EDIT: They helped mend the situation in whatever ways they could, and if they weren't four states away, I would have taken them up on their offer fully. I just want to make sure that it's stated that they do take care of their customers, if not sometimes a little slow in response time, which I understand can be caused by an infinite number of situations. So I appreciate their drive to try to fix the situation.
Alright, I really didn't want to do this but I feel like I need to share my experience after all that's happened. I understand it's a family-run company and everything and life can get in the way, but I think I need to put this out there so people are aware of what can possibly happen.
In mid September I sent $400+ so that I could receive powder coated valve covers and then send mine in as a core to get refunded $200 for the core. My car had broken a valve spring and I decided this was as good a time as any to get my powder coating done. I had read that Powder House can sometimes take a long time to turn around but produced really good quality (as can be seen on their posts on this forum), so I was prepared to deal with that and knew my car wouldn't be fixed anytime soon so I was fine with that.
I received the powdercoated valve covers the first week of October. Of course, they look wonderful and I put them on my engine that's outside of the car to see how they look. I promptly box up my own valve covers and return them to California as a core. The engine sits in that state until early November as I'm waiting on a couple of other things before moving forward on getting the engine back in the car. As I'm going through my garage getting a game plan set up for the engine re-installation, I notice that the PCV valve connector on my intake does not match what's on the valve covers I've got. Mach 1's apparently have a heated PCV that needs to be bolted down whereas the covers I received didn't have the proper boss to be able to mount this. And then on the passenger side, the spot for the PCV has the two mounting holes. Can see the discrepancies here:
So, on November 8, I got in touch with Powder House to see if they knew what was up. I had no idea there were so many differences in PCV arrangements on 4V covers. As much time as I spend looking at this stuff, I had never noticed all the differences so I didn't absolve myself of the entirety of the blame. But at the same time, I sorta figured the people that coat these things as one of the major commodities would know that there are small differences. Could I have made the covers work? Yeah, maybe, but when I'm spending this much time and money to get my engine bay to look pristine, I feel like its acceptable for me to want the proper parts in there, not routing hoses an extra two feet or something like that.
Anyway, they were fine with taking the valve covers back and spraying the cores that I sent in and sending them back to me as long as I paid for shipping one direction. So I pulled off the covers from the engine, removed the sheet metal baffles and screws and sent everything back (when I received the coated valve covers, they came with the baffles and screws removed, so that's how I sent them back). I packaged them up and waited for the shipping label. Finally, on December 1st, I received the shipping label. I slapped it on my box and dropped them off at UPS that same day.
At this point in time, I was ready to get my engine back in the car. So the valve covers were the only thing holding me back. A family issue came up with the Powder House at the same moment, so I just more or less left it alone through December and the holidays. I send them a little email just seeing if there was any sort of update December 22, fully expecting them to not have much done with the holidays, etc, but I was curious just in case. Got a response Dec 29 that the valve covers were stripped and would likely be coated and shipped out that week. I just assumed it would take till the following week with New Years and what not.
On January 9th, I send a follow up email seeing if there was any update: no response. Send another follow up email on January 17th. On the 18th I'm told they needed to be resprayed since they didn't turn out perfect and that they would be sprayed and shipped that Tuesday. I pay the additional $30 for shipping back to me and get a tracking number Wednesday. No word beyond that till I email them again saying that the tracking status hadn't changed from "Shipping Label Created" on January 23rd. They drop them off and get them shipped out by the end of that day. Good deal, I'm finally getting my covers back and get to start putting my car back together this weekend!
Wrong: The valve covers showed up today without the sheet metal baffles or screws that hold the baffles on. Also, looking over the valve covers, this is what I see:
Now, maybe that's not that big of a deal to some and maybe most of it will be hidden...but how am I supposed to feel confident it won't start flaking off? Along with the fact that I didn't receive my baffles back? Obviously, after all this time, I'm kinda ticked off. I just want to get my car back together.
I'm really sorry that I'm essentially dragging their name through the mud, and I'm not looking forward to the confrontation I'm going to receive from posting this as their reputation on this site is really good, but I've been obscenely patient with this whole thing. Even now, I'm not going to blow up or anything, I just want to get my car back together and I'm STILL being held back by all of this. I just felt like I needed to post my experience. Perhaps 99% of the time their product is perfect and perhaps my experience is just a fluke, but this really sucks for me after all this time and money spent. And now I still will not be putting my engine back together this weekend like I was hoping.
