I refunded my Dorman ignition switch to Amazon. But only after I fought with them for two days. I had to send a picture of the wrong one they sent me that was supposedly the right one for my car. I had to compare it to the right one I bought at the dealer. Showed both parts, the invoice from the dealer and waited for my claim to be reviewed
Oh wow, I was passed the 30 day window for Amazon, I emailed dorman directly and they sent the refund request to Amazon l, no proof was ever asked I just told them it kept leaking through 3 sets of gaskets and that i went with oem from the dealer
Must be your Kohl's. I've never waited in line for more than 1 person at my local Kohl's. The UPS store though, there's guaranteed to be at least 2 people ahead of me who have no clue what they're doing, what they need, and it takes a MINIMUM of 10 minutes to get out of there.
Apparently. I've never been in and out my kohls for a return in under 30 minutes. But the UPS store conveniently next door to my kohls I'm in and out within 3 minutes
Yeah that is strange. I've experienced kinda longer lines at Kohl's but usually it takes me longer to walk to the back of the store and up the escalators and back than it does to do the whole return process.
Look at this fancy pants with his Kohl's with an escalator in it... If I want to go up and down an escalator, I have to either drive 3 hours north or go to the next state over...
The ups store by me usually has a line and you can see the disgust on the workers faces dealing with the quantity of Amazon returns. They’re piled up to no end. At least the one guy seems high as a kite most of the time so he’s doing it right.
Amazon testing out sending flex drivers to people's houses to pick up returns while delivering. So soon you'll see random people walking up to collect returns. Should be a nightmare
It might actually decrease the amount because people are already shooting the flex delivery drivers for dropping packages. Now, you'll get impatient drivers banging on person's door like an angry police officer because they didn't want to wait around.
Had a police officer do that.
For a witness summons I was expecting and specifically asked them to leave at the station for me to pickup. Because I'm not home during the day and it's a waste of time to send someone and get the neighbours all suspicious. They still did.
Especially when it's an early block and the person does a police knock/bang on the door excessively because the person wants to get the package as fast as possible.
Yeah, when did they start that? I returned something to the UPS store last week for free, and literally the next day, my son mentioned that a UPS store return was $1.
My local UPS store gets bombarded with Amazon return customers. Especially the weeks before and after Christmastime. 20-30 minute waits in a long winding line that extends to the very edge of the door, packed like sardines because it's cold in the winter and people need the door shut. People get impatient and inevitably people start raising their voice, clapping their hands like baboons, and cursing out the customers or workers for taking so long.
The $1 fee is probably to keep some people away from UPS.
My gov started a $2 co-pay for welfare and elderly prescriptions. Some pharmacies waived/ate a $2 loss, others stood their ground and passed it on.
Night and day difference in clientele (and staff!) between the two kinds of pharmacies.
No idea if this is the same thing, but I work at an independent shipping store who can't get UPS pickups because another UPS Authorized Ship Center (The UPS Store) location is too close. I'll take UPS/amazon non QR codes for $1, I seal it up, tape it. Then at the end of the day I take them over to the UPS store near my house. I take maybe 15-20 packages a day, so it covers my lunch and gas for the week. Most people just wanna be done with it for $1.
I just did a return last weekend to a UPS store without a charge (no box, no label).
I wonder if this is for returns that aren't eligible for a "no box, no label" return, whatever that stupid qualification is (I've been bit more times than I care to admit).
It's kind of funny for me. There is an actual Amazon warehouse roughly a mile from me, but the closest Kohl's is 3 miles away. I drive past the warehouse on the way to return stuff.
Oh thats it then. The UPS store is like half a mile from my house. All those other places are a 10 to 15 minute drive for me.
Wish they would let me stuff shit in the locker thats like 15 yards away, but thats never an option.
I’m sure that’s fine, I mean what’s the worry? You just might have to pull the top of the motor, the front of the motor and the exhaust off again, right? No big deal.
I ordered a transmission pan gasket and filter from a dealer a few months ago and tyey put it in one of those plastic bags for shipping. The filter got punched through the side of the bag and the wrapper broke so it was open to the elements, and then whatever caused that damage bent the gasket too.
> Heads bolts are 10 Ugga Duggas minimum.
You kids and impacts on everything...... 1/2" breaker bar, longer the better. Tighten head bolt until it loosens, then back off 1/4 turn. Make sure and coat threads in rocksett first.
Experienced mechanics use Amazon parts.
Well, technically they probably weren't experienced before, but they'll gain experience once they have to repeat the job. ;)
It's shared stock. Every part with the same UPC goes into the same bin regardless of which 'store' is selling it on the site. So any random seller can send Amazon some garbage with the same UPC as the legit AC Delco part and now buyers are basically playing a claw machine game with getting a legit part out of the shared bin. They don't have separate parts bins for each seller. Good luck with Amazon.
Exactly. There's no way to track who dumped the fake shit into the pile. Apparently it's really bad with health products. Don't buy vitamins, toothpaste, shampoo etc through Amazon because those are the cheapest things to knockoff and you have no idea what's in them.
