kronja

hey all,

i had somewhat bad experience with flat4online.co.uk guys and whilst i've seen that some people here are happy with them i think it's worth knowing that not always go things as smoothly as you would expect.

here's the link with full story, emails and dates:
http://kronja.osteopathy.ee/fun_wr/flat4online.html
edit: i've rebuilt my site, so whole story is now placed here: http://kronja.osteopathy.ee/pages/te...experience.php

shortly - i've paid for cam pulleys and water pump at flat4online on 14 november. it took 2 months to get them! (usual shipping from uk to estonia is 2 weeks max). and when car was assembled finally it appeared that one of those pulleys had wrong inserts on it and generally was pretty ****ty quality (inserts have different height - sry i really didn't come up to idea measure it before assembling).

i've been offered to get replacement pulley, which obviously is not the choice for me - waiting another 2 months sucks. and refund would be 65£, which - considering 350£ i've paid for set of 4 and time i've waited - is just taunting.

jk

Semper

He needs a forum section all to himself!

bigarf

iTrader: (67)

hmm you say some people on here are happy with flat4online.carn't say i have seen many.

Rice Rocket

iTrader: (23)

I've never had a problem getting stuff off him.

S!

mikey30

i've had mixed dealings with scott myself....
depends on what youy order!!!!
not many companies can provide the range of goods he does!!!

steveo_8

i ordered fuel pump injectors fpr and spark plugs on the 31/12/08 ans still have nothing! he has got till monday for it to arrive.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

All you need to do is pull out the steel inserts in the pulleys and reposition them all at the same height. They are the triggers for the cam angle sensor and MUST all be the same height, where there are a set of three or a set of two. They do not all have to be the same height - just the ones in the same group.

Once that is done it'll run fine and then you don't have to mess around waiting for Scott to get his act together or a refund.

Good luck call if I can help more David APi

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www.apiengines.com

01926 614333

kingofthehill

havent had very good experiences myself from them.
ordered an aeromotive fuel pressure reg last week, with a few other items approaching £1000 in total value. package arrived 9 days later with an fse power boost valve in and a note saying the aeromotive pressure regs are out of stock at the moment so ive sent you a power boost valve instead!
£85 power boost valve for a £190 aeromotive pressure reg, not exactly a fair trade off.
no email or phone contact to let me know items out of stock and would i like a refund or similar item.
not very impressed to say the least.

kronja

update here as well:

we've exchanged few emails and scott suggested refund; if i understood him correctly it would be 50% from what i've paid.. not sure if law in uk is as that, however, i'm tired and just don't care anymore. ahaa, reason why i've decided to ask for refund - one of pulleys broke and i thought it's not wise to risk with others.. photos of pulleys kronja corner - pulleys from flat4online - click on picture to see full-size (see different height of inserts, for example, also general quality - and judge yourself)

re: height of pulleys.. i'm not sure if they should or should not be on the same height, but what i've seen is that pulley that worked has _magnetic_ inserts, whilst the one i've received from scott just normal metal... and the pulley from legacy - the one that is now on my car - also has magnetic inserts...

Rice Rocket

iTrader: (23)

Always had a good service from him.

Out of interest, does he make the pulleys or are they supplied to him?


Ricey

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

If you've paid by charge card then your card co. will refund all of your money and then get it back from Flatfour later. If you paid by debit card you are not protected at all. If you paid by bank transfer you have no protection, although you can ask the bank to try and call your money back, because the goods are faulty.

In the uk if the goods are faulty and you advise the seller within a short space of time that the goods are faulty, they should pay you back completely. No deductions, no charges that is the law here.

Don't give up on it, as poor service and poor quality goods should not be allowed to happen and if you keep going maybe it will teach him [ and others on the net ] to behave correctly, or risk losing the large amount of business a good reputation on a forum can bring you.

Good luck David APi

M0NEY

He wouldnt make them, they would have been supplied to him

steveo_8

I was the same with my fpr. i sent it all back and wanted a full refund.
i just got my refund today!!!
i would never ever use them again its the worst service ever.

CDF Racing

iTrader: (49)

kronja:


Ah, So you was the guy spamming our website last month , rather than getting in contact and trying to resolve the issue

Scott @ Flat4 suppliers our parts we make .

As I can see from the photos , that is not the condition of the pulleys when they left us .

You are checking the insert position from the inside of the flange which is irrelevant to the sensor as it comes from the inside of the counter bore face.
The inserts are made from mild steel so yes they are magnetic. Yes we have issues twice in the past before but these are now pressed into the pulley within a thou limit of each other , if the pulley has been knocked or damaged in someway that may move the insert but they would of left us all the same .
Speaking to Scott he says that you was not willing to return the pulleys and just demanded a refund, without having any product returned you are not going to get a refund . I think something has gone wrong somewhere along the line hence why you don't want to return them .

If you ask around you will learn that we only machine parts to the best quality and that I will bend over backwards to help any customer out.


