wills30

I gave john of rocket racing 1.200 dollars to offset a crank for me , and he sent me a crank that was 20.000 off in the center . I gave john a 425 crank in byron last sep. 09 to have him do a crank ,john sent the crank by ups and blamed it on ups , ups denied the claim ,and tolds rocket racing that it was bent before shipping . They filed 3 claims with ups , all 3 claims were denied by ups , so i sent a e mail to the bbb of wis, and they said that this was not the fisrt mishap with rocket racing . John calls me and tells me that he would give me 600.00 dollar in shop labor . For a 1.200 bill , this is why people but chevy in olds . I've had better dealing with mondello [lynn] , i've call rocket racing and called no answer no call back . I email rocket racing no response. You hear stacy his with voice on the anwser machine , now i'm sitting here with a photo book of photos and nothing to show for my money . Why do people have to be so scamful in this hobby

Allan R

Really sorry to hear how that didn't work out for you. If I was in your shoes, I'd be feeling the same way. Last time I checked money doesn't grow on trees and customer service means you should get what you pay for. Anyone who doesn't measure up to that shouldn't be in business.

$600.00 in shop labour as compensation for THEIR mistake? I don't think so. Either they pony up a new crank, or the refund the money. Be prepared to defend that the crank you gave them wasn't bent. (Just the fact that they machined it and shipped it should be reasonable proof that it was good from your end. No shop I know will machine one that's bent like you describe) Did they give you anything in writing about the work? A quote or agreement? I've found that it's just good business practice based on the fact I've got burned a few times too. Keep a record of how many times you've tried to contact them, and the dates/times. It will show that you've made an effort. Fax, email all prove paper trails too. Also, send them a registered letter telling them what you want from them and be specific about a compliance date that is practical. Keep a copy for yourself. It will show your due diligence and persistence for a (the key word) REASONABLE and equitable solution to the problem. A lot of times, all this process is enough for some 'bad guys' to realize they're going to have to pay anyway, and they may do it out of court. Don't settle for less than what you've paid. You should not be out of pocket for their mistake or their shipper. NOTE: when they ship. UPS becomes their agent and is responsible for damage caused to the product. It should have been insured too. If it wasn't that show a LACK of due diligence on the part of the shipper.

If they won't comply, take them to small claims court. They accepted the job that you asked them to do. Money was spent. Take your documentation and file a claim. You're entitled. Make sure you have all your documentation. The court will require you to prove your case beyond reasonable doubt. If you don't you may get nothing. If you've got everything together, you will likely get judgement for something that you had a contract?? for. Hope this makes sense to you. I hate seeing things turn out bad. With some luck you'll get a judge who is also into this hobby.

Why are people so scamful in this hobby? Quick answer: Most of them aren't. Some are because they can get away with it. Go after them!

wills30

Yes i have phone record and e mails a small moive of the crank sitting in a crank rack with the dail indictor . With a man that has probley forgotten more than most have learned takein measurement and his phone records trying to get in contact with rocket racing ,buyers be ware

Bluevista

What a bummer. They just lost a bunch of bucks with this post already, not good business.
Obviously they wouldn't have done anything if the crank was already bent so you got'em dead to rights. They should send you another crank, you sent a good one and should get one back. Tell them to use the 600 bucks to buy another crank (probably already have a bunch of them) and machine it then send it to you.

wills30

My shop checked the crank before i sent it . It was a good 425 olds forge crank so, i'm out of a piece that is hard to find on top of the 1.200 . It was a good core never beed ground no rust and not bent . I guess , i got greed in chaseing cubics and i should of left thangs alone , live and i learn , i love my olds , and i'm hateing this dealing with these people trying to get rich quick

My442

What I do before I buy large dollar items is I test the vendor's responsiveness by e-mail.

Rocket Racing NEVER responded to any e-mails that I sent ever.

So, if the customer service is poor BEFORE the sale, how good do you think it will be AFTER the sale?

That is why I won't buy from them.