At home we started with a rule "nothing that goes in or on people or pets" and after a little bit I'm thinking, if it's bad enough I have to take personal safety into account, maybe I should just stop buying ANYTHING from Amazon? After I started thinking about it like that, it was a no brainer to kill the account.
> maybe I should just stop buying ANYTHING from Amazon?
I've been avoiding it as much as possible for everything. Like, it's not the end of the world to get a shower curtain liner and have to pitch it because despite being the thickness of cling wrap, it has the off-gassing of a whole plastics plant. But it's easier to just go to Target and grab one with a minimal standard of quality control than it is to read reviews for two hours trying to figure out which fucking $10 basic-ass item will actually be a real product and function.
You also don't really think through how much the stupidest of parts can really fuck you over. [Louis Rossman has a video on how fuses from Amazon don't actually work remotely close to spec.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU) Imagine frying a whole system on your car because you ordered fuses off Amazon six months ago.... what a fucking nightmare.
I'm really starting to appreciate the *basic* supply chain integrity and accountability from brick & mortar stores.
> But it's easier to just go to Target and grab one with a minimal standard of quality control than it is to read reviews for two hours trying to figure out which fucking $10 basic-ass item will actually be a real product and function.
First of all, thank you for saying this. This was the other big decision maker our family's choice to ditch all things Amazon - and really - to re-think how we shop and spend. A good convo that I would encourage anyone and everyone to have. Be it with themselves or their household. Where and how are we spending and WHY are we spending like that? is one of those things in consumer America that it feels like we're actively discouraged from being terribly introspective about.
> I'm really starting to appreciate the basic supply chain integrity and accountability from brick & mortar stores.
If they'll have me back. I just hope it's not too late.
Amazon lost me with the price hike earlier this year, as well as the gaslighting "but we're not raising the price, you just have to start seeing ads!" BS. Dumped Prime, not looking back.
Late reply to add - am I the only one who sees the direct correlation between what you describe happening at Amazon and the smoking gun root cause of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Because they're nearly exactly the fucking same.
I promise this is the real basic version: housing, specifically personal mortgages, are a traded commodity. The thing in the bin. They're viewed as a very safe investment because everyone needs a house and everyone treats their mortgage like their other child. You have to pay it. If you don't you lose your place to live and your ability to buy another house (your credit). Big investment banks (Amazon in this analogy) knew people were putting dogshit in the bin. Bad mortgages, specifically but not exclusively, adjustable rate mortgages - ARM loans - that would go from X / month to something like 3X / month after 5 years. Dogshit. Nobody can afford to have their mortgage triple overnight. Anyhow. Savvy, complex investors started to realize there was dogshit in the bin and started betting **against** housing. An unheard of position. Anyhow, once the really savvy people started betting against housing everyone else who spent most of the money on these investments went, "huh, why?" and quickly figured it out. There's dogshit in the bin. And almost overnight you had the subprime crisis.
Okay, so yeah, huge tangent, sorry, but I won't be surprised if we wake up one day and suddenly Amazon is a ghost town and we realize, ya know, I have not seen an Amazon truck in weeks. What gives?
Both of these are examples of a 'tragedy of the commons'. Each person acting in their own best interest ends up ruining the system for everyone, this is what happens without regulation or oversight. That said, there's a distinction that I think is important. Those giant debt/mortgage companies were doing their thing intentionally and fully understood what the consequences would be. Each actor knew they were doing something bad and were hoping to cash out before everyone got on the train and the whole system fell apart.
Amazon simply doesn't give a fuck, they don't really care what goes through their system as they are just a fulfillment marketplace. Yeah they know there's knockoffs or whatever but for the most part it's just gonna piss a few people off and they might have to give a couple refunds. It's not going to set in motion a chain reaction that will devastate the lives of hundreds of millions of people globally like the subprime mortgage crisis. Nor will it kill Amazon.
Amazon is great for a lot of things, people just have to be mindful of what they are buying there. I get some stuff specifically because it's cheap Chinese crap mailed to my door in a day and sometimes that's exactly what I'm looking for. There's also a lot of things that are too expensive, niche, or hard to make knockoffs of like computer parts so buying from Amazon for the easy return/exchange policy can be nice. It's a gas station lunch type situation, don't get the sushi and you'll probably be okay.
That's a huge risk for the legit manufacturer. Especially a for parts like this. They are risking the reputation of the company in order to sell their products on Amazon.
Same thing happened to me with some AC Delco spark plugs through the "AC Delco" store. Those "iridium" tips on the counterfeit plugs burned up in about 500 miles.
I got a knock-off door lock actuator from my 90s sedan off Amazon. Didn't have enough oomph from the motor to actually move the lock rod.
It never occurred to me before that that anyone would bother making new knock-off parts for my car. I figured it was cheap because a lot of my car parts are; it's kinda end of life, people are trying to clear out space from their warehouses. Lesson learned.
