TYPE 4 PARTS - tired of BD

[deschutestrout]

I'm tired of waiting and waiting and waiting for my Bus Depot orders. Why when I order from other suppliers does my order typically ship the same day, or next day if I'm unlucky...its at my door in 4 days. With BD I've waited 3-4 weeks, and then the order is incomplete. Parts on backorder for weeks/months, I find with one phone call elsewhere. I'm about fed up with it. Ron has accommodated me with previous problems, but the typical "will ship in 10-14 days...hogwash! Computers expedite order processing, I'm confused I'm going with OEVedub or German Parts and Restoration for a while...I've had great experiences with them.
_________________
'71 bug, answers to "Clementine"
'75 7 passenger bus called "Kombi"
'78 7 passenger sunroof bus, goes by "Gus"
'78 Westy "'Ole Red...The Happy Camper"
'78 Westy "The Big Turd"

[mattcuddy]

[steponmebbbboom]

[dembus]

There is no excuse for an on-line business today to not have their inventory connected to the ordering process. The software is affordable and comes in all shapes and sizes. It's about being organized and following through. I have been satisfied with most of my on-line parts purchases but it only takes one or two incidents to get someone upset. Those who say "we should appreciate them offering us hard to find parts" should remember that if they can't do a good job at it someone else will. Good ole' capitalism. It is a mutual relationship and I am sure that this thread alone will tighten things up.
_________________
"Want a little peace of mind, grab the lowest branch and start to climb"

69 Westy (R.I.P.)
68 Kombi (Sold)
70 Westy (Sold)
68 Beetle Sedan (Sold)
69 Beetle Sedan

[mightyart]

This is a topical subject. I started a thread the other day in another forum about problems with aicooled.net's not having an updated website. It turned into a fight kind of, I was a bit surprised.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=140964

[flabay]

My first order from BD was over $500. There were 2 parts missing, and 1 part damaged. I also returned another part for credit. I am still unsatisfied with the resolution over a year later. This is just poor shipping dept. help if you ask me. Put down the joint and figure it out. Notifiy your customers when a part is out of stock, or something doesn't jive with the order. We bus owners make thier paychecks after all. I think BD has some of the best parts around, but they lack in the customer satisfaction department for sure. Oh and by the way, I still don't know if I have credit for the door seal I returned, because I was never notified, and decided to stop buying from them. Another great potential, lackluster small company IMHO.

[zabo]

Im glad they are thier but i also have had a few key parts backordered (only after weeks to be informed they were discontinued) and some rebuilt heads i was not too happy with. I would have sent those back but didnt really feel like pulling my engine again...
_________________
1960 6 volt - wanted bill spreen atlanta dealer tag frame.


trust zabo
What will you do when the label comes off, and the plastics all melted, and the chrome is too soft? ~FZ

[Busdepot]

Between this thread and the other one referenced, so far I, Aircooled.net, BusBoys, and CIP have been criticized. Other threads have criticized GoWesty, WCM, and a couple of others. This makes up virtually every company specializing in old bus parts. It is easy to trash a vendor when you have absolutely no idea what lengths he may be going to to find parts for your bus. It's also easy to demand the convenience and service afforded by companies like Walmart or Amazon without realizing that nobody in this business has the deep pockets that they have, and never will. It's easy to criticize that which you haven't attempted to do yourself.

To be honest I take threads like this personally, because I know how much of my sweat and blood have gone into the Bus Depot (and my employees' as well). I was a Bus enthusiast long before I started the Bus Depot, and left a secure career and put everything I owned into turning my hobby into my full-time job. Steponmebbbboom wrote earlier in this thread: " If you want to work in this business you need to have a very high degree of personal integrity and very low need for material possession, I take my hat off to anyone making a living off of this hobby; the opportunities for great personal wealth have come and gone." He hit the nail on the head. Nobody sells Bus parts because it will make them rich. It has to be a labor of love. I have told my wife before that if this ever stops being fun, I'll close the Bus Depot, because there damn sure are more easier (and more lucrative) ways to earn a living. Those of us who hang in there do it because we love Busses, not because we're out to screw you over a backordered part.

