Date: Tue, 30 Jul 96 20:22:27 EDT
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: dcarment@ccs.carleton.ca (David Carment)
Subject: Heads/GEX SAGA
I am forwarding this message out of courtesy to Larry and as a warning to
all Vanagoners who are running rebuilt motors. The message also
clarifies several matters regarding ownership and customer service.
Herbie aka Larry Dawson
the President of GEX and I were able to come to an agreement on the heads.
They agreed to ship me two cylinder heads plus a gasket kit at no cost to
me. This arrangement seemed reasonable given that the engine had 20,000
miles on it and was installed in April 1994. It did not have the extended
warranty. The cost to me has been the downtime and the labour of R and
R'ing the engine. It might be a wise idea for any one concerned to purchase
the 35,000 mile extended warranty from GEX and investigate similar
arrangements from other companies. At the minimum companies should be
made aware of the "power" of the internet as a consumer tool and should
be held fully responsible for the products they sell even if these
products are rebuilt air cooled engines. It should be
noted that air-cooled engines are at times fragile things if not treated
properly. If I had not been able to convince Larry (with whom I spoke on
the phone long distance at his cost) that the engine had not been
mistreated, it is unlikely that the outcome would have been as positive as
this one was.
By the way, I also did my homework by culling the archives and internet
sites of
discussion related to GEX products. I then forwarded some of these
experiences to Larry hoping to demonstrate to him that VWers are a
concerned lot. In the end I hope GEX and other suppliers sit up and take
notice.
While the idea of going to MS was very enticing the former seemed to be the
wisest
course of action given the potentially large amounts of time and money
involved.
I await the heads and expect to have them installed by Friday. A report
will be in the works.
Cheers - DC
Herbie writes:
> From herbie@mail.westworld.com Tue Jul 30 17:16:25 1996
> Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 14:16:13 -0700
> Message-Id: <199607302116.OAA15754@mail.westworld.com>
> X-Sender: herbie@mail.westworld.com
> X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> To: dcarment@ccs.carleton.ca
> From: herbie@mail.westworld.com (Herbie)
> Subject: Heads
>
> Hi David,
>
> I'm sorry about the problem you are having with a GEX product. Although 2
> years and 20,000 miles are beyond the length of our warranty, I do not like
> to see GEX heads fail that early (If they did). As we discussed, we are
> shipping out 2 fresh rebuilt heads and gaskets today (Tuesday) at our cost
> to replace your old ones. Upon receipt of your old ones, we will inspect
> them and see if we can give you any recommendations.
>
> After following the threads on the 2 lists, there are a couple of items that
> I would like to clarify: The one regarding RMMW..... We do not sell our
> motors through them anymore (although we still sell other items to them)
> because they have changed their warranty policy to a *LIFETIME* warranty.
> Automotive engines (VW or otherwise) cannot be warranted for a lifetime.
> They are not originally designed to last a lifetime. You'll notice they do
> not sell anybody else's engines either.
>
> The other point concerns the ownership of GEX... I have owned the company
> since it was founded it back in 1973. The change that may have gotten
> around is that OTIS does not work for us in the Customer Service Department
> anymore. I think your fellow listers will appreciate that one. The
> person to talk to now is MICK and he has gotten nothing but good marks for
> his knowledge and follow-through on customer relations issues. Or if you
> want to email me, I can be reached through our page at
> http://www.gexintl.com.
>
> One further observation that I would like to make... I think I read
> somewhere that a dissatisfied customer tells 7 people about his experience
> and a satisified customer tells nobody because he received what he expected.
> This number must be multiplied by a factor of 100 (or more) on the internet.
>
> In the last 4 or 5 months since I've been following the lists there have
> been about 3 or 4 problems that people have had with GEX products and I have
> resolved each one. In that amount of time GEX has sold over 1500 engines
> and 3000 heads. Where are these people ?? They must have received what
> they expected. It is important that we keep a balanced perspective.
>
> If I can do anything further to help, please let me know.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Larry N. Dawson
> Pres.
> GEX International Corp
>
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David Carment
School of International Affairs
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
K1S 5B6
voice - (613) 788-2600-6662
fax - (613) 788-2889
Email address: dcarment@ccs.carleton.ca
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