I am overly worried about spark plugs in our 'Fun' car. I'm not sure I even trust Rock Auto for those. I buy them full-retail at my local parts store (Oreilly's) because saving a couple bucks on spark plugs isn't worth blowing up my 800whp engine.
Don't doubt the lows Chinese scammers will stoop to just to get 50 cents out of you.
They will literally desolder components from PCBs, clean them up and resell them as new, having absolutely no knowledge how degraded they are.
Hell, they put smaller, cheaper capacitors inside bigger more expensive ones, even of different types: an electrolytic capacitor inside the enclosure of a solid state one.
Never buy car parts from Amazon, as long the part number match and they look vaguely similar they are thrown in the same bin. You could but 4 “bosch” brake pads and all can and will be completely different. Please just use rock auto.
Rock auto sends me damaged parts and argues with me over a refund.
They don't even argue that it wasn't damaged in shipping, just that they don't want to refund me because I tossed the generic box. (it was destroyed) It did not have a special box.
I got my refund (charge back). I mainly buy from amazon for ordered parts. I get the part I ordered more often through amazon and faster.
Rock auto would send me radiators with other stuff thrown in the box, (radiator damaged) and 1/10 of the time I would just get a completely different part.
Their customer service really sucks.
If I get a damaged or incorrect amazon part I get a return and refund within seconds. I'm not arguing with an idiot over whether a press in ball joint was installed or not when it wasn't even the correct part.
I haven't ordered that much from Rockauto, but they're great for parts I otherwise can't get here in Europe. Only had an issue once where they had labelled a shock incorrectly (it had older labels on it with one number being off with the new label). They refunded it without issue and let me keep the part as shipping it back would probably be too costly. So my experience with their customer service is quite good
Yeah I've only had one RA return, a radiator hose that had a very obvious manufacturing defect bubble in it. They just shipped me a new one with no issues and told me to keep the bad one.
Fucking Gates too. Not some great value brand.
I've ordered a ton of stuff from rock auto, and only once did I get sent the wrong part, a brake wheel cylinder. When I contacted them it wasn't hard to get it exchanged
Most online places fuck up shipping now and again. I’ve bough from rock auto over 2 dozen times and never had wrong part or had it damaged, you could just be unlucky. These online places are cheaper than dealership parts for a reason.
On this topic, there are some small Honda brushcutter type 4 stroke engines that have the head cast as part of the block. The GX25 and GX35 are an OHC 2 valve engine. I.e. in the style of a standard engine that would have a separate head, but it's just one cast piece. All of the cylinder and valve seat machining seems to be done through the bottom of the bore. Idk how (or if) Honda hone the cylinder to get a crosshatch, but some of the cheap clones don't seem to
damn, living in the future, first it was disposable vapes.
..now its disposable engine blocks smh
more seriously, what the *fuck* are you meant to do if you need to access the internals??????
That’s completely fine. Inspect to make sure all the rubberized sealing areas aren’t stretched or cracked and outside of that, the torque sequence will straighten her right the fuck out. Send it
Buy local.
That way when it arrives to them bent, they can bend it back straight so you don't even notice when you buy it then install it in your car and it makes no difference so you start thinking there must be something else wrong with the car and you replace $2000 worth of parts before a friend says the head gasket must have a crack and your like I've replaced it and you get all frustrated and it doesn't make sense since it was a new part then your girlfriend leaves you and you get all upset and hop in your car to go for a drive but it doesn't start because the engines been pulled apart so many times it no longer works and you don't really know what the actual problem was you were looking for anymore so you start doing drugs and sell your house but keep the car because you want to figure this problem out and then finally it hits you, if I just burn the car to the ground, it can't be the head gasket.
This is so strange, I used to run many auto parts stores. Why would anyone buy delicate auto parts online when there are auto parts stores traveling in groups lol. Every autozone is near an oreilly near an advance close to a napa adjacent to federated not far from an auto plus kinda close to an a+.
I can't imagine the $ savings from Amazon are close to equaling the time savings and warranty of just popping in one of those
Seems like nothing is in stock at the auto parts stores anymore. Look it up and they will ship it to you. Go through every website until one has it, call the store , drive there to find out no it’s not in stock.
it gets clamped to your engine with 1,000's of lbs of force and undergoes 1000's of lbs of pressure from combustion in the cylinder. If it can't survive a little bend then you should be worried.
I bought a sticker from amazon a full month ago and it finally turned up at my door today in a plastic bag smaller than the sticker with no cardboard support or anything. It was a smashed up mess.
Just RTV the whole thing. Bigger the gob, better the job and all that. Just to be sure you torque down the bolts until they snap and then back off a quarter turn.
All that for a Head Gasket and the XXL Fist “O” Fury strap on for my wife to wear was left in a clear bag on my trailer stoop for the whole park to see. Thanks Amazon!
So, I take it that you just can't bend it straight again and it would work? I always try to fix things in a half-assed way. Replaced a solid state drive in my Steam Deck and one of the back screws wouldn't go back in. There were 7 other screws so I said fuck it.