As our Busses get older, it becomes a bigger and bigger job finding parts for them. Parts go obsolete on a daily basis. At this point I spend most of my day searching for parts. It can take me a week to find a new source for a $5 part after the original supplier discontinues it ... if I'm lucky enough to find it at all. On a bad day, I work all day and strike out, or finally think I find a source and then when I get the sample it's a piece of junk. Unfortunately, this means that backorders are a way of life with old Bus parts. I know how it feels when a part you order gets backordered. I feel the same way when I can't get a part I need for my own Bus. But when it happens, it isn't for lack of trying.

It is absolutely true that our online inventory is not "live," nor is our competitors'. Things do go out of stock that are not always reflected instantly on the website. There are tens of thousands of parts on a Bus, and no vendor keeps every one of them in stock at all times. I stock the ones that are most commonly ordered, and those that I need to buy in bulk from overseas to get the quality/price that I demand. (We stock over 10,000 parts - more than any other Bus parts specialist, I'm sure.) I don't stock the more obscure parts that I can usually get in a day or two anyway as needed (or have dropshipped). Even the big guys like Amazon do the same thing; only a fraction of the items on their website are actually in their warehouse. But unlike an Amazon.com, we do not have the clout to demand daily inventory updates from every supplier. (Nor does any Bus parts supplier; we represent too much of a niche product.) So our availability listings are by necessity based on the last update we got from our vendors. Therefore there can be a lag between when an item gets factory-backordered and when the website reflects this. Sometimes we don't learn that a part has gone obsolete until we go to reorder it (having always been able to get it before) and get turned down. This is the nature of the beast.

Those unfamiliar with how a business works may ask: Why not just stock everything that's on the website? Well, that is what Volkswagen tries to do. That is why a $3 part costs $20 from your friendlly local VW dealer. $3 pays for the part; the other $17 subsidizes the 10,000 other obscure parts that they must pay to keep on hand for the one person a year who orders it. This goes on until the model becomes 20 years old, at which time they go to the opposite extreme and simply discontinue everything for the vehicle. If price were no object, then yes, everything that was available could be on the shelf at all times and we'd almost never backorder an item. But then every $3 part would be $20, and you probably couldn't afford to keep yous bus on the road. The last company that listed a full-line catalog and tried to stock all of it without ordering some of it as needed was Rocky Mountain Motorworks. Even though they subsidized this by charging much higher prices on many items, it still drove them broke. It simply isn't a workable business model, and anyone who tries to do it this year will not be there next year to supply your Bus parts.

When a part is ordered that is not in stock, we jump through hoops to find it for our customer. If we don't have it, we may call 10, 20, 30 different suppliers trying to locate that part. We do this whether the part is $5 or $500. In many cases, it costs me more to find the part than we made on it, but we keep working on it because of our dedication to our customers. If all else fails, we delete it or backorder it, and then make a note to try to find it overseas so we can have it for the next guy. Of course, all you see is that the item you really wanted was backordered. What you don't see is the effort we made to avoid that happening. (This doesn't mean you shouldn't try other vendors at that point, incidentally. Even if a part goes on factory backorder, or obsolete, that doesn't mean another vendor might not still have one sitting on the shelf.)

Why don't we send an email for every part that is backordered? First of all, often it is because we are still trying. We may release your order with the items we do have, while continuing to try another dozen sources for the backordered pieces. Also there are the limitations in our size, manpower, finances, and software. To be frank we just don't have an automated way to do this (again, we don't have the deep pockets of an Amazon.com), and if we were to pull people off of boxing/shipping orders to write an email every time a $2 part was backordered we'd simply never get the orders out the door. There are only a few of us handling all these orders, so we can only do as much as we can. However, if you want to check the status of your order or confirm that it shipped complete, feel free to email Karen and [email protected] and she'll be happy to check your order for you.

As for delivery times, we have always specified to allow 7-10 working days for ground orders on most items. Much of this is time-in-transit, depending on where you live. Some of it is, quite frankly, wiggle room, in case we get bombarded with orders or incoming shipments and run a day or two behind. (Remember, we're a small shop; if two people call in sick on the same day, or two truckloads of parts arrive on the same day, our day is shot,) Usually you will get your order much sooner than the 7-10. But this is what you should allow for, just in case, if you order by ground. If you're in a rush, chooose our Expedited service (next-working-day, second-working-day, third-working-day) instead. Expedited orders go to the front of the line and get processed before all ground orders. We have had floods where our shop was under a foot of water and had no electricity, and we still got the Expedited orders out the door that day. The logic is that if the customer is in enough of a hurry to be willing to pay UPS or FedEx extra to get his parts to him in a hurry, we owe it to him to be in a hurry too.

