I hope you don't mind, but I am moving our convresation over here where it belongs.

<Gary>
Matt,

I think that the question here is at what point does our responsibility end and yours begin. You claim that the block we shipped you had boltholes that were rusted, as these holes were unused on the core engine. At that point, logic would dictate you call to us and complain, which I would encourage. We never offered tapping or rethreading the boltholes as part of our service. This would add additional labor cost to the product that we would have to pass on to you the consumer. Had you called us one of two things would have happened, in a worse case scenario we would have had the engine picked up. Or we would have told you how to clean the threads using a tap. The problem is you never contacted us. You also never used a tap on your own. You drove a bolt in with an impact gun, which is not proper at all; this action you took on your own broke the metal surrounding the bolt. You never called us to ask if driving a bolt in with an impact gun was a good idea, it wasn’t as you can see the result. At what point do you take responsibility for your own actions? We never told you to drive the bolt in with an in pack, or even a hand wrench we knew what the result would be. You choose not involve us in the process until after your actions broke the block. At what point do you except responsibility for your own actions? Why did you not call us in the beginning? Why did you wait until you broke the block, through your own lack of knowledge?

<Me>

Gary, you missed the point completely. I don't care about the threads or the piece braking off and I understand your point of view there.
The problems came when I started the block up for the first time and the 2 freeze plugs in the oil passages began to leak like crazy. One of them was behind the flexplate (too far up to get at without taking the tranny off) and the other behind the crank gear and one of the timing belt brackets. My whole point was that you advertise a plug and play block, and when I got it all put in and running, it leaked like crazy, so it definately was not "Plug and Play" by any means. I had to pull the tranny off myself to fix the one leak, then I ran out of time to work on it since MSU classes started up, so I had to pay over $500 to have the timing belt assembly pulled off and the other oil leak fixed. You even admitted to me on the phone that those plugs were supposed to have some sort of a sealant on them and neither of them did. That is your fault completely. It is your business' fault that I had to spend over $500 to have the one leak fixed, and I had to spend an entire weekend pulling the tranny out to fix the other. That is absolutely not my responsibility, it is yours.

Also, I should mention that it is your responsiblity that you sent me the block 2 weeks late (took you 6 weeks). Also, you accidently sent me the wrong clutch the 1st time, so after I got my engine out, I had to wait a week to even start putting the new one in, and consiquently, I had no car for a week (tough getting to work that way...). I purchased the block with the intention of swaping it out in a weekend, and a weekend turned into a month for reasons that were not my fault. Taking a month to get a "Plug and Play" block installed does not seem reasonable to me. So you see, an offer for $25 worth of compensation was simply insulting. Maybe we were not on the same page with the problems that I had, but I already told you this exact story on the phone when you offered me the 25 bux. Thanks for the reply though.

<Gary>

The plugs are not required to have sealent on them, we usally do though. It is usaual that they would leak, even if they didn't have sealent. That is a grey area, had we forgotten the plugs, yes we would be at fault. We installed the plugs, but left off a non-required sealent. I just looked in the book, no sealent is required, but we have in the past put on a sealent. It is a grey area, we put in what the spec book required, we didn't go beyond what the spec book required. Grey area. Opinions from neutral obsevers?
The clutch. Our records indicate you order a clutch for a turbo car, which is what we sent. You have a non-turbo car with a turbo, which is a different clutch. I will share half responsiblity on this one. We should have ask in detail, you should have made sure we knew it was a Non-turbo car with a turbo. This was an easy mistake for both of us to make.

gary

Now for my reply:

As far as the clutch is concerned, I understand that mistakes happen and I never even complained to you when we made the swap. I was perfectly ok with that, but the fact is that it inconvienienced me and you did nothing about it. I even had to buy another clutch and flywheel so you would ship it before you received the wrong one. Otherwise, it would have delayed me another week. As far as the plugs are concerned, regardless of what your book says, it still was definately not even 0.0001% my fault. I didn't install them, you did and they come as part of the block. When I spoke to you on the phone about it, you said that they should have sealant on them, but regardless of whether or not that was accurate, the block still leaked like crazy (2 foot diameter puddle of oil after 20 mins of running from the clutch side plug alone). The plug was in there, but it just leaked around the edges. I don't see how you can't take responsibility for that, regardless of whether or not your book calls for sealant or not. You installed it as part of the block and I had to pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time to make it right.

If you or anyone here thinks I'm just a "negative" person or a "hater", you are absolutely wrong. If any of you were in my shoes having spent over 3 grand at a store, only to have a plug and play block that was actually a "Plug and start and leak and fix and plug and play" block that you had to spend over $500 more to make right, and spend a month installing it vs. a weekend, only to get on the phone and get offered a $25 compensation, you would have said a lot more about it than I did. All I did was state the facts to the board and people formed their own opinions (it took a lot to keep my opinions to myself). There's plenty of people who know who I am, and a "hater" or a "negative" person sure isn't my character.

I have said to many people who ask me about my experience with the block that I probably just got a lemon, and that I'm sure they will have a better experience than I did. I am not out to hurt your business Gary, but since I am the 1st guy on this board to buy your block, I think its important for people to know the 1 experience with it. I was not impressed by any means, and I won't have good feelings towards it untill you at least admit responsibility for the majority of my grief (which does not include the threads).

Matt
1995 Eclipse GS
2.0L, S16g Turbo, 8 Injectors, 26psi

1998 Eclipse GSX
2.3L Stroker, AEM EMS Converted to Speed Density, FP3065 Turbo, 35psi , and so on...