just in case the forum members missed this exchange on page 1
[quote=daytonaRS4 a.k.a. gibsonl]Today is the 2nd and I haven’t heard anything from them (JHM) all week. Are they covering my $500+ in rental expenses, of course not. So what should really be expected from JHM in this situation.
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[quote=sakimano]Why are you renting cars? I thought you had ordered another type of clutch and moved on? Now you’re waiting for JHM to look at the parts and see what was wrong with it?
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[quote=daytonaRS4 a.k.a. gibsonl] Clutchmasters didn’t have the lw setup in stock which I guess they didn’t bother telling me, hence the rental car expenses.
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Hi all… first i have posted here! Some may recognize my handle from QW mostly and AZ occasionally… i read all around and enjoy the technical discussions that go on here. All the anamosity is a little discouraging…but hey its the interwebs… I am around these boards to learn from other members, etc. Some questions may be dubm/stupid to some but hey. now that im breaking the ice, i may be posting here more…
Since i was able to get a drivers license i have always wanted an S4, and my first chance to get in a “fast” car was a couple of years ago and i picked up the RS. so this is the first car i have modded and am learning on… Previously drove a vovlo wagon and a 00 Range Rover…
i will hopefully be in the market for a stg 4 JHM clutch end of summer/fall timeframe. I have only ordered a couple of odds and ends from them tranny mounts, MAF hose etc, and they have been fine once you get them on the phone…
loll welcome zmon. You picked a funny thread to make your intro in.
Which volvo wagon?
p.s. the ‘bickering’ you’ll note is a couple of douchebags from quattroworld badbluers4 and daytonars4 (a.k.a. gibsonl). Take them back with you on your next trip over there.
Ha it was just the response i quoted that made me post… Man i just read the last few pages of that SC thread… funny stuff. I met Gibson at the track a few weeks ago…nice guy.
My first car was a 98 or 99 cant remember cross country… I actually still have a different (volvo 98 v70 as my “dog” car) as my 95lb black lab does not step foot into the RS hah.
[quote=sakimano]Why are you renting cars? I thought you had ordered another type of clutch and moved on? Now you’re waiting for JHM to look at the parts and see what was wrong with it?
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[quote=daytonaRS4 a.k.a. gibsonl] Clutchmasters didn’t have the lw setup in stock which I guess they didn’t bother telling me, hence the rental car expenses.
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Once agian, deflecting. If JHM inspected the parts AS THEY SHOULD HAVE in a timely manner, there’s no need for me to call another shop. Is that a point too hard for you to comprehend. I shouldn’t have to go out and spend another $1,600 on something I already paid JHM $1,600 for. Man, you guys up north take a lot of repitition to get the point.
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JHM just called me and advised that they are replacing my flywheel since it’s taking a ridiculous amount of time for my original to get tested. Coming here just changed my life. Thanks to you all for the bashing, clearly somehow it’s lead to results! Once again I can say I like JHM! If taking a beating from you guys is all it takes for me to get things done … WORTH IT!!!
You’d be surprised, there have been a couple posts where people said they did that to make it fit “easier”, search some on AZ. “easier” does not mean “properly” though.
That’s why you just learn to leave it as a credit on your account. You know you’re going to spend the money with them anyways, so why not just leave it as a credit and have your next order be free. . . well it feels that way at least lol.
Umm, who said you ever needed to drive any other cars, or that Saki needed to drive YOUR car. These clutches aren’t custom made to each individual car, they’re made to the model in the platform and should all have the same engagement point. The fact that you said the new clutch “has a super shallow engagement” point means that it was nothing like stock (which it is clearly noted that the engagement point should be similar to stock) signals that there was something fucked up from the start!
Just b/c a mechanic doesn’t want to look into it any further doesn’t mean “its good enough”, you’re at the dealership, how much do you really think they care anyhow?!?!
And just to do cliffs to understand (several comments are what I’m reading between the lines, so I’m not saying this is fact, the stuff above is fact though):
*Install aftermarket parts at Audi Dealer for twice the cost - (and almost always a bad thing having aftermarket parts installed at the dealer b/c they’ll ALWAYS deflect to it being a bad part and not oem if something goes wrong, it’s never installer error and “you should have gone with oem”)
*Then after install and immediate signs of things not being “right” (i.e. super shallow engagement, NOT NORMAL) you drove it anyways and then took to track day.
*Things get real bad, so you go to RAI to get a better idea of what’s going on (who happens to be a slight competitor to JHM in some regards, so probably not a great start there). During their investigation they probably said to order clutch masters, and you decided to send the part to JHM to try to get your money back for what RAI said was a faulty part.
*Due to RAI’s advice, you authorize them to tear off the transmission, send off the 034 flywheel to get money back, and install the new clutch setup (which you are under the impression will be there when they open up the trans). Then shit hits the fan when RAI has your car apart, your flywheel across the country, and them fucking up on ordering the replacement part they suggested.
So at the point JHM got the FW, I’m guessing RAI or yourself already said I’m ditching this setup, and I want my money back asap, thus it needing to go to machine shop to verify the part was not correct. If that’s the case, or it was ever mentioned to JHM that their setup was going to be ditched in place of a new clutch combo, I doubt it’d be priority 1 for it to get the part to and from the machine shop for verification of something they already know (that there’s nothing wrong with the actual part).
You are wrong about the RAI part. I took the car to them to take out the parts to send to JHM so they could test, send them back, and reinstall into the car. I called JHM repeatedly bc I need the parts back. I never wanted a refund from JHM, I just wanted the parts. You can call Keaton at JHM if you would lik eto verify the true version of the story. Sorry, didn’t form any though on the rest of ur post bc since my car is getting back together I don’t care to fight anymore. Big ups to Saki for using his “JHM connections” to make things happen. j/k It would be nice to know what went wrong for the sake of others, but not my battle to fight!