Alright, I really didn't want to do this but I feel like I need to share my experience after all that's happened. I understand it's a family-run company and everything and life can get in the way, but I think I need to put this out there so people are aware of what can possibly happen.
In mid September I sent $400+ so that I could receive powder coated valve covers and then send mine in as a core to get refunded $200 for the core. My car had broken a valve spring and I decided this was as good a time as any to get my powder coating done. I had read that Powder House can sometimes take a long time to turn around but produced really good quality (as can be seen on their posts on this forum), so I was prepared to deal with that and knew my car wouldn't be fixed anytime soon so I was fine with that.
I received the powdercoated valve covers the first week of October. Of course, they look wonderful and I put them on my engine that's outside of the car to see how they look. I promptly box up my own valve covers and return them to California as a core. The engine sits in that state until early November as I'm waiting on a couple of other things before moving forward on getting the engine back in the car. As I'm going through my garage getting a game plan set up for the engine re-installation, I notice that the PCV valve connector on my intake does not match what's on the valve covers I've got. Mach 1's apparently have a heated PCV that needs to be bolted down whereas the covers I received didn't have the proper boss to be able to mount this. And then on the passenger side, the spot for the PCV has the two mounting holes. Can see the discrepancies here:
So, on November 8, I got in touch with Powder House to see if they knew what was up. I had no idea there were so many differences in PCV arrangements on 4V covers. As much time as I spend looking at this stuff, I had never noticed all the differences so I didn't absolve myself of the entirety of the blame. But at the same time, I sorta figured the people that coat these things as one of the major commodities would know that there are small differences. Could I have made the covers work? Yeah, maybe, but when I'm spending this much time and money to get my engine bay to look pristine, I feel like its acceptable for me to want the proper parts in there, not routing hoses an extra two feet or something like that.
Anyway, they were fine with taking the valve covers back and spraying the cores that I sent in and sending them back to me as long as I paid for shipping one direction. So I pulled off the covers from the engine, removed the sheet metal baffles and screws and sent everything back (when I received the coated valve covers, they came with the baffles and screws removed, so that's how I sent them back). I packaged them up and waited for the shipping label. Finally, on December 1st, I received the shipping label. I slapped it on my box and dropped them off at UPS that same day.
At this point in time, I was ready to get my engine back in the car. So the valve covers were the only thing holding me back. A family issue came up with the Powder House at the same moment, so I just more or less left it alone through December and the holidays. I send them a little email just seeing if there was any sort of update December 22, fully expecting them to not have much done with the holidays, etc, but I was curious just in case. Got a response Dec 29 that the valve covers were stripped and would likely be coated and shipped out that week. I just assumed it would take till the following week with New Years and what not.
On January 9th, I send a follow up email seeing if there was any update: no response. Send another follow up email on January 17th. On the 18th I'm told they needed to be resprayed since they didn't turn out perfect and that they would be sprayed and shipped that Tuesday. I pay the additional $30 for shipping back to me and get a tracking number Wednesday. No word beyond that till I email them again saying that the tracking status hadn't changed from "Shipping Label Created" on January 23rd. They drop them off and get them shipped out by the end of that day. Good deal, I'm finally getting my covers back and get to start putting my car back together this weekend!
Wrong: The valve covers showed up today without the sheet metal baffles or screws that hold the baffles on. Also, looking over the valve covers, this is what I see:
Now, maybe that's not that big of a deal to some and maybe most of it will be hidden...but how am I supposed to feel confident it won't start flaking off? Along with the fact that I didn't receive my baffles back? Obviously, after all this time, I'm kinda ticked off. I just want to get my car back together.
I'm really sorry that I'm essentially dragging their name through the mud, and I'm not looking forward to the confrontation I'm going to receive from posting this as their reputation on this site is really good, but I've been obscenely patient with this whole thing. Even now, I'm not going to blow up or anything, I just want to get my car back together and I'm STILL being held back by all of this. I just felt like I needed to post my experience. Perhaps 99% of the time their product is perfect and perhaps my experience is just a fluke, but this really sucks for me after all this time and money spent. And now I still will not be putting my engine back together this weekend like I was hoping.
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