Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 17:22:54 -0400
Reply-To: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject: Re: busdepot and thepartsbin going nose to nose
In-Reply-To: <20021004191840.86122.qmail@web14704.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> I ordered two rear heater cores from busdepot.
> I like the people at busdepot and Ron is a
> valuable listmember...
>
> It took three weeks to get the cores...Heater valves
> cost much less from thepartsbin, but they were
> higher on the headlight switch than busdepot...
> I would suggest wisely shopping with both.
Thanks for your comments and your kind words. I'm quite relieved to be able
to say "not my fault" regarding your heater cores taking three weeks to
arrive. (Whew! :-) I checked the postmark in our mail log book, and we sent
them via Priority Mail within two days of receiving your order! (In fact it
would have been one day if it hadn't been the same week as Labor Day - we
were a day behind that week due to the short work week.) Priority Mail
claims about 2-3 days for delivery (which is faster coast-to-coast than
UPS), so by all rights you should have had your order coast-to-coast in
about 5 days, had the mail run on time. Of course, as they say, hindsight
is 20/20...
The reason we usually ship heater cores via Priority Mail (besides faster
average delivery speed if going coast to coast) is that we've found the
postal service to be more gentle than UPS with fragile items. Your cores may
have arrived late in this case, but at least they arrived intact! That
said, you do have the option to specify UPS instead when you place an order
(in the "comments" section of the order form), rather than letting us choose
whichever carrier makes more sense. Of course, this is not always to your
advantage (the higher damage rate on fragile items being one case in point).
Also, next-day air, second-day, three-day, and Express Mail (365-day-a-year
service) are available at additional cost. Finally, we will email tracking
numbers upon request; while we don't do it automatically, if you send an
email to sales@busdepot.com Cheri can email you back with a tracking number
(if one exists; the post office doesn't use them).
Regarding the heater valve, we ship an actual VW brand valve obtained from
the dealer, whereas Parts Bin's is from an aftermarket supplier. This is not
to say that ours is necessarily better (for all I know they might be
identical), but it does mean that we pay more. :-( Your comments have
prompted me to put out some feelers as to who is making their valve; perhaps
this will result in a lower price at the Depot if I can find like quality at
a lower price. I'd be curious as to whether there was any difference
between the valve Parts Bin sent you and the original one you removed.
Again, thank you for your patronage, and your overall recommendation.
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot, Inc.
(215) 234-VWVW
www.busdepot.com
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Toll-Free for Orders by Part # 1-866-BUS-DEPOT
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