If you would like to get in contact direct please email me on info@cdfracing.co.uk


Thanks Chris

kronja

hey chris,


spamming your website, not getting in contact? that's complete bull****, to say least. i didn't even know who is manufacturer of those pulleys. and just accidentally saw in other thread that there is some kind of reply here. whom i was "spamming" is scott @ flat4, because i did not get relevant answers.

when stating "you're checking from inside of the flange.. which is irrelevant" - man, are you serious? it's only inserts which are positioned differently/not nicely on pulley and thus causing troubles, not pulley itself. so it doesn't make any difference where do i measure it from, inside or outside - it just doesn't make any difference.

inserts being magnetic - compared to oem pulleys they are not. i've sent to scott my old pulley along with yours, and you can compare.

not returning pulleys to scott - that's true, but only partially. you're not mentioning or don't know why i didn't send them back right away, right? and here's reasoning - when i had 3 out of 4 pulleys working ok i thought i will leave it as it is, that thing is not worth it. now when one of working pulleys broke i understood it may cause bigger problems, took them all off and sent back to scott (he has received them on 17th of march). i just cannot risk that another pulley will brake and i have to rebuild my engine again, right?
btw, it can only be due to my bad english that scott (or anyone else) understood that i wanted refund without sending pulleys back - that's complete nonsense and nobody can claim such thing. the thing we were discussing before i sent him pulleys was amount of refund - you can read our complete email conversation on link i posted above...

reason why i did not want to have replacement pulleys - i had to wait 2,5 months !!!!! to get those i had already. do you truly believe i would like to wait another 2 months? sitting on my ****, waiting, not being able to drive? i bet you know the answer.

i _never_ said anything anywhere about you. at the end of the day, i didn't pay you a penny - so i don't have to write this explanation here. i didn't even know you exist. i had business with scott, i paid him 350£, and got crappy stuff from him - not you. if you really are the one manufacturing them and would really care about customers like you're saying you'd for sure be able to get my email or phone nbr from scott and try to contact me - which you obviously didn't. you didn't even send me PM here. so please don't start telling same story scott tells everyone - caring about customers etc...


to conclude my experience - i paid 350£ (14 november 2008!!!) for pulleys, waited 2,5 months to get them, one of four pulleys (with inserts) did not work immediately and another broke after doing less than 1000miles, i returned them to seller (again, he received them on 17th of march - almost 3 weeks ago) and now because seller does not respond to my emails i went to bank and wrote complaint to get chargeback.

thx,
jk
p.s. man, don't even try to blame me for being rude or impatient or dishonest. the only thing you can do now is call scott and tell him to give me refund, apologize and after that we can only hope that god will forgive scott and you because thanks to you guys i almost lost faith in people :P

CDF Racing

iTrader: (49)

1, Yes it was you spamming my site as we logged your Ip and email address. I have no interest in getting in contact with someone that is childish enough to do this,
2, Yes I am serious about the pin positions, it the depth of the counter bore that finds the position of the pins.Not the flange -If they are out on the flange that is because they have been pressed in to get the correct offset from the front counter bore.
3,The oem sensors are not magnetic either, they are just steel which are what ours are.
4,How can you expect a refund for parts you will not send back - waiting 3months? Our parts would be send out within a week if they was faulty.

kronja

man, you're sick.

i'm repeating myself - i did not have any business with you, i don't know who the hell you are, i didn't pay you a penny, i have nothing to tell you, i never heard of company called "cdf racing" before i've been pointed to your post here, i don't expect any refund from you so leave me alone with your completely senseless statements like "i've logged your email address when you were spamming my website"

thanks,
jk

kronja

aha, now it makes some sense - that's link to pulleys i've got:
"Product Description: CDF Racing have developed their own lightweight cam gears for the early scoobs 1992-1998" - so you actually are manufacturer.

- on oem pulleys you can measure where insert is in a way i did with your pulley, and they are all on the same position. maybe your pulleys are different, and that makes them not replaceable with oem ones, i don't know. your pulley didn't work.


-
there are 2 type of pulley with inserts, and i kept both of them in my hands when looking for replacement after your pulley failed to work - with magnetic inserts, and with steel "inserts". steel inserts are on some (eu?) older imprezas, and i have jdm impreza wrx sti ver3 type r, coupe. it's not the same as naturally aspirated impreza, which may sound like a surprise to you. the pulley _looks_ almost the same, with minor differences; however, the one i saw with steel "kind-of-inserts" was made of metal, whilst the one from legacy (and which i'm running now) was made of "bakerlite" and had strong magnetic inserts. check with scott, he has my old pulley. it has magnetic inserts, you cannot do anything about facts.