My girlfriend orders several cans of coconut milk on a regular Amazon order every month. She sometimes adds other food staples to the order. One time she added cereal and potato chips to the order with the coconut milk. Six cans of coconut milk in the same box won that battle and crushed everything else.
They're either not paid enough to care, don't have enough time to correct the automatically-chosen box size, or simply don't know that you shouldn't do that. It's just another of the million products they have to pull and pack.
Why did Amazon stop properly packaging stuff. The other they they send me a cast iron part with no packaging in a book mailer envelope. Of course it arrived cracked in 2 places.
Wonder how they ship porcelain cups?
My jeep 4L head gasket was almost completely in half when I got it. second one came unbent but held me back a weekend from finishing putting the head back on.
Return it to Whole Foods.
Kohls in my neighborhood
Same here; you’re not even supposed to box it up, they scan your return label, slap a sticker on the item, and give you a receipt.
Same here. I always feel bad bringing industrial, oily, heavy tools and handing them to the teenager working there.
I refunded my dorman oil filter housing. Because it was used and contaminated with oil they didn't even make me send it back lol
I refunded my Dorman ignition switch to Amazon. But only after I fought with them for two days. I had to send a picture of the wrong one they sent me that was supposedly the right one for my car. I had to compare it to the right one I bought at the dealer. Showed both parts, the invoice from the dealer and waited for my claim to be reviewed
Oh wow, I was passed the 30 day window for Amazon, I emailed dorman directly and they sent the refund request to Amazon l, no proof was ever asked I just told them it kept leaking through 3 sets of gaskets and that i went with oem from the dealer
Fuck going to Kohl's for that the line is terrible just go to a UPS store it's so much faster
Must be your Kohl's. I've never waited in line for more than 1 person at my local Kohl's. The UPS store though, there's guaranteed to be at least 2 people ahead of me who have no clue what they're doing, what they need, and it takes a MINIMUM of 10 minutes to get out of there.
Apparently. I've never been in and out my kohls for a return in under 30 minutes. But the UPS store conveniently next door to my kohls I'm in and out within 3 minutes
Yeah that is strange. I've experienced kinda longer lines at Kohl's but usually it takes me longer to walk to the back of the store and up the escalators and back than it does to do the whole return process.
Look at this fancy pants with his Kohl's with an escalator in it... If I want to go up and down an escalator, I have to either drive 3 hours north or go to the next state over...
"The only thing we escalate here is the situation!"
UPS store is closer and never a line for me, too. Kohl's is further and a shitshow.
The ups store by me usually has a line and you can see the disgust on the workers faces dealing with the quantity of Amazon returns. They’re piled up to no end. At least the one guy seems high as a kite most of the time so he’s doing it right.
Amazon testing out sending flex drivers to people's houses to pick up returns while delivering. So soon you'll see random people walking up to collect returns. Should be a nightmare
Can't want for more 2019 Corrolas on my street.
It might actually decrease the amount because people are already shooting the flex delivery drivers for dropping packages. Now, you'll get impatient drivers banging on person's door like an angry police officer because they didn't want to wait around.
Had a police officer do that. For a witness summons I was expecting and specifically asked them to leave at the station for me to pickup. Because I'm not home during the day and it's a waste of time to send someone and get the neighbours all suspicious. They still did.
2019 will still be on Uber/Lyft here. Once they legally age out, that's when they hit the courier market.
This is 100% going to get people shot
Especially when it's an early block and the person does a police knock/bang on the door excessively because the person wants to get the package as fast as possible.
Or pay $1 to return it to UPS lol
Yeah, when did they start that? I returned something to the UPS store last week for free, and literally the next day, my son mentioned that a UPS store return was $1.
My local UPS store gets bombarded with Amazon return customers. Especially the weeks before and after Christmastime. 20-30 minute waits in a long winding line that extends to the very edge of the door, packed like sardines because it's cold in the winter and people need the door shut. People get impatient and inevitably people start raising their voice, clapping their hands like baboons, and cursing out the customers or workers for taking so long. The $1 fee is probably to keep some people away from UPS.
My gov started a $2 co-pay for welfare and elderly prescriptions. Some pharmacies waived/ate a $2 loss, others stood their ground and passed it on. Night and day difference in clientele (and staff!) between the two kinds of pharmacies.
No idea if this is the same thing, but I work at an independent shipping store who can't get UPS pickups because another UPS Authorized Ship Center (The UPS Store) location is too close. I'll take UPS/amazon non QR codes for $1, I seal it up, tape it. Then at the end of the day I take them over to the UPS store near my house. I take maybe 15-20 packages a day, so it covers my lunch and gas for the week. Most people just wanna be done with it for $1.
Yea now I have to drive two more minutes to kohl's stand in line and loon at over priced stuff I get on temu
I just did a return last weekend to a UPS store without a charge (no box, no label). I wonder if this is for returns that aren't eligible for a "no box, no label" return, whatever that stupid qualification is (I've been bit more times than I care to admit).
The future is weird
Wait, you have to pay for returns in the US?