BIGJERR

I talked to John about this when I drove my parts up to him to get worked on a month or so ago........
A unfortunate problem to say the least.......I guess you can believe whomever you want in the deal, UPS, a multi-multi million dollar company with best lawyers that reject 96% of ALL CLAIMS or Rocket Racing, a small Oldsmobile oriented machine shop with everything to lose that still offered you cash when they didnt even have to.........


BTW Anybody thats uses email as a test for how a company runs just cracks me up!

Also I dont think $1200 going to get anybody rich......But who knows,Wills30 I feel for you I really do but I sure dont think RR screwed you over......

Who knows what happened after it was shipped.......I offer this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLPxJTn34PM

OLD SKL 69

Wow, all i can really say is, I'm sorry to hear this. Thanks for the heads up on the vendor, hope you can get it resolved without going to court.

gearheads78

Is is bent or ground wrong? If ground wrong then you are probably SOL but if bent can it not be fixed?

rcdynamic88

This is the first time I have heard anything bad about Rocket Racing, I truly hope they take care of this issue to your satisfaction. I have only bought a couple of small items from them, a cam adapter for my Lunati hydraulic roller cam and some modified Comp Cam 5/16" guideplates for use on some Edelbrock heads. They were quick to respond to all my emails, and always gave me a return call when I contacted them and left a message. They must of bought insurance from UPS at the time of shipping, or there would be no way they could even attempt to file a claim against UPS. Have you contacted UPS yourself? Obviously John has made three attempts to get UPS to cover the damage, perhaps another claim from your end would help. To me it sounds as if the folks at Rocket Racing are just as frustrated as you about all this and at least made an offer for some other services as a show of good faith.
As far as not responding to your emails or phone calls, they probably think they have done all they can to make this right, and at this point in time listening to you complain about this anymore is non-productive for either of you. I suggest you take them up on their $600 worth of services and use all your energy to go after UPS.

MN71W30

What did they ship the crank in? I've bought cranks through Summit before and never had a problem, their packed in a nice box designed for cranks. The box must have shown a substantial impact somewhere to have been bent. I hope things work out for everyone involved.
I agree that if you deal with companies that won't answer email or calls.. your asking for a future headache if there's a problem. Been there and done that... never again!

An after thought.
I dealt with a company that sent me $175 in wrong Olds parts and could have cared less of the problem. They cared after I contacted my credit card company and filed a dispute. They were then forced to respond in 45 days and never did, then the idiot called me after 50 days wondering what happened.

olds425

I think they should be responsible for it until it is in your hands. No the company won't get rich screwing one guy out of $1200 but if you do that to 10 guys that's $12,000. It adds up real quick. If they don't make it right I would never buy from them. I also think if a company doesn't respond well to communication prior to the sale I would be leary of them. And e-mail is a form of communication these businesses choose to use to communicate. If this has happened with them and UPS before why don't they use a different shipper.

wills30

http://s730.photobucket.i am not trying to run his bussiness in the ground , i gave john in his hand a 600.00 down payment , i called him days after he recieved the crank and he said it was a good core . The reason i am going after him is he attack me with a statement that i didn't measure the thrust correctly , and i told him we never measure the thrust because we need a crank to know what size bearings we needed etc. this crank has never been in the block ,and it came out of the box on to a marble table on to a cradle they placed the dail indictor on it and found out it was 20.000 off , i called john to tell him this and he tells me that he has a bent crank in his car right at this moment that he straighten , and he still pulls 9's so he decides to see if ups will pick this bill up , i'm all for it as long as i get something for my money .Ups sends people after people and they deny this case every time . I tell jonh to give me in store credit and lets move on . He throws i'll give you 600.00 for this , now ive got 1.200 in labor and 200.00 and you want to offer me 600.00 **** on my back and tell me its raining !John has pass the buck on every body. He tells me if its a cold bend it'll bend back ok he trys this and it bowed back .So now i'm thinking the nitriding heat treating process bent it and he shipped it thinking that i would sit it in the closet and call him later , then rocket racing would of been off scot free .I called Bill and he tells me why would you start off with one leg in the grave , that made sense , so i call rocket racing and tell John that rocket racing could sell the crank under their name because i did not want this caming back on me and if they rocket racing felt that it was good they could sell it under their name . This is a hobby for me , a past time , i gave this company cash money , and i'm no different than any of you, my car is no better than yours ,i enjoy seeing the white 65 go do the track and rocket racing has a few more item i would of like to gotten from him ,but if he can't do business i'll take my business some where else , just last year every body was crying about Terry fcr owes this ya he did good with some but he's got something in a few of your back pocket , and yes i almost fell for the bulldog trick,

com/albums/ww310/wills30/

My442

Sorry, I did'nt mean to crack you up......

