Whats up with corvette central?? This has happened twice in month and half..i ordered parts a week ago today..still no parts,,no notifaction,nothing...but they got my money!! They have my email and credit card number..then they come out couple days later with a 10 percent discount..i think its BS!!

 

"COVID" seemed to throw a lot of vendors off track.

 

Or, covid has made a handy excuse for most every customer service shortcoming in the country.

 

For the last 4 weeks, I have been unable to get CC to respond to an email requesting a part return. It's frustrating when a formerly responsive company begins acting in dubious ways.

 

CC took 18 days before they shipped muffler deletes for my 96. Amazon has spoiled us all.

 

I've just ordered a bunch of parts through them. Same experience - no notification of shipping or tracking numbers and they didn't answer a question I sent them via email.

However, I did get my parts, and I discovered that if you go to your account page you can look up orders, the tracking info is there.

I've heard rumors they suck via email but are good if you call.

 

I can't agree with that. (The Amazon comment).Way back in the 80's and 90's I would order from a few of these Corvette vendors. Remember the catalogues?
Well, back then I would ring them up on the phone. Place an order. And they sent it out within a day or 2.
Now. We have the internet. We don't talk to anyone and if we try to ring them. They just won't answer.
Customer service has gone out the window everywhere!

 

That was supposed to be a Secret...or a Secretion.

 

A lot has changed at Central since 2022 when founder Jerry Koon retired and sold out to Legendary Industries, the owners of Coker Tires.

Central was previously a family run business where Jerry, along with his wife Beverly and their son (Scott?) owned and operated the business, and were in the building every day. Now Central is just part of a larger conglomerate that besides owning Coker and their subsidiaries (Wheel Vintiques, Roadster Wire Wheel, Universal Tire and others), also owns Zip Corvette. Paragon Corvette was another small company owned by two partners that was bought by Legendary, to eventually be closed and merged into Central. The customer service that Paragon and Central were known for now unfortunately seems to be a thing of the past.

 

Maybe someone could email them this thread. We have other options. If our community decides we do not want to put up with lousy service I would think that a considerable amount of sales could be lost. Between bad service and repro parts these days being ill fitting or outright not working/failing quickly (I see many posts about new fuel pump pressures being way too high, new distributor modules just plain not working, lifters that suck, etc. etc.) we really shouldn’t be putting up with it without a fight. Holding back dollars can get some attention.

 

Tony Genry, the person Legendary named General Manager of Central (and Paragon before it's closure) use to monitor posts on the Forum involving Central and would respond, but I haven't seen any posts by him on here in quite a while.

We don't have as many as we use to, and the numbers of small, independently owned vendors is getting smaller all the time. Zip is already part of Legendary, though from what I understand the previous owner (whose name escapes me right now) is still there managing things and running it as it had been in the past. That may change in the future. I know that Steve, one of the former owners of Paragon had to stay on for 18 months after the sale, and the situation may be the same at Zip?

Top Flight (AKA Corvette America) has been through two or three different ownership groups and is currently owned by CID Capital, a Midwest based private equity firm. There have been some changes made to Top Flight in the last few years, not all of them seeming to be the best for us as customers.

I understand that Eckler's was just on the verge of bankruptcy before being acquire by Turn5 in 2022. Turn5 is basically an automotive parts internet company based in PA. They have a warehouse in Kansas, but a big part of their business seems to be having things drop shipped by other companies, instead of maintaining their own inventory. Eckler's customer service had declined noticeably in the year or two proceeding their being acquired, but things don't seem to be much different under the new owners.

There are still independent Corvette vendors out there but they are becoming fewer all the time. As bigger corporations acquire the smaller vendors, they often change their discounts and wholesale programs, making it tougher for the independent vendors to buy parts and compete.

 

In addition to all Glen said,it is common to replace management and high paid,experienced employees with low skill, base level pay when corporations take over. Been there and I am happy to be done with it. As a small vette rebuilder I feel like I am standing next to General Custer.

 

I have done business with Bair's for the past several years and while my demand has not been all the much, I am very happy with their quality and service.

 

I had a similar problem with Eklers paid big money for a quarter panel for my 73 and never got it. So months later I just canceled it. Tried to get a refund. Got a call from their Supplier the same day I canceled they said Ecklers isn’t paying their bills so they don’t supply them anymore. When was Ecklers gonna tell me that!!
So the supplier sold me the quarter and I got it in a week.

 

Thanks Members. Instead of this thread turning into a huge argument, it has provided much useful information. I still need a few parts to finish my project which has taken too long. I don't
t need to add another year to the misery by arguing with Vendors

 

Wow! Such an interesting thread. I buy a lot of Corvette parts. A lot. I haven't noticed any problems yet with the vendors discussed. No one's mentioned the other shoe that's going to hit the floor. Tariffs on Chinese parts. So many of our repro parts, and automobile parts in general, originate in China. It looks like parts from China are going to become very expensive. And our cars are now 50 years old. In addition to becoming very expensive, they also may just become not available.
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Miscellaneous comments:
The Paragon catalog was really great with their parts illustrations. I still use it because of the illustrations. If nothing else, I can get the names of parts I need from the catalog.

68/70Vettes Rule about repro parts. If it fits, it's of poor quality. If it's of good quality, it won't fit. OK, OK, a little exaggeration, but it's true enough.

 

i certainly agree with that. my experience with corvette central goes back quite a few year to when i was putting together my 78 pacecar (which has been sold over 15 years ago). i found (more than likely by mistake) that if you were old school and did as someone above described, place a parts order from a paper catalog via the phone to a customer service real person, that too many times, i would get a response that parts were out of stock. it conditioned me to treat any order place with CC as subject until i called first to check their stock to insure they actually had it. for what it's worth, i have been putting my 1969 convertible back together to make it more representative of the day it left st louis, and most importantly a safe for the road vehicle, and have done it virtually exclusively with products purchased from Zip, on the phone with the same customer service individual every single time. i found that he was knowledgeable, responsive if i left a message for him (i found out during the course of this project, that he also worked the walk in counter in addition to manning the phones), so i had to have patience if it took longer than i liked to get a return call, but i did always get a return call the same day. i know everyone has different experiences with vendors, even some that get praise from some and thumbs down from others. keene corvette and Bairs have always been responsive and always seem to go the extra mile in person over the phone also. Ecklers is my absolute last resort if all else fails. they haven't been the same since the father died years ago and they started buying up a variety of smaller parts vendors of many different brand products. terrible customer or non-existent customer service.

 

Moved to Transaction Feedback

 

Corvette Central is indeed completely screwed up. I got e-mails yesterday saying everthing in my recent order that was drop-shipped was delayed until May 1st. Got back from our camping trip today and this was in the driveway.


Everything they said was delayed actually got delivered instead. Not really a complaint, but...

 

That’s a nice surprise! Glad it was a better experience than what we have seen as discussed here.