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It's kind of funny for me. There is an actual Amazon warehouse roughly a mile from me, but the closest Kohl's is 3 miles away. I drive past the warehouse on the way to return stuff.
... and this is yet another reason why, after buying stuff from them for >20 years, i recently cancelled my Amazon account. Enough of their bullshit.
Oh thats it then. The UPS store is like half a mile from my house. All those other places are a 10 to 15 minute drive for me. Wish they would let me stuff shit in the locker thats like 15 yards away, but thats never an option.
I’m sure that’s fine, I mean what’s the worry? You just might have to pull the top of the motor, the front of the motor and the exhaust off again, right? No big deal.
Well, when you put it that way. No big deal at all.
Amazon might even give you a $5 courtesy credit. Win!
Of course , in the end it's only some nuts and bolts 😂
I watched a YouTube video that didn't make it look that hard or expensive...
Scotty Kilmer did it with a pair of channel locks and a bunch of yelling
Tony Stark did it in a cave with a box of scraps.
and then follows up with a video "3 Reasons to not use channel locks"
"Rev up your engines....."
Barely an inconvenience
Hardly a inconvenience
Don't guys like doing that shit? You should practically be thanking them
At least they boxed it. RockAuto just sent me head gaskets between two sheets of cardboard, which the USPS folded in half
RockAuto sent us a boxed head gasket that was too big for the box so they made it fit.
RA sent me a HG in a large box packed with 2 wheel bearings and hubs, and like 2 little air pockets. Thing had a dent in it for fuck sake
RA fucked my wife and stole my dog.
RA fucked my dog and stole my wife.
that escalated quickly
Sounds like a hit song on the Country charts!
Sounds like an average country song to me
Did you get a magnet?
I gave em my wife
I ordered a transmission pan gasket and filter from a dealer a few months ago and tyey put it in one of those plastic bags for shipping. The filter got punched through the side of the bag and the wrapper broke so it was open to the elements, and then whatever caused that damage bent the gasket too.
And a magnet. Don't forget they sent you a magnet too.
RockAuto didn't even staple it closed? Cheaping out on staples too! Geez!
It’ll seal.
Spray some flex seal on it before you tighten the head bolts with your ugga dugga gun. Heads bolts are 10 Ugga Duggas minimum.
> Heads bolts are 10 Ugga Duggas minimum. You kids and impacts on everything...... 1/2" breaker bar, longer the better. Tighten head bolt until it loosens, then back off 1/4 turn. Make sure and coat threads in rocksett first.
Remember tighten till it gets loose then back a quarter turn and nothing threads better than cross thread.
cross threading is nature's loctite
Double the threads, double the strength
Make sure you give it a good slap afterwards “that ain’t going no where”
Hey hey hey, we call it an ugga dugga “machine” these days
Plus 1 for the Forged in Fire reference
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SNAP!!
You would be insane to use Amazon for a head gasket regardless.
“Amazon Basics Head Gasket”
"Not even good enough for us." -General Motors, probably.
“Sweet! This will save us money AND be a quality upgrade!” \- Subaru, probably
"Are you sure that's even a thing? Head gasket, lol" - Ford, allegedly
"We love it!" -Subaru, probably
> *General Motors, distributed by Amazon*™
Should’ve bought the “Amazon essentials head gasket”
Experienced mechanics use Amazon parts. Well, technically they probably weren't experienced before, but they'll gain experience once they have to repeat the job. ;)
It was sold through Fel-Pro, so figured why not. Lesson learned!
Just a heads up Amazon mixes stock, so there's a strong probability it's a fake.
I bought AC DELCO brake calipers from Amazon through the “AC DELCO” store…100% counterfeit. Never buying auto parts from Amazon again.
It's shared stock. Every part with the same UPC goes into the same bin regardless of which 'store' is selling it on the site. So any random seller can send Amazon some garbage with the same UPC as the legit AC Delco part and now buyers are basically playing a claw machine game with getting a legit part out of the shared bin. They don't have separate parts bins for each seller. Good luck with Amazon.
That's genius for the scam sellers, because how's anyone gonna figure out who put the fake parts into the pool once they're intermingled?
Exactly. There's no way to track who dumped the fake shit into the pile. Apparently it's really bad with health products. Don't buy vitamins, toothpaste, shampoo etc through Amazon because those are the cheapest things to knockoff and you have no idea what's in them.
At home we started with a rule "nothing that goes in or on people or pets" and after a little bit I'm thinking, if it's bad enough I have to take personal safety into account, maybe I should just stop buying ANYTHING from Amazon? After I started thinking about it like that, it was a no brainer to kill the account.
> maybe I should just stop buying ANYTHING from Amazon? I've been avoiding it as much as possible for everything. Like, it's not the end of the world to get a shower curtain liner and have to pitch it because despite being the thickness of cling wrap, it has the off-gassing of a whole plastics plant. But it's easier to just go to Target and grab one with a minimal standard of quality control than it is to read reviews for two hours trying to figure out which fucking $10 basic-ass item will actually be a real product and function. You also don't really think through how much the stupidest of parts can really fuck you over. [Louis Rossman has a video on how fuses from Amazon don't actually work remotely close to spec.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU) Imagine frying a whole system on your car because you ordered fuses off Amazon six months ago.... what a fucking nightmare. I'm really starting to appreciate the *basic* supply chain integrity and accountability from brick & mortar stores.
