The Cal-look Lounge

a friend bought for his engine, from a reputable usa head builder, a set of high end type1 cnc heads 44x37.5
they arrived with a lot of delay, reasonably packed, but not serious problem for this kind of part of the deal. they also sent forgotten parts in another expedition free of charge. problems can happen but if at last you have the pats in hand all is ok.

problem is about quality. he bought always CB heads, but these (not CB) appears very bad assembled. good work for the CNC work on the heads. cnc manifolds were instead hand ported, but not perfectly shaped (done in a hurry problem). about valve work, we are most concerned. one intake seat was crooked. a debris of aluminium is visible under a seat, leaving a free space on one side (not fully seated).  in one chamber the guides are about 2mm off center respect of the seats.  part of exhaust seat cut insists on adiacent intake seat.

due to the 3 angle valve job  the effective seat contact area of that ex valve is less than 1mm. i don' t comment about the appearance of a 3 angle valvejob on a 2mm off center seat/guide... the rest of contact area is aluminium and.

will these work? valve will seal for reasonable time? we was expecting a better quality...

Hi

This sounds horrible.
A seat that is not perfectly grounded will go down and down when the engine is running.
The worst thing is that it will not go down evenly especially if there are debit under it, and this will cause the valve to bent.
If the valve bents everytime it closes it will destroy the valve guide and will finally break and destroy the whole mill.

In my opinion you should bring this heads to a guy who is in the head business to check them.
Do not even think about butting them on an engine!

Sorry

MeXX

Sending them back and demanding your money?

No prizes for guessing who this is :o

Sounds like you need to get your money back and buy from somewhere else

I would recommend providing us with their name (not all of us necessarily may know who this builder is).

problem however is only on one head of the pair. the other is good.

we try to get again in contact with them.  i sent various email to ask their opinion about the problem but get no reply yet. there should have been the time though.
i sent them also a message with a link to this topic, i try to be as polite as i can.

Polite I can respect, and it may be a one-time problem.  What's important at this stage is how they rectify the problem and follow up with good service.  Other folks totally deserve to know who the vendor is, good service or otherwise.

Why ordering heads in the us ? it is not easy to get other ones or money back bacause you are far away ? We have a lot of head builder here and you have better contact inside of europe  :)

The obvious answer is Price. It shouldn't matter where you buy them in the World, if you pay for a product it should be to the advertised standard. I hope you paid via credit card/PayPal for some come back?

Lee

Hope this works out for you.
I keep thinking we in Europe needs a US contact that could order our stuff, so we would not keeping getting the not so great stuff.
I know so many people who have had bad luck (?) with the best companies in the industries, and it makes you think, then again everyone can have a bad day.

Jon, i think it is better you know the guys you buy your parts in person. i know all of them , so i know who i can trust

Udo

at last i get a reply from the seller. we are trying to solve the problem. i'll let you know if all will goes as should.

also if I did not make any names, photo or link, they asked to remove the post. but i believe that if a seller stands behind his product and a problem is solved there is no point in posting or masking info about a transaction.

i believe however that if a seller sends parts on the other side of the world, it would be better to DOUBLE CHECK the parts before putting them in the boxes.

so, also european builders offer CNC service? i'e seen the interesting site of mr.Udo. we will study it better...

for me, it is ok to delete the post, if moderators prefer to. i understood opinions and advices of the people that wrote in this post.
thanks.

I don't believe in bad mouthing a vendor or service provider just for the sake of doing so, but I do support feedback being provided (and business names, as well) on a given situation as well as how it was/wasn't rectified.  It's the only way future customers can be aware of quality service as well as how a business or individual fixes problems that may arise.
First step, of course, is always to deal directly with the business/individual before bringing it public... I didn't make that clear enough in my initial reply. 

I don't think publicly denouncing a mistake of a vendor is the ethical thing to do, if it is honorably addressed to both parties satisfaction. Even if it isn't, the internet shouldn't be a place for these lynchings I see online. It's like The Scarlet Letter....one wrong move and bang, it's like a blood-letting. And what may have been worked out, no hard feelings, all of the sudden becomes huge resentment, embellished BS over dramatized issues, etc.
I'm glad the parties here get the issues resolved without the online nuclear exchanges.

I don't disagree with you on how out of hand the complaints of poor service/etc. can get, Jim, and I certainly didn't intend to suggest denouncing a vendor immediately due to a singular mistake.  It is true that online bickering accomplishes nothing for either party.
What I meant was providing honest feedback on the good and the bad elements to a scenario, and certainly the vendor should freely respond as well since there are two sides to a story.
A number of people in the VW industry seem to be put on a pedestal because of their history/name/experience/etc, but I'm starting to see more and more that no one in the business walks on water.  People are people, regardless of what kind of 'hero' status some folks may want to worship or attach to certain individuals.
Everyone makes a mistake now and again, and that's what makes them/us human; how they resolve issues that may come up speaks to their quality.
The most frequent issues I hear of on some of those folks with otherwise stellar reputations is poor communications/updates/etc. For John Q. Public Consumer that may not necessarily be part of a certain clique in the VW world or a 'wheel' of sorts, this can be very frustrating, regardless of how busy they may be and a little courtesy goes a long ways; but that's a whole other subject altogether.

i didn't rush to blame the vendor writing this post. we tried to get in contact, also through the message system of his website, but for at least 3 weeks there was no reply. then we think... well we have this head. we need the engine done after we waited months for the delivery, the head has some issues, and probably it is us that are a little picky and pretend excessive quality from the parts.
let's see what people that do this engines all the time think about the heads... maybe with some advice we can make the head work well or maybe it is only a cosmetical problem.
unfortunately  the post helped me to understand that the problems ofthe head are serious and convinced us insisting about communication with vendor.
now we get the reply and a promise of solving the problem. good.

This post is not about making mistakes I think, it's about not replying when a mistake happens.

Its about how you deal with mistakes that counts. That said, when your work is your reputation, why ship something that you are not 100% happy with? Surely you would expect some comeback from a product that is badly assembled, and with a hand ported head you would notice these faults whilst you were working on it? I don't know who the vendor is, but this looks like they just dont care  ???

CNC is only cheap . Handporting makes more power . i only offer cnc chamber work for 90,5's


Udo

Just from an observers viewpoint, this type of thing is pretty common. The purchaser's problem is ignored, especially when they are from great distances. A post such as this, which did not name anyone, actually can help "light a fire" under the supplier to do something.

I can sympathise with the original poster in a way. Although not thousands of miles away from the popular suppliers, I'm not close by either. Not close enough to just drop by whenever I feel like, that much is certain. I too have been subjected to poor follow-thru on the part of a few suppliers. I go by the "burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me" approach. I have very little tolerance for being jerked around.

Would the supplier have worked things out with the buyer before the post? Maybe. But the buyer gave it a few weeks and got no where. Then got some communication after the post. I'd say it was an effective strategy.

I agree, Mike, and I will reiterate that my thoughts aren't geared toward the proverbial flame war/etc. that some instances devolve into, as that truly isn't productive.  However, I do believe the business does need to be identified so that other potential customers can be aware of others' experiences, good and bad. 
There's a difference between feedback and pointless online vendettas... in some cases, a customer may never be satisfied, but I like to believe more often than not that isn't the case.

at last we received the replacement head for free from the vendor. engine is running and the friend is happy. only problem was that head was a different run and had slight differences that we promptly solved. i will buy again from them. maytbe i will ask some photoes of the parts before sending... it will cost less than a replacement part!

I don't know who we are talking about, but i will not buy ever again from DRD! >:(