im anxious to hear all the experiences people have had
list the situation and what went wrong/right

i have never had a bad experience w/ aa. although i have only had 3 transactions ...everyone gives 'em a hard time. im curious as to why?

Ordered a vacuum hose replacement kit for my '76 2.0. It came with many wrong hoses and missing many other hoses. Also the hand drawn diagram that came with it was a joke. It looked like it was drawn by a 4 year old.
Ordered a hose to replace the oil breather to airbox hose and it never came. 2 weeks later I called to see what was up, they had no record of my order. Guess who took my order initially? Well, I won't mention any names but his initials are George Hussey.

Now see...I place my orders with George personally on the phone too. This last one was for his new steel flares. George took quite a bit of his time to answer my questions, probably 15 -20 minutes. He was very helpful and I ordered them. He said that he would not post against my account until the flares we ready to be made (about 10 days). 10 days later, the amount agreed upon was deducted. His third party guy making the flares did mine and I got them in about another 10 days. I was in contact with AA's customer service about a tracking number. The lady there was very nice and professionsl and went out of her way to find it for me. The third party manufactuirer ships from his location to the buyer not to AA and then AA to customer. This vendor had not sent the list of shipments and tracking numbers to AA soon enough for their customer service to have it so she called the guy directly and got it for me, then gave me a call right back with it. Probably took all of 30 minutes. When the shipment arrived the flares were all George said the were. Very nicely done, good quality and guage. I never have had any problem with George/AA. Probably because I take my time to ask the right questions, am very respectful of him and the time he spends with me. His staff, no matter who I have talked to, have always been very nice to me and never have I had any problems. Trust me I have thrown them some pretty dumb questions and they never blinked once. I would not hesitate to do future business with them or recommend them to others.

I don't know why they even bother to maintain a "customer service" department.
I recently placed an online order there, which I received ok. The trouble is, they entered an other order the very next day, for some things I don't want, and charged it to my credit card. Messages I left on their customer service line are still unanswered, and I have some $hit I don't intend to pay for, or use.

Oh yeah, one of the things I ordered was the 3 rubber extrusion pieces that go between the engine grille pieces and the body/engine lid. AA lists the factory part #'s, and sure enough I got the right stuff. Except all I got was a 4 ft strip of the stuff, at a cost of over $50. At that price I think the material should be cut to size, with the appropriate cutouts, and in labeled bags.

In the interest of fairness and honesty though, I have had some good deals from AA in the past.

Never bought anything from them. Honestly, when I started building 914's I bought all my parts from Tweeks, Resto Design, Doc & Cys, Brad Mayuer, Fast Fred Pesch, etc. The internet was in it's infantcy then. Pelican was an idea.

I called AA once for a catalog. They wanted to sell it to me. Because I owned a shop and had everone elses catolog sitting around (sent to me free) I declined. During my conversation with AA I must of heard how great they were and why would I even think about buying parts from anyone else. "Were the 914 Headquarters." Sales is one thing inflated ego is another. Since I got on the internet I've read hundreds of horror stories from fellow car guy's. I can appreciate the effort and investment in the parts George has helped bring to market. I can't appreciate the controlist additude. (I'm King George and you not) I was in the collision and resto business for 15 years. I feel I developed a fair sense how people are. I chose not to buy anything from AA. Based on the horror stories I've read on this BBS and Others my sense wasn't far off. I bought from people that asked for my business and thanked me for my purchases. I treated my customers the same way.
"Quality is conforming to what the requirements are."
(Phil Crosby's Quality Collage)

I vowed to never buy from them based on all I had heard. However when they had something on Ebay that I wanted and couldn't seem to find anywhere else I figured it was worth the $40 risk. I considered myself lucky that everything went smoothly.

I've had a few transactions with them. ANy new parts purchased directly from them I have had no problems.

Ebay auctions - they were slow to ship

Ebay auction used parts - Heat Exchangers "You'll get good hot heat from theses"

Uh - no, not with the holes in them.
Packed like crap. Loose in a box, no packing material.

The agreed to take them back. I wanted a replacement set. They said they didn't have anymore. And If I returned them, I would be blacklisted and left negative feedback on Ebay.

"What did you want for $40?" - Assholes!!!

James

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No personal experience. But I figure... Fool everyone else, shame on them. Fool me after reading all the bad PR, shame on me. I'll continue my dealings with my 914 comrades and HPH. They're not in the business of screwing me.

Jen

I bought an injector boot kit along w/ some other small items. The parts arrived minus a couple of the boots out of the kit. Two of the six boots were back ordered. When the missing boots arrived they said there was a price increase "effective now." They raised the price of the boots they shipped me two weeks earlier as well as the missing boots.

I haven't dealt w/ them since.

WOW that's terrible. I hope you left negative feedback for them!!

At the time I was guarding my Ebay ID and bowed to the threat. Stupid really, since at the time they didn't care. I guess I'm one of the "Whiners".

But judge for your self. The heat exchangers pictured have huge rust pieces missing and they were _not_ the ones pictured in the Auction. I did give them a good drumming at the BBB.

James

I've ordered three times.