the one i've received from scott (you) just didn't work on my car. you cannot do anything about it, cry or die, it just didn't work and i've notified scott about it on the same evening. i've asked for refund immediately, and he suggested 60£. as i've paid 350£ for four pulleys, that makes average price of one pulley 87,50£, so it's not fair refund - 27,5£ less than i paid. not to mention that i had to pay for fitting it to my car, and then removing it after we found out that it didn't work. and then pay for shipping it back. that's why i didn't send this one single back - too much hassle. the reason i did request refund later is that one of pulleys broke apart, and i paid for taking engine off, removing your pulleys, fitting oem ones, and putting engine back, and for sending your pulleys back to uk. quite a lot of £££, don't you agree?


now to some facts that did not get any reflection (yet).
- flat4online claims on their website here, that "If these are not in stock please allow 14 days for delivery". i waited 2,5 months, and that is documented. that's a fail.
- "Currently Flat4online.co.uk does not offer any warranty or guarantee on any of the products sold. " - this is simply against a law. flat4online is a seller, and flat4online is the one who keeps warranty, guarantee and all other stuff. i don't have to talk to sony, when i get faulty plasma from shop, i talk to shop. another fail.
- i will start discussion tomorrow with our consumer defence department (whatever it's called in uk). there are some rules, and there have to be reasonable timing when delivering goods. i have to agree i was an idiot when instead of cancelling my order i trusted scott and then waited 2,5 months for delivery, but that's not the thing i would like to repeat. so i don't want replacement pulleys, i want my money back or some other satisfaction. luckily, we are in the same european union, so it's really easy to file a complaint against guys like you.

considering our discussion here, the way you treat your customer - me - and what kind of absurd statements you post here - like i'm "spamming your website" - i don't hope much for fair (and voluntary) refund from you. that's why i'm talking to my bank, and will involve consumer defense deparmtent as well - those ladies love to create problems for those who say they care about customer, but don't want to take any responsibility if something goes wrong.

by the way, i don't know what exactly did you smoke when you came up with idea of saying "Yes it was you spamming my site as we logged your Ip and email address.", but that had to be pretty good stuff. i never heard of any possiblity of logging email address of someone "spamming website" (what is "spamming website" anyways?), so please give me link to resource describing such case - i bet someone did earn millions by finding out the way how to do that... i'm working in telecom/internet industry for 15 years and your senseless claim only reveals to me how desperate you are trying to find anything to make look me "bad"...

it's not money i care about, but honesty. and you failed. even worse, you started to blame me for doing things i never did. you lied. and that's your biggest fail.

thx,
jk
p.s. forum admins/moderators, sorry for such thread, but i think it's good to preserve it "as is" so everyone can judge himself.

Rice Rocket

iTrader: (23)

Well all I can say is I"ve never had an issue with either CDF racing or Flat4online when buying from them and parts have always been next day or within a 2 weeks as told!

Ricey

kronja

hey rice rocket,

quote from my first post:

thx,
jk

Rice Rocket

iTrader: (23)

That goes with every company i'd say.


Ricey

DJ_Jon

iTrader: (7)

Rice Rocket must be on commission with Flat 4 as he has said 3 times in this thread that flat 4 have been good to deal with.

Rice Rocket

iTrader: (23)

I'll say it again, I don't have an issue with them!

No commission either!!! Just decent parts at decent prices!

Ricey

marcie

In my mind the true measure of a company becomes apparent in the way they deal with things when they go wrong. Nothing in this thread would lend me confidence to deal with either of the above.

I know that this is just my perception as an outside observer. But then this is forum life and companies will know there responses are being observed. In just same way APiDavid's understanding of both UK law and basic integrity made me think, yeah- that is a company i would call.

CDF Racing

iTrader: (49)

I don't know what I can do if the guy won't return the parts for us to inspect, saying the pulley broke just makes no sense.. The photos of the pulleys are not the same as when they left us.

Like I said "if" it was down to a faulty part the issue would of been resolved straight away.
This guy is not interested in resolving this, just running my company down.


For the past 4 years trading on in I don't think I have ever had one unsatisfied customer.

CDF Racing

iTrader: (49)

kronja

If you return the parts direct to me I will sort out your refund then take it up with flat4 .

banny sti

iTrader: (68)

You cant ask for fairer than that Kronja, top man Chris

Banny

kronja

i CAN NOT return parts to you because these are with scott in flat4online since 18th of march. tracking site - click here for direct link with my parcel status

i can make copy of check (or whatever this paper is called), 2.43KG parcel sent on 11th of march to UK to address that scott gave me...

thx,
jk

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I'm not sure why CDF are becoming embroiled in this.

This issue is for Kronja and the retailer of the parts (flat4online) to sort out. Not for the manufacturer of the parts!

IMO CDF has gone well above and beyond in terms of offering a refund and then sorting it out with the retailer; it should be the other way around.

It would appear that this is not possible as Kronja has already sent the parts to flat4 online.

We need to hear directly from Flat 4 as to if they have received the parts for inspection and what they intend to do having inspected the parts.

Ns04

scoobyschef

iTrader: (6)

dont think scott comes on here ( he would get too much abuse). personally i thinkthe thread should be locked so they can sort it themselves off forum

jim