Even a national retailer sh!ts the bed sometimes......
I had known my brake system was in need of some serious R/R for a couple months. i knew at least the pads needed to be replaced. i had pep boys rotate the tires and check rotor warpage. they said the rears were in fact warped and the pads were shot. i was never happy with my 80's brakes, always a bit mushy, so i thought i would just go all the way and replace the calipers as well.
so i ordered 2 rear OEM rotors, EBC greenstuff pads, and NAPA eclipse re-man calipers. if you're wondering, the warped rears were drilled and slotted Power Stops. [it is believed a frozen rear caliper or two probably sent them to an early death]
everything came pretty quickly. i opened one of the caliper boxes to see what a re-man'd caliper looked like. its looked nice, fresh black paint and all the fixings. the NAPAs are well recommended on the 80 forum for replacement if going with reman'd.
a week or two goes by before i had a chance to drop it off at my mechanic, i finally give him the parts and the truck early on a friday asking for it back by the end of the day. he says should be fine. an hour later he calls to tell me one of the calipers in a sealed box is junk. he sends me a pic and see that they sent me someone elses core!
i call NAPA and tell them what happened and they start the process to send me a replacement. this is friday around 1p.
i go back to the mechanic at the end of the day and hes been having problems getting a brake hose to seat into a caliper without weeping fluid. a team of 2 guys are on the brakes and the head mechanic/shop owner 45 minutes past quitin' time on a friday and i tell them to stop and go home.
i call napa again monday (customer service is only M-F, 8-5!) to see if i can beg for overnight shipping and the nice lady on the other end, who already knew who i was before i told her, told me it already was being overnighted. they get a point back for that. it didnt come til late tuesday so i dropped it off at 7am wednesday. he calls me a few hours later to tell me this was a caliper for a different model, "the bracket doesnt bolt on". they are going to use the half that works of the reman'd and clean up and replace the seals in the original half and be done [it was the rear left that was the problem child]. they figured out the problem with the hose connections weeping and said they had to grind the casting a little but was now working.
i get the truck around 9a thursday after having probably over 20 man-hours put into this.
moral of the story: if you actually buy re-man'd items from NAPA, inspect them IMMEDIATELY! and then dont expect perfection. customer service is excellent, but inconvenient. it cost over $500 with core charges for 4 calipers. i was shipped the ugliest, greasiest brake caliper ive ever seen and then a replacement that im told did not fit the application.
buyer be very careful.
I had known my brake system was in need of some serious R/R for a couple months. i knew at least the pads needed to be replaced. i had pep boys rotate the tires and check rotor warpage. they said the rears were in fact warped and the pads were shot. i was never happy with my 80's brakes, always a bit mushy, so i thought i would just go all the way and replace the calipers as well.
so i ordered 2 rear OEM rotors, EBC greenstuff pads, and NAPA eclipse re-man calipers. if you're wondering, the warped rears were drilled and slotted Power Stops. [it is believed a frozen rear caliper or two probably sent them to an early death]
everything came pretty quickly. i opened one of the caliper boxes to see what a re-man'd caliper looked like. its looked nice, fresh black paint and all the fixings. the NAPAs are well recommended on the 80 forum for replacement if going with reman'd.
a week or two goes by before i had a chance to drop it off at my mechanic, i finally give him the parts and the truck early on a friday asking for it back by the end of the day. he says should be fine. an hour later he calls to tell me one of the calipers in a sealed box is junk. he sends me a pic and see that they sent me someone elses core!
i call NAPA and tell them what happened and they start the process to send me a replacement. this is friday around 1p.
i go back to the mechanic at the end of the day and hes been having problems getting a brake hose to seat into a caliper without weeping fluid. a team of 2 guys are on the brakes and the head mechanic/shop owner 45 minutes past quitin' time on a friday and i tell them to stop and go home.
i call napa again monday (customer service is only M-F, 8-5!) to see if i can beg for overnight shipping and the nice lady on the other end, who already knew who i was before i told her, told me it already was being overnighted. they get a point back for that. it didnt come til late tuesday so i dropped it off at 7am wednesday. he calls me a few hours later to tell me this was a caliper for a different model, "the bracket doesnt bolt on". they are going to use the half that works of the reman'd and clean up and replace the seals in the original half and be done [it was the rear left that was the problem child]. they figured out the problem with the hose connections weeping and said they had to grind the casting a little but was now working.
i get the truck around 9a thursday after having probably over 20 man-hours put into this.
moral of the story: if you actually buy re-man'd items from NAPA, inspect them IMMEDIATELY! and then dont expect perfection. customer service is excellent, but inconvenient. it cost over $500 with core charges for 4 calipers. i was shipped the ugliest, greasiest brake caliper ive ever seen and then a replacement that im told did not fit the application.
buyer be very careful.