1. I ordered their "700 Tech Tips" book. George did a good job on the book, by
the way. I don't know when it was first published, but it is probably due for a new
edition. I'd buy a new edition just to toss in the glovebox. Anyways, the book
took almost two years to ship, and only after telling the story on Porschelist.

2. Ordered side stripes for the Bumblebee. They arrived on time. Shipping charges
pretty high, but had some adhesion problems. Very well may have been my fault
(something on the paint?). They offered to refund if I sent them back. I ate that one.

3. Ordered something else for the Bumblebee, paid for overnight shipping. They
screwed up the address on the box, and then blamed it on FedEx. (Yeah, right.) I
asked for a refund of the exorbitant shipping charges and the refund took 6 weeks.

Pam purchased from them once, with no problems.

I don't like the attitude on the phone - but maybe I've never spoken to George. Every
time I call, the clerk at the other end gets the part number, says it will ship, and
hangs up abruptly (not even taking the time to confirm billing or shipping info). They
seem too busy to even extend common courtesy "thank you for your order"... "have a
nice day"... whatever.

AA has their place in the food chain. I won't completely discount them - but I'll sure
shop around first. On the other hand, I might not have a choice - I'm probably
already blacklisted.

-Rusty

protecting your ebay id? i presume because some would decline to sell to you w/ negs. on the items i've sold there i've only had one glitch. you know what? if the person backs out so what? funny thing, some items i got pretty good money for. turns out that i sold some to people that post on pelican. i got no response for the items there. shit, you don't want to sell to me because of one neg? fine.

kevin

Pete, George's brother, is a nice guy. He doesn't seem to be very fond of George. No kidding-when I first got my '74, told me "there are a lot better places to buy parts than here." I kid you not. He gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him after hours and he would give me some places that would work with me. Can you guess where he suggested?

Scott,

Here is my take on why you where treated well and got what you ordered:

YOU ORDERED A NEWLY REALEASED PART FROM THEM.

Of course they are going to kiss your ass and bend over backwards to sell that new item that nobody else has. He has to pay for the tooling and setup costs... Its obvious that they didnt do a run of 100 sets when they are being made to order..

I applaud them for all they have done for the 914 community.. but would still like to see things improve.

Not one time has any of my transactions gone correctly with them... they sent me some engine tin for a car I had in the shop.. I asked for 2.0 passenger side engine tin.. I received 1.8 and they argued and argued with me that they sent me 2.0 and that "I" didnt know what I was talking about.

Then... upon returning the 1.8 tin.. for "store credit" they returned a small box of DOG SHIT with trinket crap in it. They fucking sent DOG SHIT in the box... dont tell me a dog shit in a box 4 inchX4inch box that was 6 inches deep in the shipping room over night.

Not one time have I even thought about buying anything from them again.

I would like to see George make an attempt to make good on some of this BS... instead you get blacklisted.




B

they sent you a box of dog carp and trinkets?
as in dog feces?

can you sue them for that?


what is "backlisted?"

Brads experience is exactly why I would avoid them like the plague! It's the same additude I sensed in my phone conversation. Only expressed in action and deed. I honestly never heard that story! I can't believe anyone that would do that could continue in business. That's the most perverse and demeaning gesture I ever heard of EVER.

I had a problem getting a $75.00 core deposit back. It took months. they blamed their credit card co but I had to talk to George to get it. other than that I have not had a problem.

Bernie

DOG SHIT........HOLY SHIT!! They're worse than I thought

dog crap, sorry brad but it is funny. you MUST have very polite and courteous in your phone conversations. but true to aa form, same shit different day. you know, if you had presented your gift to the local post master, aa would've been in big trouble.

kevin

bump!

(trying ot get more results on the poll)

please vote!

We had the shit tested... if it is human feces.. its a federal offense. My customer and I (the guy's car I was working on) where prepared to take them to the cleaners..

I have kept that story under wraps for years. The people who have asked about my 25 Years of 914 poster...get that story. The poster was sent as part of the in store credit.


It was funny later...


B

when i got my first 914 (before pelican), i placed an order with AA and had good results (hence, i voted for "good"). in comparison shopping later, i ordered from PP and had better than stellar results. with AA's reputation, and my desire to have an easy time with parts and orders, i haven't ordered from AA since. if there was a part that only AA had, and i had the money to burn, i might try ordering from AA again. i read their post about trying hard to get back in business and commend them for trying.

well, I dont like getting lied to, and called names on the phone. We needed a new muffler, so we called and they convinced us to buy the bursh muffler.... we needed it soon, and they told us that it was IN STOCK....well, a week goes buy, and no muffler. We call them up, and they said that they had to order it! We explained that the man who sold it to us said it was in stock...but the lady said that he was wrong(lied). Well, two more weeks go by, and still havn't gotten it... we called again, and they said it was shipped yesterday.... three weeks after we originally bought it...well, a month after the original order, it finally showed up, but there was no CAT pipe, that we needed... well, we called them up, and asked how much one was and the guy(a different one) told us 75 dollars...ok, they billed us, and it showed up a week later with a recept that said $200.00!!!! We called them up, and asked to speak with george. We finally got a hold of him, and explained how we had been lied to and how the customer service sucked. We were called ignorant, and liars, and he told us never to buy anything from AA anymore....well, thats not an issue at all.... I will NEVER buy anything from them again.