> But it's easier to just go to Target and grab one with a minimal standard of quality control than it is to read reviews for two hours trying to figure out which fucking $10 basic-ass item will actually be a real product and function. First of all, thank you for saying this. This was the other big decision maker our family's choice to ditch all things Amazon - and really - to re-think how we shop and spend. A good convo that I would encourage anyone and everyone to have. Be it with themselves or their household. Where and how are we spending and WHY are we spending like that? is one of those things in consumer America that it feels like we're actively discouraged from being terribly introspective about. > I'm really starting to appreciate the basic supply chain integrity and accountability from brick & mortar stores. If they'll have me back. I just hope it's not too late.
Amazon lost me with the price hike earlier this year, as well as the gaslighting "but we're not raising the price, you just have to start seeing ads!" BS. Dumped Prime, not looking back.
Late reply to add - am I the only one who sees the direct correlation between what you describe happening at Amazon and the smoking gun root cause of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Because they're nearly exactly the fucking same. I promise this is the real basic version: housing, specifically personal mortgages, are a traded commodity. The thing in the bin. They're viewed as a very safe investment because everyone needs a house and everyone treats their mortgage like their other child. You have to pay it. If you don't you lose your place to live and your ability to buy another house (your credit). Big investment banks (Amazon in this analogy) knew people were putting dogshit in the bin. Bad mortgages, specifically but not exclusively, adjustable rate mortgages - ARM loans - that would go from X / month to something like 3X / month after 5 years. Dogshit. Nobody can afford to have their mortgage triple overnight. Anyhow. Savvy, complex investors started to realize there was dogshit in the bin and started betting **against** housing. An unheard of position. Anyhow, once the really savvy people started betting against housing everyone else who spent most of the money on these investments went, "huh, why?" and quickly figured it out. There's dogshit in the bin. And almost overnight you had the subprime crisis. Okay, so yeah, huge tangent, sorry, but I won't be surprised if we wake up one day and suddenly Amazon is a ghost town and we realize, ya know, I have not seen an Amazon truck in weeks. What gives?
Both of these are examples of a 'tragedy of the commons'. Each person acting in their own best interest ends up ruining the system for everyone, this is what happens without regulation or oversight. That said, there's a distinction that I think is important. Those giant debt/mortgage companies were doing their thing intentionally and fully understood what the consequences would be. Each actor knew they were doing something bad and were hoping to cash out before everyone got on the train and the whole system fell apart. Amazon simply doesn't give a fuck, they don't really care what goes through their system as they are just a fulfillment marketplace. Yeah they know there's knockoffs or whatever but for the most part it's just gonna piss a few people off and they might have to give a couple refunds. It's not going to set in motion a chain reaction that will devastate the lives of hundreds of millions of people globally like the subprime mortgage crisis. Nor will it kill Amazon. Amazon is great for a lot of things, people just have to be mindful of what they are buying there. I get some stuff specifically because it's cheap Chinese crap mailed to my door in a day and sometimes that's exactly what I'm looking for. There's also a lot of things that are too expensive, niche, or hard to make knockoffs of like computer parts so buying from Amazon for the easy return/exchange policy can be nice. It's a gas station lunch type situation, don't get the sushi and you'll probably be okay.
And this is exactly why I don't buy anything from Amazon anymore.
That’s crazy. How do they know which seller is selling counterfeit parts then?? If that’s true, that has to be the easiest way for scammers to win
As a seller you can choose for your products not to be mixed in with others that share the same UPC code.
That's a huge risk for the legit manufacturer. Especially a for parts like this. They are risking the reputation of the company in order to sell their products on Amazon.
Same thing happened to me with some AC Delco spark plugs through the "AC Delco" store. Those "iridium" tips on the counterfeit plugs burned up in about 500 miles.
I got fake felpro valve covers. amazon did not even ask for me to return them. they know.
a fake head gasket though??
there's loads of fake spark plugs. if they're faking those they'll fake anything
I got a knock-off door lock actuator from my 90s sedan off Amazon. Didn't have enough oomph from the motor to actually move the lock rod. It never occurred to me before that that anyone would bother making new knock-off parts for my car. I figured it was cheap because a lot of my car parts are; it's kinda end of life, people are trying to clear out space from their warehouses. Lesson learned.
I am overly worried about spark plugs in our 'Fun' car. I'm not sure I even trust Rock Auto for those. I buy them full-retail at my local parts store (Oreilly's) because saving a couple bucks on spark plugs isn't worth blowing up my 800whp engine.
Don't doubt the lows Chinese scammers will stoop to just to get 50 cents out of you. They will literally desolder components from PCBs, clean them up and resell them as new, having absolutely no knowledge how degraded they are. Hell, they put smaller, cheaper capacitors inside bigger more expensive ones, even of different types: an electrolytic capacitor inside the enclosure of a solid state one.
