Is Fcp Losing It

[Matty Moo]

I always chuckle when the fcp threads come up.

If you buy the ghetto ice cream from the ice cream man, you don't throw rocks at his truck the next time he rolls through.. You didn't have to get the ghetto ice cream, you could have scored something better or even waited until Thursday for the Schwans man to come by. But you bought the cheapest ice cream and you want to bitch about how shitty it tasted.

I haven't had any problems with them or any of the parts I've bought from them. As somebody else said, they're the only joint that makes any attempt to maintain a relationship with the community. I don't see tasca, eeuroparts, dwv or anybody else supporting VS by participating AND paying vendor fees. They don't have to do that ya know.

[Piston Slapper]

Yes - working on that now. OEM brand/OEM Supplier to us means that it's the same manufacturer that supplies it to Volvo

For instance we would call an Aisin Water Pump or Aisin Timing Belt hydraulic tensioner OEM Brand/OEM Supplier. We will work on changing this to reflect what the actual brand is. We have also seen circumstances where we will receive a shipment from Lemforder and they have a Corteco engine mount inside the Lemforder box. As you know it's not always cut and dry who the OEM supplier is and it will change from part to part, With the example mentioned here, sometimes even the OEM suppliers have alternatives in the box.

I used to work in a NAPA auto parts store about two years ago, and I would constantly see things made by company A put in company B's box from the warehouse. Sometimes this even included products with OEM labels which had been binned for not meeting the OEM's QA standards. This included coilpacks for our cars. When something doesn't meet one QA standard, often it will not be thrown out or recycled, but moved into the bargain bin. Also, when company A is short on something, they will buy it from company B and put it in their boxes, as was stated above.

I am not trying to say this is always the case, but it does happen. And honestly, I don't expect a retailer, brick and mortar or online, to open every single box they receive from their suppliers and check all the markings on each product. That's ridiculous to expect from anyone but the Rolls Royce parts department.

[Burn-E]

From FCP Groton? Why??? I want the Blue Box, but guess what... it is cheaper to buy the PCV kit from TASCA - with 20%

Your logic is broken buddy. He's not doing this for you, he's not engaging with VS for us... he's doing it for himself, for his company and his own profit !!!

Alden captured what I was trying to say here though Matt probably put it in one of the more hilariously colorful metaphors I've read in a while. There are many reasons to do business with a company:

1. Cheapest prices available
   
2. Highest quality products available
   
3. Good customer service - including a willingness to answer an email or pick up the phone and not bury you in technobot hell.
   
4. Flexibility on product offerings to support multiple tiers of customer (young and cheap, young and seeking only the best quality, etc)
   
5. An open ear and willingness to engage with the community it supports
   

It's rare to find a company that does all of these well simply because it's operationally an enormous challenge to accomplish. However you look at it, FCP is doing a pretty good job on all of these. They're not as cheap as some, they're not perfect on customer service, and their website may not yet be perfect. But they're working on it. Maybe not as fast as we would like, but they are working on it.

You CAN go to Tasca or some of the other online retailers out there for cheap blue box but don't expect to get them to immediately pick up the phone for you or offer quick responses to your emails. Don't expect them to offer a detailed listing of the sources of the parts they're sending to you and allow you to make a choice between them. And especially don't expect them to pull together DIY videos that enable you as a shade tree mechanic to tackle a seemingly difficult job with ease. Or pay a sizable vendors fee each year to support your favorite auto forum.

I like FCP Groton, I like Tasca, and I like IPD. I love Volvo of Oak Park because they have the best damn website available when it comes to figuring out exactly what parts I need with diagrams and part numbers. But I use and buy from each of them differently depending upon my needs. So rather than complaining, we should be glad there are a large variety of vendors available to support our cars. But we should also make our expectations clear to them based on their business model - whatever the model is, they should excel at it or else we probably won't buy from them.

And if you don't like one of them - tell us why and then go buy somewhere else. But to just come on here and rail on FCP Groton simply because they're not the cheapest vendor available - well that simply means you don't understand their business model. Because customer service costs and so do all the other efforts they're making to help out the shade tree mechanic.

[troyhyde]

For clarification.....

