Volvo C30 2.0D "Shark Performance" nightmare!

[volvorocks]

Originally Posted by iantowil

1. Its your policy not to give a refund if the customer is not happy, simple as that.

2. The work you did for free is I guess what you would normally do if anyone experiences problems with your map. There has to be a duty of care and some ownership from you as a business that your product works as it should, so the advice, diagnostic, and removal I guess would probably be expected if problems are encountered after loading the new map.

3. As a business, there are going to be times when things do not work out and don't always give you a profit. Not great, but that's the way it is. The risk of this is usually built into the price of the product or products you sell.

4. Sometimes it is better to cut and run and avoid all this, even if because it is just not worth the time and energy you have to put in. After all you do have a business to run and have to make money to survive - this is obviously not helping with that.

5. And yes sometimes I do work for free, usually because I know it will, or might pay off in the long run. So for selfish reasons really, but that is life. All you can hope is there is a natural justice that it pays off at sometime.


9. For your business, maybe worth thinking what could have been done differently to avoid all this, whatever that maybe. At least this would have served a purpose for you. And if you don't, then surely this really has been all a waste of time.

I have to agree with you.

I am not siding with either Shark or the OP with the faulty car, or getting involved with who is or isn't right, as there are always two sides to every story, and no one bar Shark and the OP know the correct full facts, although sometimes as you say, a business should sometimes 'bite the bullet',as doing so often leads to increased customer goodwill and an avoidance of - well - threads like this..!! A happy customer may tell a dozen people, and as this thread shows - an unhappy customers tells - well around 14,000..!!

Yep, customers can be hard work and sometimes trying, and they are certainly not always right, but the problem is is that people that run businesses can sometimes let personal emotion or 'principle' get in the way of conducting that business, instead of simply taking a back seat, going against the grain and simply offering a refund for ease and avoidance of further issues.

Whenever an issue arises with a product or service, quite often the customer 'goes in all guns blazing' which isn’t helpful to a speedy resolution as the business will often go on the defensive, resulting in a breakdown of relations and ultimately stalemate. If a customer has a genuine grievance it is always best to remain calm, set forward the grievance and if nothing satisfactory is achieved, simply issue proceedings and let a 'third party' decide. Following on from doing this, if successful, then that would be the time, if necessary, to air the issue in public to notify others.

Regards

[Bungo]

Originally Posted by volvorocks

I have to agree with you.

I am not siding with either Shark or the OP with the faulty car, or getting involved with who is or isn't right, as there are always two sides to every story, and no one bar Shark and the OP know the correct full facts, although sometimes as you say, a business should sometimes 'bite the bullet',as doing so often leads to increased customer goodwill and an avoidance of - well - threads like this..!! A happy customer may tell a dozen people, and as this thread shows - an unhappy customers tells - well around 14,000..!!

Yep, customers can be hard work and sometimes trying, and they are certainly not always right, but the problem is is that people that run businesses can sometimes let personal emotion or 'principle' get in the way of conducting that business, instead of simply taking a back seat, going against the grain and simply offering a refund for ease and avoidance of further issues.

Whenever an issue arises with a product or service, quite often the customer 'goes in all guns blazing' which isn’t helpful to a speedy resolution as the business will often go on the defensive, resulting in a breakdown of relations and ultimately stalemate. If a customer has a genuine grievance it is always best to remain calm, set forward the grievance and if nothing satisfactory is achieved, simply issue proceedings and let a 'third party' decide. Following on from doing this, if successful, then that would be the time, if necessary, to air the issue in public to notify others.

Regards

Gotta be the most sensible post in this very long thread
Threads like this add nothing useful to a forum.

[shark90]

Originally Posted by iantowil

1. Its your policy not to give a refund if the customer is not happy, simple as that.

I'm really sorry but that is just not the case. I appreciate your well written post but it's clear that either I'm not getting my point across or that you are unwilling to accept my point.

[domhart10]

Originally Posted by paddyred

On a side note I will be selling my own tuning boxes labelled "Placebo XXX GTR spinny turbo time" priced at £70 with free postage (seems the least I can do at £5 a unit manufacture cost!)

Yes I'l definitely buy one ... will it come with some over rated super car on the cover of the box?


ps ... I could see you commenting on the other threads ... was a matter of time before you broke

[paddyred]

Well I was thinking of maybe a nice Italian sports car for the label and I was going to stick one of those holographic gold QC passed stickers on it that make me shiver whenever I see them on electrical goods!

