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Good morning all from a wet and windy West of Ireland,

Regarding Max Merritt, once again I will state the my Packard would languish, suffering an ignominious fate, in a shed if it were not for Max Merritt Inc., Fred and in particular JD.

When I acquired my Packard I was totally ignorant as to how to go about obtaining parts and the knowledge to restore it. Fate decreed that JD answered my telephone call to Max Merritt Inc and the rest is history.

One thing that really impresses me about JD is his honesty. If he does not know the answer to some question he will say so, there is no waffling. But one thing is certain though, he will find out and have an answer to my question within the hour.

You can take my word for it as to how comforting it is to know I have access to such service. This combined with the excellent forum such as this one gives me confidence to take weddings bookings for my Packard into 2011 and beyond!

Slan go foill,

Pat Feeney,
Galway,
Ireland.

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Let's remember these are OLD cars and in many cases NOS parts are long gone and we will have to sometimes accept repro or otherwise non-original parts which don't match the quality of the original parts. As long as they're advertised as such, that's OK as far as I'm concerned. Actually we should be happy that the Packard fraternity has the terrific vendor base that it does, despite these occasional disappointments. In some ways the support base for Packards may be better than it was when they were a going concern.

But sooner or later, in nearly any business, a transaction will occur where the purchaser is displeased and the vendor not prepared to respond as the buyer wishes. Thus they will all, sooner or later, get their turn in the fish bowl.

I am going to weigh in as a sympathetic voice for JD & Fred.

I am a manager for the largest 1958-66 Thunderbird Parts supplier in the Pacific Northwest. I was a customer for my employer for years before I was hired 10 years ago. I feel that JD & Fred deserve alot of the kind words I have seen here. Let me run through the average day of a classic car parts company employee:

The first few calls of the day are people wanting to know where their stuff is. (Especially Monday mornings) They don't take into consideration you are located half way across the country and coast to coast shipping is 5 business days. They expect their parts to show up the day after ordering but don't want to pay any extra shipping costs for next day delivery.

The next 37 calls are mixed with a ratio of:

"I just have a question"-which means they have never ordered from you, but want to know the answer so they can go buy the part they saw on Ebay that they had the question about or sell the one they have and wanted to know what it was worth.

"could I pick your brain for a minute"-usually involves a 45 minute Q & A session because the customer is too cheap to buy a shop manual.

"I see your prices are higher than everyone else. Will you price match another vendor/ebay auction?"-The customer doesn't consider that the higher priced parts are usually of better quality and we cannot price match parts that are cheap and usually of very poor reproduction quality. They usually don't purchase after telling us we are crazy to ask so much for such a little part.

"How much is my car worth?"- Its about as easy to do a car appraisal over the phone as it is to paint a house over the internet. After telling the customer we can't do that without seeing the car, that question is follwed up with "just a ballpark figure" or "just in general how much?".

"can you fax me a schematic of (fill in the blank)-Which we do happily, to help the person out. When they get the schematic, they call back and you have to decipher it for them. Than you have to tell them how to get part A to seperate from part B. Then you must determine through their answers if you should send them to a mechanic, or let them try to do this themselves without killing themselves or others. If they answer "Can't I just tie the coil springs up real tight and not use the spring collapser?" is a give away answer.

"You sent me the wrong stuff"- (My personal favorite) This customer begins with a lecturing tone mixed with hot air and hours of frustration. After telling you how incompetent you are and how they have been working on this particular kind of car before I was even born they tell me their problem. "These lower ball joints don't fit". After telling them that one is stamped LEFT and the other RIGHT and to try and install them on the appropriate control arm there is a long silence on the line........"Thanks"..click. Within days the same customer (we usually know exactly who you are) calls up to order more parts acting as if they didn't call you every degrating term they could just days earlier.

"I'm a shop, and your customer (fill in the name) brought his car to us said we could call you for some tech help. We've never worked on a car like this before. Can you tell us how to fix the (pick any mechanical part).- Great. They get paid to fix the car, they use all my knowledge and faxed over schematics, and this shop gets praised on a placard sign at an auto show.

The rest of the day filled with orders,fixing orders that the shipping department screwed up, calling customers back with credit cards that don't have enough credit on them, fighting with suppliers that try to pawn off some horrible reproduction onto us, reproducers that jack prices up, UPS shipping damage,foreign customers that beg you to fill out phoney customs documents to save them on brokerage & customs fees (which I will not do),Will Call customers (which I love because its nice to meet the nice folks who you've talked to for years) and digging for used parts for people who described them to you as "that thing that hits the end of the one thing that latches the door".

You know the one call most parts guys never get?

"Hi! I'm calling to tell you I got my stuff, and it was great! I really appreciate you getting it here so fast! Thanks for all the hours you spent on the phone with me (or my restoration shop) over the years. The car looks great! Your knowledge is priceless!"

Think about that the next time you call a vendor. Most go above and beyond just taking your order, throwing the parts in a box and sending it out the door. And no, you aren't the only person they've helped today. Its more like 15-20.

Here is a trophy to the nameless Parts guy over the phone. Its the only recognition you'll get.

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Very well said. Any of us guilty of one of those kind of phone calls?

Good evening all,

I must set aside my bashful self here and say that I always ring the supplier back if I get good service. Being in business myself I know how nice and encouraging it is to receive calls from happy customers!

The point has been made already that we must not forget we are lucky to have people who do stock, collect and manufacture parts for our cars as well as being a store-house of knowledge.

Credit due to those who deserve credit!

Pat.

And yes, I have a proper hood mascot on order!

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Don,
Aw man, you left the price tag on the trophy!!!!!!
John

Don,

Very well said. People are always quick and willing to criticize, but the same cannot be said when praise is due. There is a sense of entitlement that a lot of folks have that really drives me nuts. I hate it when people treat service folks shoddy, and yet never have a good word to say when the person goes over the call of duty for them. This applies to customer service folks from the vendors, all the way to severs at a restaurant.

I travel a lot for business, so I stand in lots of lines at airport. A long line brings out the worst in most people. I cant tell you how many times I have been behind some idiot in line berating the poor lady at the ticket counter because she can't do what they demand (even thought he was the one late to check-in). So they think getting louder and nastier will make it better for them. Do they not realize that they are probably the 100th jerk today that has been standing there today who thinks the world revolves around them! Then I get up, and be sweet as pie to her, ask her how she is doing, ask her how her day is going and treat her how you should treat another person, and suddenly she offers me an upgrade out of no-where. Treat people right and with respect and generally they will do the same.

Oops, I left the tag on? I guess it'll be easier to return for something they really want.

I didn't mean to rant and rave like a lunatic, I guess I was having my Howard Beale moment.

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If I hear anyone screaming out their window in my neighborhood I will be really freaked out.

that was freaking awesome!