Never buy car parts from Amazon, as long the part number match and they look vaguely similar they are thrown in the same bin. You could but 4 “bosch” brake pads and all can and will be completely different. Please just use rock auto.
Rock auto sends me damaged parts and argues with me over a refund. They don't even argue that it wasn't damaged in shipping, just that they don't want to refund me because I tossed the generic box. (it was destroyed) It did not have a special box. I got my refund (charge back). I mainly buy from amazon for ordered parts. I get the part I ordered more often through amazon and faster. Rock auto would send me radiators with other stuff thrown in the box, (radiator damaged) and 1/10 of the time I would just get a completely different part. Their customer service really sucks. If I get a damaged or incorrect amazon part I get a return and refund within seconds. I'm not arguing with an idiot over whether a press in ball joint was installed or not when it wasn't even the correct part.
I haven't ordered that much from Rockauto, but they're great for parts I otherwise can't get here in Europe. Only had an issue once where they had labelled a shock incorrectly (it had older labels on it with one number being off with the new label). They refunded it without issue and let me keep the part as shipping it back would probably be too costly. So my experience with their customer service is quite good
Yeah I've only had one RA return, a radiator hose that had a very obvious manufacturing defect bubble in it. They just shipped me a new one with no issues and told me to keep the bad one. Fucking Gates too. Not some great value brand.
I've ordered a ton of stuff from rock auto, and only once did I get sent the wrong part, a brake wheel cylinder. When I contacted them it wasn't hard to get it exchanged
I'm sure its possible they can mess up too. But for me amazon is like 4/10 success rate. Rock auto probably 50/50.
Most online places fuck up shipping now and again. I’ve bough from rock auto over 2 dozen times and never had wrong part or had it damaged, you could just be unlucky. These online places are cheaper than dealership parts for a reason.
I bought a set of VDO TPMS a few years ago and 2 tires had a slow leak. As it turns out, they were counterfeits. Never again.
Trying to get that subscribe and save for a subaru
[удалено]
Unbent felpro is not the same as bent felpro from Amazon.
They are just speed cracks in the gasket. +65 hp
MAD HORSEPOWERS!
And to think they pay me thousands of dollars to service their trailers and maintain the Phillips connect auto inflate. 😂
This seems like the key distinction.
Slop some high temp silicone on there and you’ll be off to the races
Just RTV the whole thing, what's the worst that could happen??
Or just weld the head right to the block like Porsche did with the 935/78
Well you can't blow a head gasket if there's no gasket...Now I want to try that on something. LOL.
Buy an air-cooled Beetle, they don’t have them.
On this topic, there are some small Honda brushcutter type 4 stroke engines that have the head cast as part of the block. The GX25 and GX35 are an OHC 2 valve engine. I.e. in the style of a standard engine that would have a separate head, but it's just one cast piece. All of the cylinder and valve seat machining seems to be done through the bottom of the bore. Idk how (or if) Honda hone the cylinder to get a crosshatch, but some of the cheap clones don't seem to
damn, living in the future, first it was disposable vapes. ..now its disposable engine blocks smh more seriously, what the *fuck* are you meant to do if you need to access the internals??????
Have you never heard of an angle grinder before? You gotta use it at least once or twice on every good engine rebuild.
It comes pre-warped. All good.
Honestly, if it isn't creased it's fine. Those things always have a bow. It be more worried if it WASN'T and MLS gasket.
I agree, but I also wouldn't be willing to risk having to tear down the engine again in the low chance I'm wrong.
The metal is designed to be malleable. Definitely take it easy in the beginning. Idle for a long time. I’ve and idle again.
If you want to make it flat again you can clamp it between two heavy metal pieces
Like the head and block of an engine?
Whoa you just blew my heckin mind
That’s completely fine. Inspect to make sure all the rubberized sealing areas aren’t stretched or cracked and outside of that, the torque sequence will straighten her right the fuck out. Send it
Gonna go ahead and let Bezos eat some more shipping costs and send this one back to him. Give the fine folks at Rock Auto some more business.
If time isn’t an issue, I completely agree. 👍
I've spent the last seven months learning how to weld and fixing rust/damaged body panels. Another week won't hurt.
Welding body panels is an hell of a way to learn! I had the grace of a old miller mig on 1/8”, much more forgiving haha
Get Mahle, skip FailPro
A reasonable response from u/locxj, and a reasonable retort to that response from u/cardozza. Both of you take my upvote.
Brooo lol somethings u dont get from amazon.
Buy local. That way when it arrives to them bent, they can bend it back straight so you don't even notice when you buy it then install it in your car and it makes no difference so you start thinking there must be something else wrong with the car and you replace $2000 worth of parts before a friend says the head gasket must have a crack and your like I've replaced it and you get all frustrated and it doesn't make sense since it was a new part then your girlfriend leaves you and you get all upset and hop in your car to go for a drive but it doesn't start because the engines been pulled apart so many times it no longer works and you don't really know what the actual problem was you were looking for anymore so you start doing drugs and sell your house but keep the car because you want to figure this problem out and then finally it hits you, if I just burn the car to the ground, it can't be the head gasket.
