MSD failure, multiple scam discharge Options

[worn]

I bought a MSD Digital 6AL ignition box for my 911. The car had a Permatune unit when I bought it and that proved unreliable. Rather than spending the money on a Bosch unit I liked the idea that you can buy an MSD in almost any place in the country and the Digital model has a plug in harness now. I had been running a 6AL, but I thought the new rebuild would start with the digital model. Well it took me a couple of months to get ready but last week I turned the key.

Nope. No spark. Changed coil. No spark. I found that the white wire for points worked just fine, but the purple and green ones for magnetic pickup gave an occasional tiny spark. The old bow worked just fine.

I just got off the phone with MSD. They will not honor any warranty for the box. Why? Because I ordered it from Amazon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/WTF.gif)

I bought the thing in late November of 2020, and mail ordered near everything instead of going shopping. I figured that staying home was helping to limit my chances of killing some poor child or mother by spreading coronavirus. It turns out that MSD/Holley has a beef with Amazon over counterfeit mother boards. I asked the rep how I was supposed to know that they would stand behind their brand if bought from Auto Zone but not from Amazon. He stayed perfectly silent in reply. Not the man's fault, but it is hiss bosses fault. Do I blame Amazon for taking the low road. Certainly. Do I blame Holley for not warning customers. 6ell yes!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) NOTE: he told me that they have had returns with counterfeit motherboards: he DID NOT say that they would honor the company guarantee if the part turned out to be genuine. Nope even if the product could be proven to be made by them with a recent serial number.

So there you have it. Blame me for not going with the old school OEM. $300 bucks gone south, or whatever direction it flies.

[JamesM]

So, dont think the problem is so much MSD as it is Amazon. I have a buddy whos business now relies heavily on Amazon (because thats just how the world works now) and I get to hear all his horror stories as a vendor on a regular basis.

As a customer Amazon is usually pretty great because you can pretty much return anything no questions asked as long as you are in the return window, your issue here though is that you waited so long to use your product (though you may still want to see if you can get a return through the vendor on Amazon) I totally feel for you as I did the same thing with an ignition coil i purchased for a project and didnt use for a year (and it turned out to be Chinese knock off garbage)

Back to the vendor issue though, Amazon allows pretty much anyone to supply product for a listing so unless you are paying attention to who the shipping vendor is when you purchase you may or may not be getting what you expect and in many cases what you wind up getting is counterfeit garbage from China. In one case I had purchased a memory foam mattress for my daughter, liked it so much that I wound up re-buying a second one from the exact same listing for my guest room, 2nd one i received was obviously different packaging/vendor from the first and complete garbage, despite being purchased from the exact same listing. My buddies company actually paid Amazon to get a listing for a unique product he offered. This listing was later hijacked by another vendor by way of how things work on Amazon and he then wound up getting support calls or issues for product being shipped by this other vendor.

Bottom line, Amazon can be absolutely hell to deal with as a Vendor and if you buy from Amazon you need to expect to deal with all return issue though Amazon.