Featured Art & Inspiration Delayed vendor responses

After reading several posts in different threads about delayed or no responses from different vendors, if there was a contest for the longest response time, I think I would have a winner. Bear in mind that I have great admiration for Honest Charley's Speed Shop, but since I moved to the Chattanooga area in 2007, my days off and the days and times that the museum are open have never coincided.

Four years ago, the planets all aligned, and I was able to make the 40-mile trip to finally see the inside of the museum. I checked the website for times and dates, and everything was good. We arrived at the museum at the time they said they were open, the sign on the door said they were open but only for deliveries, and the doors were locked. We waited around for a while, but no one showed up. When I got back home, I left a polite review on Google asking why, if they had changed their hours, they wouldn't change the listing on their website. I didn't really expect a response, but last Friday, four years later, I got a nicely worded reply stating that they understood my frustration and that they would update their phone message promptly. I'm sure that AT&T is responsible for the lapse.

PS: My daughter had the day off today and we try to do something interesting when that happens, so I suggested that we go to Honest Charley's, only to find out that they were closed. I may never get there.

 

Wow...

 

Along a similar vein, a place that I worked at received a package of parts that was a complete mystery. Come to find out they had been ordered eight years prior by someone who no longer worked there for a product line that we no longer manufactured.

 

interesting you should bring this up....
the Unsers were an Albuquerque racing family and Al Sr. opened a wonderful museum quite a few years ago...I used to try to promote it and visited it often....after Al p***ed, the museum faltered and the collection was absorbed into Speedy Bills Museum of American Speed...roughly 2 years ago...late yesterday, 1/4/26...I got a heart and a notification of such, on a 7 year old review, on Google Maps....and the museum isn't even there now...the collection is displayed in Lincoln, Nebraska
good luck with figuring out when to show up to look at what you want to see....hopefully you enjoyed the time with your daughter

 

At least they're Honest.

 

Is honest Charlie even still in business? Actually be cool if they were. I was under impression they went under

 

The speed shop is still there, along with the museum. They still build engines and cars, but the tire business belongs to someone else now.

 

Better late than never I guess. I've noticed that it seems a lot of businesses don't monitor their websites very well if at all. It's a shame because they probably lose a lot of potential customers that way. I recently posted on the site of a local tree service for a quote. They are less than two miles from me, but it just seemed easier to post the request instead of going to their office. After hearing nothing for over two weeks, I went with another outfit.

 

This could be merged with the threads about dealing with employees who are new ( and get to be on the phone or counter )but who have no idea about what they have,what you need, what it coats and how long it will take. But i don't disagree with you.

 

I also would rather call. I was bummed a few months ago to call and make an order for work and find the normal room full of people I’d been calling for years was replaced with someone sitting at home with the stores normal website pulled up front of them basically just making the order online for me.

After years of good info and even figuring out when not to call because they were at lunch I just order it online now.

 

90% of contacts are initiated by text
or message from folks I communicate
with, the majority of those are not even
a complete sentence.
We live in a time where it has become
acceptable for most folks to not even
initiate communication by phone.

Jim

 

My business has a website with an e-mail address. Last time I cleared out thousands of scam e-mails from all over the world, with maybe 5 real e-mails from maybe customers, within a week, I had 4000 new e-mails. Almost all ********. Begged my website host to fix it, they said they couldn't. To hell with it, if you need me, use the damn phone. BTW, the rare "legit" e-mail is often " Are you open?" Like I'm sitting there waiting for an e-mail to come in. Geeez. I've put pics of the old shop phone on the shop's FB page.and shown the phone number in a really big font. I'm with Mark on this one. EDIT. I've probably got 50,000 or more e-mails on there now, maybe 100,000. I'm too busy to deal with that ****. Keep that in mind when you don't get a reply.

 

This is a little OT, but I ordered a set of hubcaps from Wheel Vintiques over 2 years ago. Still waiting……sonI have been driving around without 2 caps on the Produce truck. Everyone is kind enough to point it out every time I drive it.

I would order them from someone else, except I found out too late that they are specific to their wheels. Ugh.

 

Pretty sure speedway carry’s those caps, of course there’s no catalog for you randomly notice that now lmao

 

I'm unaware of a lot in regard to different specialty vendors for the things that are used in this hobby, most of whom I would probably never need. Until you mentioned them and I looked them up on Google Maps, I was unaware that Wheel Vintiques was part of Coker Tire. When I entered their address into Google Maps, it took me right to Coker's address. Since I live in the area, and if the stars align and I can get there when they are actually open, I can make the trip into Chattanooga and ask them directly about your problem. A picture of your car with the missing hubcaps might help. Of course, they might just blow it off since they must deal in such volume that your (in their opinion) little order probably doesn't affect their bottom line all that much. I remember when I was a kid reading the little car magazines, I would look at the Honest Charley's ads and think how cool it would be to order something from their catalog that would turn my ragged *** '50 Ford into a fire breathing monster that would do better than a 4-minute mile from a dead start. Even though I couldn't afford their prices in the early '60s, I could look at those catalogs and dream.

