CHEAP EBAY N POWER MUFFlER FAILURE WARNING TO FORUMITES

[psquire45]

Thanks for all the views guys, getting the word out is working well so far!

my 2 cents.

if youd done a little home work you would've realised that the npower muffler is well lets face it cheap, you get what you pay for. as for trying to return it. try going at your iphone with an angle grinder and then sending it back to apple for a refund or in a more realistic comparison have a non apple tech take it apart and try to fix a fault either way apple isnt going to touch it.

most of the people on here have dealt with npower at one time or another and have drawn their own conclusions about them as a company in my personal experience. i got what i paid for delivered to my door quickly with little fuss and i was very happy with the communication and service i recieved

you had a few complaints about having to cut your seat belt towers etc for the roll bar which im guessing is one of their style bars ? rather than the brown davis. just as a small pointer. your in the car modification hobby now. unless you spend HUGE cash on japanese brand name parts. things will need some tinkering MAJORITY of the time to get to fit and most of the time they dont come with an instruction book. (this isnt a dig its more advice for the future)

i understand that in your opinion you feel like you've been hard done by this company but in all honesty most of the problems here are your own fault ( not researching a product before you bought it, cutting the exhaust up before contacting the company for replacement ) so this attempt to sour the name of the company honestly to me stinks like a child who didnt get his way and is having a tanty about it.

cheers

Paul

[deviant]

1. You might want to take your mobile number out of the original post.

2. I think the seller is being fairly reasonable and is doing what any other shop would do. He offered you a full replacement under warranty, on seeing the item had been tampered with he withdrew the warranty but still offered you store credit. To me that seems reasonable, he could have just said "sorry no refund and no warranty"

3. Lesson learnt I am sure, next time make sure you read the small print before buying anything and if something does go wrong talk to the supplier before doing anything.

I do not think it is fair to try and sour the sellers name because they did not want to replace a cut up muffler.

If I understand things correctly then warranty claims on car parts often come down to what will have contributed to the failure. The gearknob will not have contributed to a failure but the paddle clutch in front of it might have done or the turbo on your engine might be the cause. Without an item to inspect this seller can not know what contributed to the failure and he is probably wondering if the failure happened after it had been modified.

[philz]

Agreed, you tampered with the product. You are not going to get your money back, cut your losses and move on.

[psquire45]

I am yet to post my problems on the mx5cartalk.com forums or inform my MX5 Car Club of QLD contacts, both of which i am i member

as an afterthought to my previous post.

probably best not to use the name of your local mx5 club and the forum to effectively try to extort a business into getting your way as it reflects badly on both the club and the forum and may actually hinder any dealings they have with the companies regarding sponsorship or deals.

paul

[Mr Morlock]

We live in a changed world. Older people actually understand what our local govts have done for consumer protection. Not that many decades / years ago changing an item bought locally was near impossible for change of mind though warranties were probably honoured. Any of us buying from the many dodgy sellers and companies which are merely banners are giving away rights which have been won over many years. A warranty to cover poor workmanship should be honoured and companies that can see there is some or all blame on them usually come to the party- certainly locally you have rights and redress.

Goods should be what they are advertised as. Having to modify items to make them fit is merely a reflection of sub standard engineering. Many of these companies are just copyists using rubbish materials and stealing other better companies ideas. Poor workmanship may well not be evident for a period of time- a baffle coming loose or rust perforation as an example -but trying to return an item for an inspection to an overseas source becomes impractical.

[project.r.racing]

lol @ this thread.

When i lived in Darwin i had a jaycar amp, it died after 9 months, took it back, manager made sure i had a receipt and i didn't cause the fault, then he took it back and gave me the display model they had on the house. Now thats customer service!

But did you return it in 1000 pieces after you attempted to find the fault? Or you returned it in the same condition as when you pulled it out of the box 9 months earlier?

[chrisearl88]

lol @ this thread.

When i lived in Darwin i had a jaycar amp, it died after 9 months, took it back, manager made sure i had a receipt and i didn't cause the fault, then he took it back and gave me the display model they had on the house. Now thats customer service!

