Hey all-

Wanted to share with the forum an experience that I've had with Skip White Performance. I ordered a 383 short block kit with a set of their NKB heads and other components to build for my 69 Camaro. Ordered the block and had them assemble it Dec 8th of last year. They did a really good job with getting it done quickly and professionally, and it shipped out on Jan 4th. I was shown a picture of the parts on a pallet prior to them being banded up and shipped out.

I received the pallet around 3 weeks later, while at the same time having a death in my family. I saw the the pallet was shrink wrapped with plastic and banded and assumed everything was OK, but didn't have time to unpack the contents until this past weekend due to being out of town to attend the funeral and deal with estate matters.

After unpacking the pallet I discovered that there were missing parts, one of the cylinder heads, a flywheel and harmonic balancer and head gaskets. I thought that this was odd since the pallet was shrink wrapped. I emailed Skip White performance and told them what I had found, and the response was "why did you wait so long to let us know that there were missing items"? and also with "I will call you back later this morning".

Well, no phone call from them, I have called them numerous times for the last 2 days and have left messages to call me back. I have also emailed several times and have not gotten any response. I paid in full up front in good faith to have the engine built and the parts shipped to me. But now don't have all of the parts and they refuse to communicate with me to resolve the issue. I'm very angry and frustrated and would not recommend that anyone here on the forum do business with them. They will take your money all day long but after that your on your own.

After looking at the Better Business Bureau website I found that they have had 7 complaints within the last 12 months, not a good record in my mind. How much effort does it take to make a customer happy with just a phone call or email to resolve an issue?

 

Not having clear communication with you is a sign of a problem and is not excusable from any customer focused vendor.. I am not a lawyer but if Skip White put everything on the pallet took the pic and removed items from the pallet I would think this would be considered theft by deception and with the value you are talking it would be a felony. If they did not take a pic they could claim it was a miss communication and it would 100% a civil matter, also known you have to sue him no cops involved. It makes one think, why would he give you proof of a felony. I guess he could be that dumb.

Now the bad new. You had an obligation to inspect what arrived ASAP for damage or theft. I have dealt a lot with shipping companies. If you sign for it you got it. I had a package show up one time after hours, My second shift did not understand what it meant to sign for a package. He just signed for it. The crate was damaged and some stuff was missing. I called the vendor and explained what happened. Even though my company spent over 100k with this vendor in that year they said once it was signed for they could not file a claim with shippers insurance and this was all on the guy that signed for it.

If Skip White did try to rip you and the items on the packing list did not match what was on the pallet and you caught it and complained then it becomes a battle between Skip and the shippers insurance. I would be willing to bet at that point you would find out the driver did take pictures of the pallet. The point I am trying to make is there is a lot of ways to rip off a customer, sending a packing list and a pallet full of parts that do not match is a very bad way to do it with a high chance of it ending up in a court battle.

The fact the pallet was shrink wrapped is not going to mean much since all shippers have the ability to re-shrink wrap pallets.

With the parts that are being shipped I would say there is a very good change someone at the shipper saw something they wanted or someone damaged the pallet with a folk lift or a drop and there was no way to hide the damage so they removed everything that was damaged and re-heat shrank it and hoped no one noticed until too late. I have seen stories of shippers "loosing" numbers matching built motors only for the owner to find them on ebay 2 weeks later. I have seen Shippers repair damaged crates with no concern of what was inside. I have seen drives tell dock workers, "Oh that how it was shipped" when it was obviously damaged in shipping. My favorite was "just sign to say you received it and call tomorrow and let the vendor know there is an issue". Most people think a shipper would not do this but the repaired crate was a 150k machine and it cost about 7K to repair the damage and neither the vendor or the insurance company was surprised they tried to hide it.

So did this guy try to rip you off, maybe but there is almost no way to prove it unless you could get them to admit they owe you the parts.

 

Thanks Gorn,

Just an update on this. I've got through to Skip and have resolved the problems that I talked about. New replacement parts are on the way and all's good now. It seems that they are very busy, but do want to make things right. As a side note, the block is really well machined and put together, and the heads are really good quality.

 

Glad to hear it is sorted, so it was either a mistake during a busy time in a shipping department or a shipper issue. Honestly that can and does happen to all companies. Sounds like Skip just needs to work on his complaint process. At the company I work for now we have a self imposed 4 hour return call requirement . That is just a call that says we got your info and the problem will be looked into and we supply a complaint number. Then we shoot for 2 days to figure out a plan and time line on how to fix the issue. The owner himself reviews that complaint log weekly in a meeting if either the 4 hours or 2 day steps are late we need to give him a reason.