As for a couple of other comments in this thread, I have to say that some are just not completely accurate. For example, we never charge for a backordered item until it ships. If you didn't get it, you didn't pay for it. The only common exception is where a customer mailed a money order rather than using a credit card, so we can't change the billed amount (in which case we either leave it on backorder or refund the amount). Similarly, we don't charge extra shipping to send backorders when they come in. We absorb that cost, even though we lose money in the process. Finally, another poster in this thread who says his order was late actually needs to direct his beef to the post office; we shipped his order on time, 9 days ago, as the email he received indicated.

Anyway, my apologies for the long-winded reply. If anyone has bothered to read all this gibberish, I hope that if nothing else I have made my case that a lot of care goes into what we do. Not that we're perfect and don't royally f**k up an order now and then, but when we do, we do our best to make things right, and it's never for lack of caring. Also, I am always very interested in your comments, suggestions, or complaints, and read every one. Please put my name in the subject header and direct them to [email protected] . I want the Bus Depot to be the best Bus parts supplier it can be, and you will always have my ear.
_________________
- Ron Salmon
The Bus Depot
www.busdepot.com

[Duncwarw]

First, I live in a state next door to BD's.

I got a small order the other day overnight. I have had the opposite experience also and have never understood just what it is that makes the speed difference from one order to the next.

If you read the fine print when ordering online from BD, it says something like 4 - 10 days to ship. Then you can add the transport time to that. After reading that, I called instead of ordering online and asked about shipping time.

The lady I spoke to said their normal time is, as stated above, 4 - 10 so I paid for the next level of shipping and the stuff arrived the next day.

Hopefully, BD will explain. I think they provide a good service at a fair price.
_________________
“To find yourself, think for yourself”
Socrates, 470 BC - 399 BC

[Karl]

I have to agree with BD. I have a very hard time finding good used parts to replace the ones I sell. The source and supply is drying up faster than you can imagine. Kind of like split buses, 10-15 years ago you could pick n choose and disregard the ones that had a lot of rust or needed a lot of work. Now those are the only choice at the low end with $99000 buses at the other end.

I try to sell [give away!!] the best quality used parts I can find, but lately I cannot replace it after it's gone. Up to a year or so ago, the 3 big self-serve yards here were crushing an average of 12 buses a month. Today, there is no bays to be found. Even the Vanagons are drying up. Forget split buses, you may see one every 2 years and it is totally gone.

Fortunately, for me it is a hobby.

[appetite]

I have never had any problems at all with BD. In fact, the compnay has gone out of their way to find me the parts I need and have always delivered on time.

Just my experience.

James
_________________
76 Hardtop Westy
74 Super Beetle
(rust buckets)
69 Westy
(rust free!)

[VDubTech]

I have to agree with everything Ron says....I had a problem with an order a while back and once he was made aware of it, he fixed the situation personally. I was ready to go elsewhere for my Bus needs (which are many) but thanks to Ron's dedication and service, he had kept me as a customer.
I also have to say that ccertain items which are not in stock in PA are kind of disappointing. I was ready to buy a new 2.0 longblock for my Bus, had my core all ready to go and planned to drive there, exchange motors, and drive back home. Nice little day trip in the Bus from Syracuse. Wrong..the engines get drop shipped out of California, which means I still pay to ship the engine here and ship my core back and wait while someone assesses the rebuildability of my core. Now you may not sell a 2.0 Bus motor everyday, but I would think keeping one in stock for a drive in customer wouldn't be out of line. Another product I planned to buy was a new nose panel for my '79. Price was good at Bus Depot, so I called and asked if I Could drive there and pick itup. Nom they don't have them in stock, they are drop shipped from CA. To me, one of the things that makes the Bus Depot great is the fact that they are on the east coast. I am not held hostage by companies and products from the West coast. With the items I mentioned, there is no longer an incentive to get it from the Bus Depot, since it will be coming from the same side of the country if I ordered from CIP1 or any one of the other suppliers to our hobby. I'd love to drive to PA and pick up a new nose assembly for my Bus...lord knows in this section of the country there are enough of them out there that need to be replaced. Guess I will look for a good used nose, cause I don't plan to pay shipping charges from the west coast for a nose.
That's really my only complaint with BusDepot at this point, that I'm not able to drive there and pick up certain items because they are shipped from the west coast. Otherwise my parts have always arrived in a timely manner and most of the time have what I ordered in them. I even ordered a few things from the Garage Sale Ron had a few months back. Thanks for everything you do Ron, we certainly appreciate your hard work and dedication. If I lived anywhere close to Perkiomenville, I would be at your door looking for an application.
_________________
First Trip in the RustyBus:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=279077&highlight=

