Date:         Fri, 10 Mar 2000 14:29:03 -0500
Reply-To:     "Karl F. Bloss" <bloss@ENTER.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Karl F. Bloss" <bloss@ENTER.NET>
Subject:      Dealing with dealer <F>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

The exhaust collector pipe that goes from y-pipe to cat cracked on the way back
from New England.  Fortunately, I have the exhaust that came on the core engine
from Karl M and that included the right pipe.

On to gaskets and bolts.  TBD has the gaskets for $2.95 each, but it's a bit of
a drive and I wanted them yesterday, so I call the dealer: $7.50 and they're in
stock (need 2).  Grumbling, I decide to go for the dealer because then I could
still install the exhaust yesterday while it was 76°F in PA.

2 gaskets and 6 bolts later, my wallet's $28.62 lighter...turns out the gaskets
were $9 each.  I kinda got that feeling like in Empire Strikes Back where Lando
Calrisian (sp?) keeps getting screwed in his deal with the Empire and Vader
says "Do you think you're being treated unfairly?" to which Lando just replies
a "no," realizing that if he speaks up, it'll get worse.

To make matters worse, the bolts are incorrect for one side, so I ran to Sears
to get longer bolts (fool me once, and all that).

The lesson:  Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance.  I shoulda
ordered the parts when I wasn't in such a rush.  Too bad I didn't know this was
gonna happen when I was at Boston Engine, where I coulda got the parts from
Boston Bob.

-Karl

Karl and Kristina Bloss, Trexlertown, PA
'87 Westfalia Weekender  "Beverley" - 194K miles
http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/
PA/NJ Vanagon owner's mailing list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/pavanagon/