own A604
last summer, I always knew from the beginning that I might possibly
get myself in over my head, for example $1000 into the vehicle, I
would be calling the tow truck to tow the entire pile to the junkyard.
But, I made the decision to take the risk of this happening before
I even bought the vehicle with a bad tranny. The greater the risk
the greater the reward, but it is always still risk. If we all took risks
and none of us ever failed on a risk we took, then none of us would
really be taking any risks now, would we?

You chose to project-manage your transmission rebuild rather
than paying someone else to do it. Thus, when the risk fails
(through no fault of your own) because a supplier lies and doesen't
measure up, well then you must take the bad with the good, write
it off and move on because that is what risk is all about.

> > You bought a transmission from them and halfway through decided to back
out
> >of the deal. Up to that point they showed a perfect willingness to work
with you.
> Me backing out of the deal is completely understandable as I simply
> can't afford to wait a month or so as they continuously send me
> trannies, hoping to get one that works.
>

It's the way you backed out that I think was the problem. There's a
right way and a wrong way. You got to keep in mind that at that
point, they had your money, you had nothing, that is they had all
the cards. You have to, well there's no better way to say it so I'll
just say it, you have no choice but to kiss their ass. You have to
be really nice, really polite, a bit firm, and never say anything to
burn your bridges. All you really had to do after trans #2 failed
was to take the next trans from them, spend a couple minutes putting
a few greasy fingerprints on it, then call them and lie like a dog
and say you spent lots of money and trans #3 didn't work, and
send that back without even connecting it to the engine. You do this
a few more times and they are eventually going to give up. Of course,
once you get your money back than you blast the **** out of them
with your website. ;-)

> The fact that they showed a willingness to work with me to solve the
> problem means nothing if their quality is unaccaptable. Look at it
> this way: if I hire some guys to do the drywall on my new house and
> it's obvious after a few days on the job that they have no clue what
> their doing, does the fact that they're willing to work with me to
> solve the problem mean anything?
> How's about if I gave them another
> week and saw no improvements? I mean it's nice that they offered... but
> I don't have the time to wait and see if they can eventually get it
> right. The solution is to fire them and hire someone compitent to
> finish the job.
>

that's an apples to oranges comparison. When you hire folks like
this the usual procedure is half down, half on completion.

> >What you don't understand is that even the best rebuilders can make
mistakes.
> You're assuming I'm not a gearhead? Nobody's perfect and this is why I
> was willing to give it another go.
> After the 2nd one I gave up.
>
> >And nickel and dime items like bitching about a banged up oil pan is
rediculous.
> I agree.. and I could care less about the pan. It's merely an
> indication as to what to expect from the transmission as a whole.
>
> I have to aggree with you however that this incident happened several
> years ago. However I'm still getting emails from other Phoenix
> customers but have yet to post them on the website. (I just moved
> domains)

Post 'em!

Ted