|
Here is another long and complex story. Some parts are embarrassing but I'll share it all because that is what life is all about, mess up and have your friends laugh at you...
This all started over a year ago when I put new tires on my car. At the time I didn't pay any attention because I assumed that the mechanics working right next to the race track would be pretty competent but the more i think about it the less I am happy. First, they lost one of dust caps. Its not a big deal but I like consistency and it really bothered me having one dust cap different than the rest. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. I took my car into get an oil change at my friends newly opened shop. I mentioned that there was some vibration and asked to get the wheels balanced and aligned. the mechanics at my friends shop discovered that when I got my tires replaced they put the front wheels on the back and back on the front. Then we discovered that the front wheels rims were bent. They probably put them on the back to minimize vibration.
After calling around I found some replacement rims on Taobao (Which is kind of like a Chinese ebay) and had them shipped to me. The replacement rims cost nearly $300 a piece. I though that was pretty high because they are all manufactured in China anyway. When they arrived I was really shocked what I received. They were not the same color, weight or even casting. The stamps on the back of the rims has the same markings but the font and size of the letters were really off. I had no choice but to send them back.
So I was very upset, my car was shaking like crazy at anything over 45mph and my mom was coming in from the US to spend a week with me. I didn't want to be messing around with my car while she was visiting me, and I didn't want to drive her around with my car driving like it was.
Fortunately I have a friend who has a lot of friends in good places. On the day my mom was going to arrive I went to a friend of a friend's shop. He is an aftermarket wheel specialist and he looked at my rims for a few minutes and discovered that one of the rims was bent, but the other one there was a defect with the tire that was making it shake. He took off the damaged wheel, warmed it up and got it back into shape in about an hour. He also found a new tire for the other side and in just a few hours my car was driving better than it had in over a year. Not only that, but he only charged me about $80 to fix the rim. I went from spending over 4000RMB to just about 1700RMB with the rim fix and a new P-Zero. I picked my mom up at the airport, the car drove beautifully and we had a great week together.
I had a lot of hassle up front but buying some obviously fake rims, not noticing that the wheels were put on wrong and worrying on what to do but in the end it worked out really well. The guy who fixed my rim also gave me a brand new matching dust cap so I would have a matching set. Thats another thing I love about China, almost everybody treats you like a life long friend after just meeting you.
|