As far as my OEM beef, I am referring to situations like the following.... if you order what is listed as the OEM intake manifold gasket and throttle body gasket from FCP (car is an 850), you don't get anything like the Original Equipment AKA Volvo parts. The intake manifold gasket you sell is a wire-mesh/black gasket material, whereas the Original Equipment Volvo part is a thick blue or tan chemically-impregnated paper thingy. It stands out in my mind because I've had a few of the wire-mesh ones leak! Haven't had the problem with the Volvo ones. The wire mesh type are extremely easy to kink / crease when installing the manifold and (especially) on a turbo car they can leak forevermore. I don't recall ever pulling one of these wire-mesh jobs off of a car so I question if it is indeed Original Equipment. Maybe the company that makes it made something else for Volvo, but I don't think they made this part.

Ditto the OEM listed throttle gasket. The Volvo Original Equipment is a chemically impregnated (blue-green?) gasket which is about twice the thickness of the "OEM FCP" gasket which is plain looking black paper.

Hey, maybe i'm crazy, or maybe these parts have changed somehow from the last time I bought some, but if you hold the two parts in question in your hands and compare with the Volvo stuff, they don't look anything alike except for shape.

A quick glance at RMEuropean shows similar offerings and they don't notate them being Original Equipment. The reason I am bitching or splitting hairs is because I've had problems with these parts. Leaks, failures, what have you.

.....as for the ice cream truck, I've never seen anything but a ghetto ice cream truck.

[Burn-E]

Hey, maybe i'm crazy, or maybe these parts have changed somehow from the last time I bought some, but if you hold the two parts in question in your hands and compare with the Volvo stuff, they don't look anything alike except for shape.

A quick glance at RMEuropean shows similar offerings and they don't notate them being Original Equipment. The reason I am bitching or splitting hairs is because I've had problems with these parts. Leaks, failures, what have you.

I wasn't going after you Troy - it's a legitimate question and the sort of thing that should be called out.

[Dick Dastardly]

emailed Scott..he is sending an OE PCV upper hose..No charge.

I have been annoyed in the past and I have also pointed out when they have done good. my last 2 orders have been handled very well and this is another good thing.

I will continue to give them business..

The free shipping is slow..but the upgrade is not really that expensive and it gets to me in 2 days

[TinoT5]

I'm hoping now after reading thru this thread that I dont have any issues, I just ordered, Tbelt/pump/rollers etc for my car today...

[NGB]

Bravo on the speed at which you make changes when the heat is applied via the community.

It's too bad that one customer's emails, phone calls, and complaints are not enough to get them to make changes...or even fix their mistakes!

[Burn-E]

You're right, but then, you're also wrong.

If you've never worked directly with a CEO of a mid-sized business ($5 to $50 million in revenues) then you'd be surprised at how hard it is to keep a finger on all aspects of the business every day. Unlike the one or two man business, Scott cannot be everywhere. He does have people in place who should be focused on this, but even they may not realize there is an issue unless they are tightly focused on gathering details on a weekly or monthly basis for failed transactions, identifying the root cause, categorizing them and then putting in place the necessary fixes to avoid those failures in the future (which if they're not doing, I would highly recommend they do). It's very easy to get caught up in the daily grind of building and sending the orders and answering the phones and managing inventory and dealing with the minutiae.

I spent 3 years working alongside the CEO of a well known software company in its early years doing exactly this sort of thing during this stage of their growth. I was his additional set of eyes and ears and his smoke jumper to dive in and solve nasty customer issues and recommend changes within the business. You probably cannot imagine the flood of challenges that persist in maintaining the existing business while trying to think strategically about the future.

FCP Groton is a $~12 million company with ~50 employees. They've experienced significant growth in the last 3 years. What you're seeing is those growing pains. Whether or not they will be successful in sustaining their new growth is dependent on how well they overhaul their operations to become more efficient while maintaining the same level of customer focus they've historically been known for.

Unfortunately it often takes a trend of a few issues in order to realize you have a problem. Many of us have experienced the pain of these growing pains and they clearly have an order checking issue and they also need to improve the quality of the products they're delivering. Scott has committed to work at this. Hopefully our suggestions help improve the directional focus of those changes.

[MattyXXL]

^^^ Spot on.....

Another thing nobody seems to mention, is that it is impossible to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Someone is always going to have a problem, somebody is always going to have a complaint..

When your customer base triples over a 3 year period, Its not that easy to keep the same customer service..

[Honeyman]

^^ Yup, well said...

