I've been contacted by a few people. some of them have some of the parts, some of them dont' seem like they want to go through the trouble of selling it.
My question is, Would you trust them to provide you w/ a GOOD/DECENT T-56 conversion kit? Or should I just hold out and wait for someone who is selling one? It's 1500 bux, so that is why I'm pretty shaky on letting them have it, w/ all the negative feed backs i see.
Would you trust them to provide a decent kit w/ all the parts that I will need?

 

check

http://store.yahoo.com/speedautomotive/

they've got the same price and a good reputation behind them.

-Pat

 

I might be going w/ them then. I emailed them... so i'll know for sure when they respond.

 

NO they don't !!

 

Damn it. now what. I have conflicting stories... and I'd like to get the full T56 conversion soon.
What's a man to do?
On the side note, speedautomotive.com seems to at least clean their stuff before they send it. well... they at least cleaned up their stuff for the pictures.

 

I got the T56 kit from speed auto. shipped to my door for 1500.00 and I didn't have any problems. Talk to Scott he is a very nice guy and will help you out. It is sometimes hard to get ahold of them on the phone, but keep trying.

 

Any details on this?

 

Yes, any details on that? I would also like to know, to those who have bought it from them, what else did you need to make it work? Did the X-member they supply work or did you have to buy one from say Spohn or Skulte? $1500 shipped sounds like a hell of a deal. How was the clutch and trans? Any problems with them as of right now? Thanks for any help!

 

Their place sucks.
First before I ordered I had communicated with Scott through email back and forth. He would answer right away. So I thought they must have great service. So when I was ready I called and ordered a 4thgen dash and console from them back in NOV. 2002. Scott, always sounding nice, assured me it would be sent out that same week. Got the dash a few weeks later. First of all, it was a gray dash painted black. I called about this and Scott said GM painted them because black was an option on 4thgens. On top of that there were pieces missing. Also the dash was damaged by UPS so he told me to send it back right away and a claim was filed. (I talked to some other more reliable places that sell 4thgen parts and NONE of them backed up Scotts claim of dashes being painted.)

Console came in in mid Jan. after he KEPT telling me on the phone that it would be sent out the next day. About 4 times.

So a claim was filed with UPS and they picked up the dash and redelivered it to Scott for inspection. Thats where my UPS tracking number ends. He claims that they repicked it up from him and would settle the claim. The tracking number only shows it going back to his place and not being picked back up by UPS, but Scott claims they did pick it back up.
UPS claims are supposed to be settled in 5 days. I being the buyer was not allowed to check with UPS on the claim status or if Scott or Speed Auto ever continued on with the claim.


I would call every week to check on the dash . Scott always had some excuse like He hasn't heard back from Ups. or he has been out of town and he hasn't had a chance to see what is going on. Or Sometimes when I would call it would say my number has been blocked. AT the end of Jan. He finally said he had a new dash just come in and would send it out in 2 days. Waited a week nothing. kept calling back for the dash or my money back. Oh we have been busy, we do have the dash and It will go out on wednesday. I went through this every week till mid the end of April. Then he finally admitted the replacement dash he was supposed to send 8 times, was the wrong color. I asked why he kept telling me that he would send it out for the last few months, and he wouldn't answer. He then Finally said he would call ups and he would get me a new dash from GM. I called the next day and he said Ups SAid it would be another 3-4 weeks.

Last month we called and demanded the money back right away. since I had bought a few things from them and paid for trhem all together, I had only sent the dash back, so they tried to screw me on the amount they would refund me. Luckily I had saved the email from back in OCT. from a breakdown of the prices. Took them 2 1/2 weeks to refund it back to my card.

So this went on for six months.


Besides calling every two weeks I would email them. I NEVER once got a return email. ( Yet when I was interested in buying back in Sept and Oct. They returend every email same day sometimes.)
Also NEVER once did they call me. Eventhough I would continully ask to be called for updates. It was always ME initiating the communication.


I am not the only one that has had a problem with them. These exact same things have happened to others. Most of these other people never even returned a part, it was simply never sent out in the first place YET. And when they would call they were fed every excuse and one even yelled at that I remember.
I have read and heard numerous times stories like what happened to me where Speed auto would quiclky return email before you buy but after would not return a single one. and Peoples phone numbers being blocked like mine was and allt he other problems I had.

Check out places like camaroz28.com and other 4thgen and even hotrod sites and do a search and you will find stories like mine.


One thing I noticed was that up until Christmas they had very little to no complaints. This is evident by the date of the posts on other boards and the # of complaints on ebay about them on their old name f-bodyparts since Christmas. Them in march they for some odd reason switched to their ebay name that had registered for the last few years but never used until March speedautomotive. They also switched their website to an Yahoo store around that time.

Lately they have kept the Ebay complaints to a minimum but the complaints from their nonebay sales still roll in.


Stay with one of our better sponsors here on this board or a place like http://www.tacreationsusa.com/ for parts

 

Man, that sounds like a huge run around! For over five years while i have been in high school and now college, i have worked in retail (unfourtunately), and from my experience, i can tell you that these things happen! With such a huge volume of customers to the low volume of workers, these mistakes can happen. The only difference between the place that "takes/holds" your money and the place that fixes things right the first time, is the way and time manner in which they do it. Sometimes this can not happen the way everyone wants it too. Certain people have different expectations as compared to the other guy. Sounds like this is just exactly what happened to you. It is a shame and people really should make good on their word, especially if they own a business. Now, i would just like to know the quality of the parts that were delivered and how well they have held up. No offense john5.7, but it is my right to "deal" with a company if i so wish to do. Thanks for the heads up though. Trust me, i have had my fair share of bullsh-it with some companies before. It comes with the territory while trying to buy parts for your ride! Better luck next time i guess. So, anyone else want to add to this? Later

 

Some of them are electrical and I haven't istalled yet so I can't answer on those. But between the parts I was missing, the dirty rust stained console with a mismatched lid, the painted dash which may/not have been damaged by ups, and melted guage lens, I would say over all it sucked.

Again I say try to deal with a MUCH MUCH better company. Things like this shouldn't happen more than once or twice every once in a while. But when the same things are happening to many people over and over again in a pretty short time then there is obviously something wrong that company. People should be aware of crap like that and later if it happens to them, then I say I told you so. I'm finally done dealing with them so please do what you like.

 

I also had a bad and still unsettled experience with speedautomotive. I ordered a T-56 kit from them from what was supposed to be a 50,000 mile 95 firebird. After a 2-month wait of "we are tearing it apart now" or "it should be shipping next week", it finally arrived. What I recieved was a 93 model year T56 (not the .5 6th gear) with hydrualics that didn't work and what turned out to be a flexplate for a 383. I decided I like the gearing of the 1993 unit better so I didn't fuss about it. But I had to spend another $120 for new hydraulics (not a bad idea anyways) and had a bad vibration problem that I couldn't seem to sort out...wasn't the pilot bearing, wasn't my install.....hmm, what could it be....Gee how about the wrong freakin' flywheel since I have a 350!!

I finally determined it had to be the flywheel so I brough it down to a friends shop and compared it to another T56 flywheel which showed considerable difference that I had no way to know of otherwise. So I bought a used T56 flywheel and had to get it surfaced again. The day after I finally got it running scott calls me and says they gave me the wrong flexplate. He agrees that he'll refund me the cost of the flywheel I purchased, the resurfacing fee, and the cost of shipping the 383 flywheel back. So I send the custom 383 flywheel back.

I have called over a dozen times to get my refund and scott always blames someone else for the mixup and says he'll take care of it but I still have yet to receive my money back. @ssholes. It's been 1.5 years.