A Good Carburetor Shop Options

[dbgriffith75]

Not to discourage anybody from taking advantage of 914World.com and the wealth of carburetor knowledge contained within, but I wanted to give everybody here a link to the website of a good carburetor shop. As most of us are aware, a good carburetor shop is hard to find these days as there's very few of them around anymore; and I see a lot of carb questions on these boards.

But this place deserves recognition. When I needed a set of gaskets for the oddball carburetors (Solex 34's) on my 2.0, even tho it literally took months to find something, this guy was always very courteous and professional with me despite my constant calling and bugging the crap out of him about it. If I left a message I was called back that day or the day after. And at times he would take the time to call me if he learned something new or found something he thought I needed to know.

The guy's name is Joe, and he operates Carburetor USA in New Jersey. Maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't. Either way, the link to his website is http://www.carburetorusa.com If you check on his site you'll find that he's not restricted to just cars. He handles just about every type of carb you can think of.

A guy I work with recently needed the carb on his '84 Toyota truck rebuilt, so I reccomended CarbUSA to him and the total cost after parts and labor was about $260 plus shipping both ways; but Joe gaurantees the rebuild for life. FOR LIFE. Not a lot of places are that confident in their work; and my coworker was extremely happy with the end result. The reason I didn't have him rebuild my carbs is because I like to do that type of work myself.

Anyway, like I said, I just wanted to get his name on the board. If you need one rebuilt or need gaskets or what have you, I reccomend calling this guy first.

[dbgriffith75]

We appreciate the info. Don't feel rebuffed, because there's no offense intended. You obviously aren't aware of the reputation that Art Thraen has in the high performance A/C VW business, and that includes the carburetors for the 914/VW's motors. He's a specialist, and he's generally acknowledged as the master, and so far as I know has never disappointed. He's removed and restored Dellorto shafts for me that I had sworn couldn't be fixed. Your guy could be very good, maybe even as good, who knows, but he hasn't developed the rep from doing a lot of good work for a lot of the key people in our business.

Fair enough... and I certainly wasn't offended or anything of the sort. And if this Art fella is as good as y'all say he is, well, good for him. It's good that someone can earn that kind of reputation.

I guess it's just my caring for the little man nature that's pushing his name. I come from a small town where that's all business is- the little man trying to make it. In this area even the "big time" farmers are little men compared to the commercial giants. So when I find one, such as Joe, I have no problem paying the extra money to support the business because, like I said, the end result is worth it.

Of course it's also something of a Catch 22 situation. The little man has to charge more because he doesn't see as much business; and the higher prices tend to scare off potential customers even though the quality of work is matched or better than the competition.

Either way, I'll get the link posted in my sig, so maybe he can help somebody else in the 'World.

[Edit] Oh, and one other thing about him- Last week I sent him an email asking him what he'd charge me to rebuild a set of carbs for my motorcycle. That's my next project after I'm finished w/ my teener, which I plan to begin restoration of over the winter. He told me that he really doesn't deal with motorcycle carbs anymore because of the difficulty finding parts, and because they tend to be a royal pain in the ass to rebuild, but because I've done business with him before, he's willing to give it a shot. He said send him the carbs and if he can get the parts he needs, he'll do it for me. That's one thing you won't often find about the bigger, well known guys- not that I'm saying Art wouldn't stray from his specialty- is the willingness to tackle a project even if they don't normally do it because it's about customer satisfaction.