Saki, if the thread is dead you aren’t obligated to keep replying. I never said I wanted a refund from JHM for the clutch and flywheel. I said I wanted the freakin parts back. WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW! I already knew from the jump I’d be eating the rental car costs since JHM only warranty’s parts.
I know we just spoke on the phone but I wanted to address some of your comments here now that this thread was pointed out to me. As the Sales and Customer Service Manager here at JHM, I take each one of these incidents very seriously and I want to make sure that future customers know exactly how we handled your issue.
In about 4 out of 5 cases, most warranty claims can be resolved in under a day. Based on what you were telling me on the phone when we originally spoke about your issue, I figured we’d be able to identify your issue right away. As is often the case when we don’t have vehicles or parts in our hands, this was impossible to know for certain and unfortunately, was not the case for your warranty claim.
We inspected your parts as soon as they arrived at our shop and everything looked good to us - this was not just a visual inspection, we tested the pressure plate, clutch disc, and flywheel on the bench to make sure the pressure plate was still operating effectively. It was and it had the same clamp load that we expect from all of our clutch kits.
However, since you sent us parts that you claimed were defective, we wanted to do everything within our power to make sure we found out the reason for your concerns. We decided to send the clutch kit to another shop that we work with frequently and who actually machines these flywheels for us. We paid to have your entire setup sent to 034Motorsport and spun up to well above normal operating speeds to see if we could find something else. Not only did we pay for shipping but we also paid for the time that 034MS charges us for using their equipment.
Like I mentioned in our phone call today, we have not heard back from them on the results of the test yet. Since it’s been such a long time, we just decided to replace your flywheel at no cost to you AND ship the entire assembly back to you for re-installation into your car. Again, shipped back to you at no cost.
We stand behind all of the products that we design, machine, and sell. We guarantee that they will function as advertised. If they do not, we will do as much as we can to figure out what’s going wrong and help you fix it. In the case of a flywheel, we understand that this can mean downtime for your vehicle. In these instances, we have no problem sending out replacement parts for the products that need to be inspected after we’ve collected a core charge. Once we determine the issue, we always refund the core charge if the part was found to be defective and in some cases we even refund the cost of shipping (OR don’t charge for shipping the products back, as was the case for Lawrence).
Finally, I know that in the past we have been overwhelmed with the amount of email, phone, and forum inquires that we receive. This volume of inquires inevitably leads to some customers experiencing longer gaps in time from the moment we receive their email, voice message, or phone call until the time that we can get back to them. I want to let everyone know right now that we are doing everything we can to address this issue and in Lawrence’s situation, communication was not an issue.
Lawrence, we called you the day we received your clutch kit. We let you know that RAI packaged it extremely poorly and that there was some cosmetic damage done to the clutch disc and flywheel due to the way it was packaged. We spoke with you the next day and let you know that everything looked good but that we were sending the kit out for further inspection. In addition to that, I checked the call logs of our other employees and found that we spoke with you on April 19th, 20th, and the 26th.
We NEVER refuse customer calls, the only times we don’t answer the phones are either because we’re already on the phone with other customers, we’re out in the Shop or Warehouse briefly checking on stock, or it’s after hours and we’re closed. To our other customers or potential customers out there, Lawrence claims that he called us 5 times between the 23rd and the 26th but I only have two phone calls from him in my log during that period. Each of his calls were answered by an associate here and EACH time he was informed that unfortunately we didn’t have any new information but as soon as we did, we would let him know. If you call us and DO NOT LEAVE A MESSAGE, it is IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO KNOW THAT YOU CALLED. So it’s very possible that Lawrence called us 5 times, but since we were either on the phone or away from the desk we couldn’t pick up his call. If he didn’t leave a voice message, we couldn’t tell that he called and therefore would have never responded to his inquiries.
Again, at JHM, we stand behind every single one of our products. One of those products is the customer service we provide. We are doing everything that we can to correct this perception that we’re not reachable or that we never respond to customers. WE RESPOND TO EVERY INQUIRY WE RECEIVE. Whether it’s email, phone, PM or something else, if you leave us a message, we will get back to you.
Keaton, I appreciate what you have done and I intend is to leave it at that. You did not call me when the parts arrived to you. I called you. You told me that you only did a visual inspection of the parts which is why I insisted that it be sent to a machine shop for testing. Keaton, talk to Drew, I spoke to him several times over the week and he swore he was forwarding the messages to you. I also have my cell phone logs that will show that I called 5 times from that Monday to Friday. When I spoke to you on Thursday your exact words to me were “We are pretty busy and didn’t think it was worth our time or yours to bother calling you back.” But now that the issue is resolved I have no need to fight with anyone about it. Thanks again and I will continue to do business with you. But please, I don’t need anyone else here calling me a liar esp when I can show in phone records the number of times I called JHM. But as I already said, all is well so thanks. If you do ever find out what really happenned to the flywheel I would certainly like to know. If it turns out to have been an installation error then I’d certainly like a writeup. If the part failed, then so be it. Sh*t happens.
On the 20th I called you to advise the clutch was there. On the 23rd I didn’t call. The morning of the 24th I called and didn’t leave a msg. On the afternoon of the 24th I called and spoke to you but you had no update adn said you would call me later that day with an update (You never called). On the 25th I didn’t call. On the 26th in the morning I called and talked to Drew. on the 26th in the afternoon I called you and bitched about you not calling me and how it’d be appreciated if you did call me even so I know what’s goign on. On the 27th Drew called me to let me know that you were gone for the day but there was no update. If there is any disagreement on any of that I can provide phone logs showing who inititated the call. But once again, I’m ready to leave it alone. You guys make great parts. You came through for me today. I appreciate it so let’s move on.