88 coupe

If that is $1,200.00 USD, it looks to be out of line.


It is done (if needed) as part of a normal crank grind. Not common knowledge, as no extra charge is shown on the invoice.

Norm

agtw31

they have 18 year old college students working in those UPS terminals making $9 an hour,,then getting $30 of their check sucked off by the unions.

i wouldnt be surprised it made it in one piece.

wills30

why would you admit to half if your not guilty of all ?

wills30

.

gearheads78

The bottom line is any damage to anything during shipping is the shippers fault. We al know packaged go through hell on the way so if you package accordingly. Unless there are tire tracks from the UPS truck backing over it the blaming UPS is chickenshit period.

wills30

need a g455oldscrank001.jpgood machist RO-455oldscrank002.jpgdy machining in plymouth mi. good rates work in a timely manner and answer his own phone 734 459 9335

wills30

as of today, still no result to this , i have a court date with ups on the 23 rd of this month . which i'm sure the buck will be passed until rocket racing make their appearance ,which rocket racing still have my crank and money , what a deal huh? so hopeful this matter will be resolved shortly , and i can get alittle bit closer on my build . i will give a up date , as soon as the court hands down their judgement,

Run to Rund

The machine work and the work around the oil feed holes look top notch. It is virtually impossible to get .020" bend when the crank is ground (I assume that is the 20,000 you refer to in your first post). The box is a standard crank shipping box, as used by Callies to ship their cranks. Unless there are a lot of munch marks inside (and outside) the box, I don't see how the crank could have been bounced around hard enough to bend it, either.

71 Cutlass

Are we talking about John Stolpa? If so, my experience with him was fine. Not trying to say he may not have made a mistake, but things were OK for me. Life is weird sometimes...one person's experience can be entirely different from another person's. He seemed to be an honest guy when I dealt with him. Hopefully you will get your money back and this whole thing can get resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

BIGJERR

I had thought this thread died............

just got all my heads back from RR top notch,stuff........Good to 700HP....Now is RR slow to answer phone...Yes,But I always got a call back tho maybe a day or two later.....There are pieces to this puzzle that never came up and by the look of it will not be brought up by either party........

BIGJERR

kind of like a truck ran over it? Or maybe a machine shop did something and tried to bend it back and it didnt work so now there trying to blame someone else? kinda like that?

71 Cutlass

Jerr relax, you're not helping John's case. Neither my post nor the one preceeding it needed any Lawyers running to John's defense. As my post said, my dealings with John were fine. As my post also said, hopefully everything will get worked out so that everyone can be appeased and feel satisfied with the outcome. It's a perfectly middle of the road response, wishing both parties the best.

BIGJERR

LOL I am relaxed..........

wills30

Run to Rund

I’m trying to reconcile what wills30 has written different places in this thread, vs. my single positive experience with John Stolpa/Rocket Racing. I am not a “cheerleader” for Rocket or any other Olds engine shop. I use Kells Automotive in Las Vegas for machine work. The only time I dealt with John was in purchasing connecting rods and having him bronze bush the small ends. He treated me well in that purchase. For example, he checked all the rods, made sure the big ends were sized right and the bolts were good. This is the first time on this forum or RealOldsPower that I have seen anything negative about Rocket.

OK on to the thread. The title is “Rocket Racing Sucks” and wills30 then says
“,buyers be ware”
“i am not trying to run his bussiness in the ground”
“and personally , i have nothing against john or rocket racing”
So, we are left with some conflicting impressions.