But did you return it in 1000 pieces after you attempted to find the fault? Or you returned it in the same condition as when you pulled it out of the box 9 months earlier?

It was actually in all scratched up and one of the switches had fallen into the casing as the screws had worked loose, so i opened it up and , found the loose bits and screwed it back up. Told the manager this and didn't seem to make a difference to them, even with the void if opened sticker torn. But then again the manager probably recognized me since i was there every couple of weeks and might have thought that giving a display was a good compromise to keep a return customer. Was glad he used common sense! Happily spent over well over $1000 at jaycar since

[chrisearl88]

Update

sent this email to the seller:

Thank you for updating the roll bar and lighter listings, i appreciate it. If we could come to some kind of resolution that would be great, let me know how you might be willing to compromise. I really do regret it having to get to this stage, and dont want you to take this personally. I am just trying to make ebay the best community it can be. Hope you understand.

Regards
Chris

[project.r.racing]

Makes you sound like an complete twat. It is full of patronising sentences. Do you want something to happen, or you just still having a tanty cos you didn't get your own way? And now are trying to mess with him as much as possible? Cos if you keep going they way you are, he might just retract his offer and you'll be left with nothing.

Look I understand you are pissed cos you ain't getting your money back. And don't get me wrong, I would also be pissed if the same thing happened to myself. But giving updates like this, which aren't really updates, but another form of venting/hissy fit just ain't gonna help your cause.

Good luck in the future for your refund.

[deviant]

Sorry Chris but he offered you a compromise at the start. Quite rightly he would not give your money back or warranty on a hacked up muffler but he still offered you store credit. To me that is as good as a refund and was very generous considering you got to keep the muffler and take your pick of stuff in his shop but you refused it and made this post, you will not get anything from him now.

Put it down to experience and move on. If something goes wrong in the future just dont mess with it, talk to the seller and get their position.

[chrisearl88]

Thanks for all the comments guys, good to see this is stirring up alot of thought from people. Thats what i intended, be it for or against me

Just come points i would like to rebut;

"Ages ago I spent $370 on a cheap cat back and got far less than what I paid for. It was my fault for scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to prices and looking for the cheapest place around." and "if youd done a little home work you would've realised that the npower muffler is well lets face it cheap", I definitely did my homework, thats why i bought it Looking for the cheapest place is one of the reasons that the theory of demand and supply works! Its why businesses compete. I also did my homework (or so i thought) on the roll bar, i thought i got a great price for an item that would bolt on super easy like the seller said, maybe i should not be so naive...lol

It feels like people believe that something being cheaper is giving it an excuse to break. My point is that i think people should raise their expectations of sellers and reject the mentality that cheap means nasty. Just take the humble mx5 for example, the most popular sports car in the world, its on the budget end of the scale and mazda seemed to get it right, it punches well above its weight class, im sure we can all agree on that. i just think my girlfriend gets jealous i spend as much time working on my car as i do performing her scheduled maintenance lol

"things will need some tinkering MAJORITY of the time to get to fit and most of the time they dont come with an instruction book". This is completely acceptable as is half the fun, just not in the case when the seller asserts that it will bolt on. Like another forum member stated "Having to modify items to make them fit is merely a reflection of sub standard engineering". If it wasnt on ebay, this would be a classic case of false advertising, i would have just taken it back in person and bought something else. Obviously the sellers that are more honest in their ads will have greater customer satisfaction, nobody likes being lied to. Saving the customer time by printing out instructions is just going the extra mile.

Oh i just got my mx5 mania leads. Talked to him friday 10am, leads were here first thing this morning , thats good service. In the box, bam, instructions and it even says something along the lines of, if you have any problems, the best thing to do is re box the leads and give us a call, how hard was that?? Going that extra mile is why i will tell anyone that mx5mania have got their s**t together, this is why they are a forum sponsor and it goes to show that going to extra mile IS good business sense. Lets not reward mediocrity...

