Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:10:45 -0800
Reply-To: "Andrew G. Martin" <agmartin@GIS.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Andrew G. Martin" <agmartin@GIS.NET>
Subject: Kustomer Service from Van-Again Ken
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
What's this? An e-mail with an invoice for the parts I ordered????? What
the heck is going on here? I guess I brought this on myself by asking Ken
Wilford to price out some parts I need for my '85 Westy.
Gawwwleeee! Ken responded with in 24 hours like I was important or
something. He also added a few items to my list that I had forgotten and I
would only remembered when I had the dash board, instrument cluster, heater
core and assorted hoses hanging in the trees next to my garage.
It's spooky! This Ken guy may actually know what parts he's selling AND
what it takes to bolt 'em up. It can't be. This is the United States of
America! This is the year 2002! What's next?
Here's another e-mail from Ken via UPS........ Shiver me timbers!! It's an
official United Parcel Service Shipping Notification. Hmmm. Let's
see.....It tells me how many boxes, how much they weigh, when the delivery
is scheduled and also includes a tracking number so I can watch my precious
parts progress toward me. This is cool!
I like to save money as much as the next guy but I really like to save is
time. When I find the time to work on my Vanagon I want to know I have
everything I need. (The french fry chef at my local NAPA doesn't know
British Whitworth from metric.) When I bought all new hoses last year I
could have gotten them a little cheaper if I took the TIME to surf around
and buy a few here and a few there and hope that they all show up and they
fit my van. But I didn't do that. I e-mailed Ken with a description of my
project, he responded with a parts list, I gave him my credit card number
and a few days later I received one box with everything in it including some
plastic parts that I hadn't thought of. Sure enough, the plastic stuff Ken
recommended I replace was brittle and distorted. I only had to walk across
the garage and pull the new one's out of the Van-Again box and bolt -em up.
I paid a fair and reasonable price and got my van back on the road in one
day.
I hope Ken is making a tidy profit owning and operating Van-Again. He
certainly has earned every penny he's ever gotten from me.
Andrew