[Busdepot]

[VDubTech]

I understand that you can't keep everything in stock at all times, but are you saying that the majority of your business comes from the west coast? I understand it doesn't make sense to ship an engine to PA only to ship it back out, but wouldn't it also make sense to keep one in stock for us east coasters? If someone from the west coast ordered one, that would be the time to drop ship. It would just be nice to be able to get some of this stuff from the Bus Depot without having it shipped from out west somewhere. I ended up buying my engine from a guy in Michigan because I didn't have to have it shipped from the west coast. Cost me less than $100 to ship the longblock to the dealership I work at. I planned to make that purchase at the Bus Depot, but when I called and was told it would be shipped from CA anyway, I decided to go another route. Same story with my front panel I need, I will find one on this coast somewhere...it's just too bad I can't drive down to PA and pick it up.
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First Trip in the RustyBus:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=279077&highlight=

[Busdepot]

[metropoj]

Guess I've been lucky as hell. I ask them if they have it in their hands before I place the order. All through email, before I place the order.Don't rely that the part that is not in stock for the last year will still be the same price / quality / etc

CIP1 : no issues. Well one, my rims came and weren't packed very well and a few minor chips, they paid to get me touch up paint or ship them back. Nice ....

CIP1 has even gone into their warehouse and looked at the part, the make, the casting, etc and made sure it was what I liked.

You build a relationship, it'll take you further with the company than not trying to 'help them help themselves' .....


German Supply, no problems. yeah some of the stuff was quoted at a different price than when I originally asked them for a part ( like months before ) but I never confirmed an order for one at that price and Scott had to get it from his source. I have no issue with that

Aircooled.net, no problems. Talk first about the part over email , then once satisfied that is was in stock and priced accordingly, placed my order ....

eBay : no problems either. Sometimes you just gotta use em ... The Samba, no problems either ....

I think it's how to go about ordering your stuff and how you deal with them when something goes wrong that will determine the outcome ...

Again no excuse for shipping a golf Clutch over a Vanagon, but if you're lacing into someone about the call, they may not always be willing to be kind in return.

I read about a guy who got something from CIP1 and just tore them a new hole, threatening to report them to Business bureau, because he got a wrong part, F-off .... CIP chose not to deal with him any more after the long winded incident. I don't blame them .......

[EdW]

[Mr Blotto]

Yes, I have been upset a few times with BD because of customer service issues (not entirely friendly / helpfull on the phone, not the best communication), however, given the prices, quality of parts, and Ron's effort with keeping our Bus's alive and having such an informative website, I will continue to give him my business.

Two weeks ago I ordered a few oil filters from BD. They arrived dented. I called, and in three days, two replacement filters were at my door - no questions, no paperwork, it was great!!!
_________________
1978 Westfalia Camper - 2.0 FI - Sage Green with 103,000 miles (original engine - no rebuilds).

SEE THE UGLY BEAST BEFORE!!! www.frappr.com/sambabaywindowforum/photo/380133

AND AFTER http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/285472.jpg

[mattcuddy]

[deschutestrout]

A recoil and apology to Ron. After reading Ron's post and several emails to/from him personally, we have determined without a doubt that the current shipment I'm waiting for is, in fact, at the mercy of the US Postal Service. It was shipped by BD 10 days ago and the postal service apparently "misrouted" it...or, it was a small box, maybe they were using it in a game of broom hockey and it got stuck under some shelving?? At any rate, my delayed delivery is not the fault of Bus Depot, but the postal service. Ron has been very accommodating in trying to get to the bottom of this "missing" shipment. He made it exceedingly clear to me that he cares greatly about his customers and the reputation of his business, and the quality of service they provide. Thanks Ron, I'll continue to order components from you.
_________________
'71 bug, answers to "Clementine"
'75 7 passenger bus called "Kombi"
'78 7 passenger sunroof bus, goes by "Gus"
'78 Westy "'Ole Red...The Happy Camper"
'78 Westy "The Big Turd"