UPDATE *******************
the seller has now updated the bar to reflect my concerns and changed his listing for the lighter. Guess it took him 300+ views to realise that although alot of you seem to disagree, there is still enough people that share my ideas on customer service, this took over two weeks though. I appreciate that he made those changes. If all this has achieved in the end is stopping any more forum members from buying a rollbar under false pretenses and having the pain of posting a lighter back then i feel like iv definitely achieved something tangible. It wasnt all in vain.

"this attempt to sour the name of the company honestly to me stinks like a child who didnt get his way and is having a tanty about it". Please try to keep comments constructive. My girlfriend and i dont always see eye to eye (shes a Christian, im an atheist HAHHA), but we respect each others beliefs and im even attracted even more by her strong conviction and her logical thought process behind her beliefs, whether i agree or not (you cant argue with faith). This is how an adult acts. If by tanty, you mean being 100% factual and transparent, and trying to do the forum a favour, then yes. I put up all the emails since i knew there where going to be a few with the "cry me a river" mindset, and wanted to show exactly what i said too, not just a one sided story. The "souring" only works if the people that see the ebay listing agree, and im adult enough to realise you cant be friends with everybody on the playground. I have been completely factual, if im way off base with my "refused warranty as the tip was cut" then the listing will not effective. But of the 60 plus ebay page views im sure i changed at least a mind or three. If people dont agree with me there not exactly going to rush out an buy the muffler though are they...FACT is the item still failed after four months and the listing alerts people to that FACT.

"probably best not to use the name of your local mx5 club and the forum to effectively try to extort a business into getting your way as it reflects badly on both the club and the forum and may actually hinder any dealings they have with the companies regarding sponsorship or deals." You say "extort" i say "keep em honest". I certainly dont intend to bring a bad name to the club or forum. Any views expressed are my opinions and are not necessarily the opinions of the club/forum bla bla, you know how it goes. If the guys calling the shots on the forum agree with my views and that hinders dealings with a seller, then thats a good thing, if not then no harm done i guess. If 100% of people told me to "get over it" im sure this whole scenario would have no weight in making a decision for the seller to engage in business with the club/forum, clearly its not that black and white though.

"people on here have dealt with npower at one time or another and have drawn their own conclusions", and i too would expect this. Like iv said this is simply my story and if this contributes to the knowledge pool, then when somebody tries to do there homework (like i did) and types in n power muffler into google, they will get this forum, they can then make up there own mind. Maybe they will think im just trying to scam the guy, buy hey you win some you lose some.

Most of my gripes are actually to do with sellers communication and this compounded the muffler failing so soon issue, if you have a thorough read of the emails. When i first emailed informing about the bolt on and lighter not fitting issue, his reply was fine, he was definitely reasonable. I was looking more for an "sorry about the confusion, will change that asap", i never asked for a refund. What was not reasonable was making a customer go through all of this to get him to simply change of parts of his listings so they are not misleading.

What im getting at is that while alot of you point out that i might legally have not a leg to stand on, this clearly doesnt phase me (you've heard of sticking it to the man right?), and i believe the thought process from the sellers perspective should be, "well we stuffed this guy around around alot and it did fail after only 4 months so we should compromise, cut out losses and keep him happy". I know i am certainly never dealing with n power again.

Mr Morlock, i really like the points you made, thanks for the support. Id love to add to your points. When you said "certainly locally you have rights and redress" Also i can attest to the fact, a friend of mine was misled to think that his phone insurance allowed him to pick any phone up the the same value, this was a lie, it was actually any phone from a list they choose (the ones that have high margins no less), needless to say we didnt leave the store until he got the phone he wanted, and vodaphone foot the bill for the staff members mistake. Im sure the seller is reluctant to provide his address because of this fact. Sellers know that requiring return postage (even when a personal delivery is possible) is discouragingly expensive and dishonest sellers could hide behind this. What would stop a seller from lying about getting an item back and refusing a refund...oh registered post you say...isnt that more expensive? Exactly my point!

Another point i remember from my Harvey Norman Days. Have any of you ever put extra RAM in your PC? You do realise that opening the tower technically voids your warranty right?? We certainly never policed that, and im sure customers would shop elsewhere if we did. Another example of common sense shining through and why Harveys is doing so well in the market. If only i had a dollar for every time i had a customer come to me after going to "the jb sight and sound guys", complaining of rude or uninformed staff not bothered in going that extra mile.