Also I think everyone needs to get over the fact that the guy will not be getting a refund. If he went back in the correct time frame with the issue. Or even phoned Shark when he got home it probably wouldn't have been an issue and never would have become a slagging off competition on the forum.
What everyone needs to focus on here is the fact that the guy is claiming that the remap caused electrical damage maybe fried a few chips in his ECU if the problems existed after Volvo and Shark had re-installed the firmware (Although this is impossible with the built in checksum and the fact it is only software that was installed). Also he's claiming that it caused major mechanical damage to his fuel system and gearbox which have cost an absolute fortune at a Volvo dealership for them to turn around as say "We don't know". Now all these mechanical and electrical issues have been fixed by a box of resistors? If it was the software programming on the ECU that was the issue as claimed then this would have been fixed by original software installation. If it was still wrong after that the problem wouldn't be resolved by a plug and play box as the fault in the software or hardware on the ECU board would still exist leading to the same symptoms. Then to say that the mechanical issues where caused by the engine being "Ragged from cold" by Shark is an invalid complaint. Fact is these engines heat up very quickly and beating on them from cold will not cause any real damage. Yes it's a stupid thing to do for the longevity of the engine however it wont cause the fuel system to break as that doesn't warm up to operating temperature, the first weak link in beating on a cold engine is the turbo but you would have to beat on it from cold quite a bit across many months to damage that, not 3/4 times over a short period when chances are it was warm from the first go.

I am pleased to hear your car is fixed but I think either it was fixed by something Volvo had fiddled with or it is still faulty but you are claiming it is fixed by the magic unicorn box and just trying to make Shark look like they are at fault. The only real person loosing out here is Shark as they have had there reputation damaged by someone with little mechanical knowledge who's car had underlying faults that weren't shown until it was remapped. The extra power, manifold pressure, fuel pressure, exhaust temperature etc has shown a weak link on your car and that is not Sharks fault. I think they have been very good showing themselves on this thread. They have tried to help you on many occasions by diagnosing your issues for free and tried to offer you assistance in every way they could before you stopped talking to them in some schoolyard huff. They did everything Volvo did but for free and you appear to have cut your nose off to spite your face by taking it to a Volvo dealer (Albeit a not very good one. What professional mechanic writes "revs all over the place" on reciept's as a diagnosis?!) and paying through the nose for them to drive it around and tell you its broken.

[Guru]

Originally Posted by cheshired5

Oh I see.
INA make the pulleys but not the belt.

I believe Gates make the belt.

[cheshired5]

Originally Posted by Guru

I believe Gates make the belt.

I never got to the bottom of it on mine.
Aux belt was definitely Gates but the marks on the timing belt looked more like Contitech.
I wonder if the preferred belt manufacturer varies dependant on who makes the engine.

[foggyjames]

Had a busy few days...back to it...!

Originally Posted by iantowil

I can't agree on you thinking as a moderator you have the power to post something I deleted within seconds - just not cricket old chap! To criticise me for thinking it is staggering really.....this is not the "Minority Report".

Not quite...
1) That had nothing to do with me being a moderator - in fact, the "edit history" didn't register it, as it was edited so quickly. No...the "Clown" quote appears in the topic notification email, which any member would have received (had they last viewed my post, that is).
2) I only mentioned being a moderator because - if you had been aware - it would have been a bit more of a bum move than calling a regular member a name. I'm not the abuse-of-power type, and that post wasn't a threat (and I accept that, with hindsight, maybe it looked that way - and I apologise)...I was making the point that I tend to find that it's worth playing it safe when, for example, dealing with a policeman, just in case they are the type to abuse their position. But, in fairness, since you didn't know...it's a moot point.
3) Thing is, you didn't just think it - you posted it. Rest assured I roll my eyes quite regularly, but I don't feel the need to express it. Sure, you edited it, and editing it because you thought better of it rather than to make a snide remark then cover your tracks (it does happen...) is the more honourable situation. But you thought it for long enough to compose a post and stick it on the end...when I was merely pointing out that the OP was being devious - no comment about the situation otherwise!

Originally Posted by iantowil

What I do care about is people picking on someone struggling with a situation, and in my view, many posts have done that.

...

But the outcry for Shark has been something to behold. We'll see how they deal with the latest post.

I don't think I've "picked on" the OP until he attacked me, and even then I have avoided resorting to insults. My interest was in attempting to get the OP to see that, technically, what he was saying didn't make any sense. Who the trader was was irrelevant to me - my posts were not blind support for Shark, but based on the facts of the situation as I understood them to be.

Or, to put it another way, I was attempting to help this guy...but it seems he's so convinced that Shark are at fault that he's unwilling to see sense and discuss the technicalities of the situation rationally. On that front, I wish I'd never bothered.

Originally Posted by iantowil

1. Its your policy not to give a refund if the customer is not happy, simple as that.

Based on my reading of this thread, I don't think that's a fair statement. On this occasion he hasn't offered a refund...although I'm still not sure that the OP has even actually asked for one! Ben has said several times that he would have considered a refund had the OP acted like less of a douchebag. I think the key detail here is that our OP appears to have stopped communicating after things were left at "We'll take the map off your car while you go and get its underlying problems fixed"...which, reading between the lines, is what happened.

cheers

James

[benr7310]

Shark - I'm debating either an xc60 d5 or a tt rs for my next car.. either way it's coming to you to map - or ill get a soft loader haha

[iantowil]

You have to laugh! :-)