 

...........Living in East Tennessee as a youngster, I loved reading the "Honest Charley" ads and catalogs. "Hissself" always had such cool stuff. I loved looking at the various "club" plaques that he sold. Between him and "Speedy Bill", they were about the only mail order outfits around ( late '50's-early '60's). There was J.C. Whitney in Chicago but, you never knew what you would get when you ordered something.

 

When I was kid working in parts stores, this was the way we looked up parts, this was long before there was computers. I miss those days when this system was in every parts store, and it worked when the power went out as well.

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These days, I feel sorry for the younger kids that are working in parts stores, totally dependent on the computer database which often isn't kept up to date!

 

I'm thinking that a lot of those people who took care of the email or online orders just a few years ago got laid off when the higher minimum wage thing took effect. Maybe a lot of students who were good on the computer and could knock out a day's orders in a couple of hours while a few more part time workers pulled and packed them.

 

I think that's economic gobuldeguck. Paying what, fifty cents an hour, a dollar, more is not going to affect much. you don't have to pay part-timers benefits. Minimum wage in PA will be $9 this year! Can you believe it? Why that's $18000 a year full time. Before taxes. Who wouldn't come to work for that? More likely, companies looked at automation and online ordering and didn't replace leaving workers. You'll disagree but find one reliable report supporting minimum wage increases causing workforce downsizing. I've had good people leave because we couldn't pay enough. And I know several people who had good jobs but left because childcare and commuting costs outweighed what they made. This is a multifactored problem but minimum wage isn't part of it. https://www.epi.org/blog/most-minimum-wage-studies-have-found-little-or-no-job-loss/

 

FWIW, the $1.99 an hour I made as a high school kid working for the county is $19.40 today. Take that, Pennsylvania.

 

Like you I'm sure, I talk to a lot of ppl and of course deal with many not in any of my orbits. It's the latter, especially lately, that make this part of your point a bit attractive. Just sayin...

 

It's harder to accept for our age group, as we grew up when service was paramount, and human contact was the norm (either in person, or on the phone).

 

It’s hard to establish human contact when the person you’re trying to establish said contact with is staring down at their phone ignoring you.

 

Exactly!

If you ever read my ads on all the forums, I post my phone number with "No Texts" next to it. I don't feel texts are a professional way of doing business. I have confidence in my ability to communicate with potential customers. I want them to hear that confidence in my voice & that ***ures them they are dealing with a professional, not just a clown on a keyboard/ touch pad. If someone does text I still respond, but most of the time I give them an answer followed by ....Please call if you would like to discuss further.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

Here's just one of MANY in California. From the LA Times.
https://www.latimes.com/california/...s-to-lay-off-more-than-1-000-delivery-drivers

 

Thanks for the article. I read several others;. Appreciating that this is a Traditional Car Site, I'll just acknowledged that PH outsourced it's delivery to Dordash-which must have increased its workforce to handle the influx so the net loss/gain is--unknown. I suspect many places with delivery have done the same thing, citing rising worker's wages but really just streamlining their profit centers. ( Lower ranked employees always lose first and largest) Not sure I'd deliver pizzas for $40 K in a place where gas costs over $4 (I paid $2.72 yesterday in Central PA) but let's agree to go back to cars?

 

Most of my problems have been with the delivery system, i.e. usps, ups etc.

A couple years back I ordered a small free-air dish, about 20" diameter so the box it was in was about 22" square and 4" deep. Not huge but big enough to be easily seen.

Order it out of California, shipped 2 days later. I live close to Mo-kan so everything goes thru K.C. first then here.

It hits K.C. about 4 days later, cool I'll get it soon, then it goes to Pittsburgh PA, back to k.c., then to Austin TX, then to Boston, back to k.c. then to Phoenix, then to Joplin MO. Then back to k.c. etc.

I call the company I ordered from, they say can't do anything because it's in ups control. It became such a joke that every morning at work we would pull it up and see what city it was in today, 3 months watching it go to about every state. After numerous phone calls to the original company and ups it finally hit k.c. again at which point they sent a guy down here to deliver it personally.

I told the guys at work, "it better be like a damn yard gnome, it better be covered with post cards from every city it visited!" It wasn't. No one could ever answer me why it was being bounced around the country like it had done. The address label was clear and easy to read on the box...

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