Yet to hear any word from the seller, with over 400 views on the forum and 77 on ebay, while im yet to see any cash in my hand, its good to know that im more than likely making a difference. Even got a few brownie points with the GF's family, they were impressed with my strong principles and my maturity in regard to some of the criticism i have faced. They said i should study law not engineering haha.

"Makes you sound like an complete twat. It is full of patronising sentences", your right i was a little cheeky, the seller tried to call my bluff, and probably didnt think it would get this far, maybe a little bit cheeky to rub it in, fair point But the gist was genuine, i am genuinely happy to come to an agreement. If the seller makes me a fair offer on the scrap muffler, i would then not be able to relist as i no longer own the item. This will all go away (well i guess the forum is forever) and hopefully everyone involved will have learnt something from this, maybe he will review his suppliers return policy even??

Thanks to everyone for their opinions and the support/counter arguments. As you can probably tell i like a bit of good healthly debate, as long as its friendly of course

Will keep the forum updated...

Chris

[mxfive95]

Thanks to everyone for their opinions and the support/counter arguments. As you can probably tell i like a bit of good healthly debate, as long as its friendly of course

Lol dude. build a bridge... but of coarse you won't so try this.

A healthy debate would be between yourself and the ebay seller in question. if you're not getting any reply from the seller now because of your actions and pointless banter then maybe bring your case forward to ebay and try to mediate the situation with them. They may laugh at you cause you have already taken things into your own hands by putting up a dodgey ebay add and continue to defamate the seller on this forum (funny thing is you have left easy links for them to confirm the sellers counter claim ). But if they do take your case serious then take some time to read ebays terms and conditions on buying/selling and warrenties to get your facts straight...

Although this rant seems like a waste, maybe it will make other forumites aware of what to do or in this case NOT to do if they have a product that fails and think ( It's F'd anyway, i'll pull it apart).

P.S. No pun intended. We all make mistakes and hopfully move on from them having learnt something.you're just digging a bigger hole

[fattima]

Mods, can this thread be moved it does not belong in the for sale section IMHO.

[chrisearl88]

mxfive95 i respectfully suggest you check your facts before you accuse someone of defamation. Fact and opinion is not defamation. I can prove any of claims i have made.

[Mr nanotech]

and it even says something along the lines of, if you have any problems, the best thing to do is re box the leads and give us a call

I'm pretty sure like the other seller, Mania won't honor your refund if you massacre the leads when you decide they don't work...

I thought everyone has been pretty reasonable in their responses and give you a good run but you still don't want to accept the fact that the seller has been good to you and you're still having a cry about it.
I'm not having a go at you ok because I was pissed off when exhaust turned out to be a dud as well. But the difference is that life sometimes throws you a hardball and yeah it hurts but you get back up and keep playing.
First of all, you the consumer had to have realised that an entry level after market manufacturer such as npower are going to be a mixed bag in terms of quality to begin with so you can't exactly get angry if it fails because on some level you KNEW there was a risk buying.
Especially when you take into account the fact you're buying online as well! It's like going to a Sunday Market type thing and buying a cheap no name phone off a vender and then having a cry about it when it doesn't work.
But then the fact that the seller offered you store credit after your muffler broke and you butchered it is extremely good of the seller! Think about it, nowonder they want it back, they don't know who you are. Who's to say you didn't bust it yourself doing something stupid?
This is why they need to recall the item and assess it. But you automatically forfeit the right to complain when you modify the original product.

Come on, if you bought a brand new PS3 and it didn't work, you'd send it straight back to Sony in it's original condition. They'd asses it and then send out a replacement on the item, they aren't going to give you cash back on the item. But if you decide to open up the console and void the warranty by tampering with the components, of course they are going to give you the finger and say too bad.
But the fact that this seller acknowledged that you did this and still offered you something....

No offence but it's like we live in an age without common sense

Further more, since you've started this bitch session trying to compromise the seller on the forum, I would kiss any chance of a refund gone.