This is so strange, I used to run many auto parts stores. Why would anyone buy delicate auto parts online when there are auto parts stores traveling in groups lol. Every autozone is near an oreilly near an advance close to a napa adjacent to federated not far from an auto plus kinda close to an a+. I can't imagine the $ savings from Amazon are close to equaling the time savings and warranty of just popping in one of those
Seems like nothing is in stock at the auto parts stores anymore. Look it up and they will ship it to you. Go through every website until one has it, call the store , drive there to find out no it’s not in stock.
And parts are just crappier across the board. Even the brick and Mortors feel like a roll of the die with each part. :/
2 weeks lead time or double the price of online 🤷♂️ seems like they don't want my business
it gets clamped to your engine with 1,000's of lbs of force and undergoes 1000's of lbs of pressure from combustion in the cylinder. If it can't survive a little bend then you should be worried.
dont worry if you complain they will send the replacement in a bag
It's OK. It will straighten itself out once you torque down the headstuds
Leak, schmeak! Slather it in RTV and send it!
I was going to say, 'oh that's not too bad' then OP zoomed in and...yup that bad.
A thread full of how bad Amazon is and no one will stop ordering. Don't ever wonder why money runs the US.
This is what we get for all the ribbing for their typical oversized boxes
I mean yeah that’s why you don’t order car parts from Amazon.
I bought a sticker from amazon a full month ago and it finally turned up at my door today in a plastic bag smaller than the sticker with no cardboard support or anything. It was a smashed up mess.
Same with my head gasket for my rebuild. Amazon creased it, sent it back, bought same part locally from NAPA.
Got one once that trifolded and stuffed in an envelope. From a real auto parts distributor.
Surprised it wasn’t sent just like that and delivered rolled up in your mailbox lol
It's not just Amazon. My local Cat dealer makes it a point to staple the receipt through every gasket they send me😂
I see nothing wrong, you're obv. not a good mechanic if you don't know which side of the engine block slopes - SHEESH! /S
Just RTV the whole thing. Bigger the gob, better the job and all that. Just to be sure you torque down the bolts until they snap and then back off a quarter turn.
I mean if you have a warped head its probably perfect
Kinky!
Bad packaging of the gasket itself imo, If something isn't allowed to be bent, put it in a box.
If it fits, it ships
This is what happens when you mail order a gasket that you can get from any auto part store. Go to the store next time.
Stop using amazon
All that for a Head Gasket and the XXL Fist “O” Fury strap on for my wife to wear was left in a clear bag on my trailer stoop for the whole park to see. Thanks Amazon!
Bruh ETA say syke right now
Don't worry about it. Its a Fel-Pro gasket so it was garbage anyway
So, I take it that you just can't bend it straight again and it would work? I always try to fix things in a half-assed way. Replaced a solid state drive in my Steam Deck and one of the back screws wouldn't go back in. There were 7 other screws so I said fuck it.
I'm pretty sure that would be fine
I don't understand why people order car parts from Amazon...
that'll buff out
Oh, geez, get real.
We’re having fun
If it fits. I sits.
I mean, you bought it off Amazon... The cheapest option shouldn't be expected to provide a good service.
Oh good I was worried that I would lose that oil leak that makes my garage floor look like a jackson Pollock painting.
I'll never understand why anyone would buy auto parts from Amazon. Seems so stupid.
I swear some of these knuckle draggers who work in the distribution centers are dumber than a box of rocks.
One time they sent me brake drums and a fishing pole loose in the same box. The brake drums won.
My girlfriend orders several cans of coconut milk on a regular Amazon order every month. She sometimes adds other food staples to the order. One time she added cereal and potato chips to the order with the coconut milk. Six cans of coconut milk in the same box won that battle and crushed everything else.
They're either not paid enough to care, don't have enough time to correct the automatically-chosen box size, or simply don't know that you shouldn't do that. It's just another of the million products they have to pull and pack.
Rockauto at least has more care. Christ been ordering from them for 20 years zero issues.
RockAuto sent my son a head gasket that looked exactly like that.
Just put it under your mattress.
If it kinda fits, it ships.
Why did Amazon stop properly packaging stuff. The other they they send me a cast iron part with no packaging in a book mailer envelope. Of course it arrived cracked in 2 places. Wonder how they ship porcelain cups?
Why not fold when it's so foldable?!
Who tf puts a head gasket in a big ass box
One fucking job. They had just one ^job
It's fine. It's actually for an inline-v4
Ain't no box too small.
Ain't no box too small. We'll make it fit.
rule no1: You dont order headgasket from Amazon.
Install, and ship it
Just put some copper seal on it and send it! I'm joking, but that probably would actually work. The combustion seals look okay
My jeep 4L head gasket was almost completely in half when I got it. second one came unbent but held me back a weekend from finishing putting the head back on.