Even our company of twelve employees and a few Independent Contractors can be unwieldy to navigate (like a battleship) and we're a quarter of the size of them. As long as your public sees you kicking and scratching to deal with the issues that come up, you're good. And it seems to me that in light of this thread, they are doing so. Although probably a pain for FCP, it is cool in this day and age to have such instant feedback through forums to keep a pulse on ther business' most important asset-their customers.

[BlackT5]

Being in Canada, the thing I liked most about FCP was their shipping. Having ordered so many parts from the states for my build a few years ago, there seemed to be no consistancy with regards to duties/taxes owing. Sometimes I would owe $100, sometimes nothing. I can only attribute it to how the paperwork was filled out on their end.

FCP was different. They used UPS World Ease and no matter if I ordered a heater core or a full set of brakes, there would be $0.00 owing upon delivery.

They have recently discontinued using the World Ease program. When I ordered a wheel bearing and some oil cap gaskets a few weeks ago, it came USPS/Canada Post, which was fine because the time frame was very similar and once again, there was nothing owing on the package dispite being declared at full value. Last week I ordered a second wheel bearing which came today, but I have $30 owing.

My concern is that the paperwork on their end was filled out differently by a different person and that depending on who fills the order will determine weather or not I end up owing on my end. While $30 is not the end of the world, I would be worried to order a larger/more expensive item not knowing if i'm going to pay out the ass when it gets here.

[Pops Racer]

I always chuckle when the fcp threads come up.

If you buy the ghetto ice cream from the ice cream man, you don't throw rocks at his truck the next time he rolls through.. You didn't have to get the ghetto ice cream, you could have scored something better or even waited until Thursday for the Schwans man to come by. But you bought the cheapest ice cream and you want to bitch about how shitty it tasted.

I haven't had any problems with them or any of the parts I've bought from them. As somebody else said, they're the only joint that makes any attempt to maintain a relationship with the community. I don't see tasca, eeuroparts, dwv or anybody else supporting VS by participating AND paying vendor fees. They don't have to do that ya know.

My original beef is not that I bought ghetto ice cream from a ghetto truck and was pissed about it. Its that I got Ghetto ice cream from a Schwann's container. I am well aware the options of scan tech versus lemforder at FCP. I know about rolling the dice with aftermarket seals and bushings. I havbe bought so much shit from FCP it makes my head spin thinking about it. I have to pay sales tax and yet I'm still a top 500 buyer. I chose and paid for Meyle it said Meyle on the pick sheet and the invoice, and I got a brand I had never heard of, HLC, from Taiwan.

It's about the staff mistakes. I simply think they have too much going on, and need to symplify operations. I got a couple of other issues I ironed out wiht FCP thru phone and Email no one knows about but me and FCP. ONly one was quality of part related.

I did not wish this to be a piling on thread. Matty is right about FCP. You have to take some responsibilty in knowing the quality of the part you purchase. And I have gotten great tech support from FCP.

If you read my orignal post, some of my frustration was the timing of the mistake.

[Scootdiggity]

Honestly FCP groton has not been really that present on here, the only time I see them come on here is whenever somebody is saying their business practices are complete crap to which they come on here and defend with their same b.s. growing pains excuses or new product launches/promos. This is the first time in a long time that I have even seen scott come on here as it is usally one of their clerks. I was promised by several of their employees two years ago that they would replace my oxygen sensor when I bought a bosch and got a walker unit instead, I would have never known this unless I examined closely after my car kept throwing codes after replacement. They kept giving me excuses left and right saying the return shipping label would be sent and I still have that oxygen sensor hanging up on my wall till this day to remind me what a poor business they are because they never made it right. Sure dw and tasca do not come on here as matty said but then again I have not had one single problem with recieving what I paid for as I have had with groton on numerous occasions, so I will take the trade off anyday because groton coming on here every now and then does not give them a pass to pull the old bait and switch and give numerous excuses to why the problem happened rather than making the issue right or stringing people along as they did to me. The bigger question is if this was one person calling in to them with in issue rather than a whole community would the end result be the same? I feel it would not after hearing others experience about being strung along. If it takes a whole community for people to get their issue resolved does not say much about a company because individually they were not willing to make things right with others until the communtiy got involved.

[JRL]

Note to FCP

Newsflash, STOP SELLING THE CHINESE CRAP and in the long run you will be ahead of the game