On to the $1200 in dispute.
“It was a good 425 olds forge crank so, i'm out of a piece that is hard to find on top of the 1.200 .”
Rocket does not, afaik, charge $1200 for the work done on the crank pictured. The crank would have to get extra work like profiling the counterweights to be worth that much. Is this the damaged crank and its box? The box does not show damage consistent with a “20.000” bend (.020” ?). If the crank toppled off a bench onto a concrete floor, it could be bent and cracked. You don’t show pictures of different views to show if the crank had been dropped. I have never heard of a 400-425 crank being bent like that without a catastrophic event. Could your other shop have dropped the crank while they were checking it:
“this crank has never been in the block ,and it came out of the box on to a marble table on to a cradle they placed the dail indictor on it and found out it was 20.000 off”

“It was a good 425 olds forge crank so, i'm out of a piece that is hard to find on top of the 1.200 .”
I don’t think you will have a problem finding another 425 crank inexpensively. I know of a lot of them; some complete short blocks too.

In summary I wish you well in resolving your issue fairly. If you had posted more details and photos it would have made your position clearer. As it stands, it seems that there is more to the story.

wills30

http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/w...95crank425.mp4 this is a photo of the dail indictor of the crank that rocket racing sent me ,it is seating a marble table and in a crank cradle, never been in a engine and this is the box that i got it in picshowingboxdamage.jpg?t=1284866486

wills30

th_picshowingcrankinbox.jpg?t=1284866394this is the packing that i recieved for a 1.200 crank upstrackingnumberpic.jpg?t=1284866991

Run to Rund

Now I'm really confused. Here is a second box. Why did you give us a picture of the Callies box on June 17? Also why are there two cranks? The one in your video with the dial indicator sweeping:

http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/w...95crank425.mp4

has the oil holes at #3 main strongly chamferred with a "tail" directly in line with the hole. The oil hole in the crank from June 17 has less chamferring and the "tail" is offset a bit, making a comma like shape.

wills30

wills30

this is the letter head that rocket racing sent , i can't get it to copy , so if you can pull it up you'll see they admit half of what i gave them

BIGJERR

Like I said theres more to this story than meets the eye........that box looks like it been thru a war btw......

I'am going to have be done with this thread,Iam happy with what RR has done for me............take the info gathered in this and the other 2-3 Oldsmobile forums its posted in as you will..........Hope your motor comes toghter for you.

BIGJERR

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/400-4...Q5fAccessories



Iam signed up for notices from Ebay if something I might be interested in gets posted.........This came in the other day........I wonder if this crank got fixed? Or what?

wills30

-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem27b833a151QQitemZ17059 4115921QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccesso ries
thank you big jerr for your interest , yes , i did have this item repaired , and im willing pay for your gas , if you come pick this item up . it is within . 0002 off of being straight , but thank you , for bring this post back up . john and i spoke at the court house after , i won my case , and i told him that all i want was what i paid for . or what he paid moldex to do. i shook his hand and his fathers hand , and i told him , i would leave this alone and let it rest. so if you have any question send them , if you want me to speak down on rocket racing , i rather not , i enjoy going to olds dazes , to enjoy myself with my family , and i don't want to have to look over my back , 10 years ago . i wouldnt of cared . so . if you are interested in this item shoot me a email , if your bring this up to start the fire , im going to have to tell you , have your fun , this is a sport /hobby , / past time . for me , i have meet a couple of cool people , and i have meet some of the ugly of this sport, i have learned alot , i love olds like the next person , i see why , most of the [good] dont really post much , and they leave the dreamers chasing their accomplishments. every board i post on , i am wills30 , i not hidding and i am not going no where

Rocket Richard

My 2 cents. I you are satisfied with this situation and don't want to say anything bad about Rocket Racing, maybe consider deleting this thread.

Just simply because the thread title is "Rocket Racing Sucks". Doesn't seem fair to Rocket Racing after the matter has been settled to your satisfaction.

I don't know the details, your call. You know how it went down, and if you still feel that "Rocket Racing Sucks" just ignore my comments.

wills30

i left this alone , what i said , im not ashamed of saying , if i would , cut the thread , some thing else would have been said , and the would of said i have some thing to hide , the above is true

oldcutlass

Why are there 2 threads on this??