What incentive does DMC or its franchises have for making super-reliable parts?

[Delorean Industries]

And another thing....

We (or I am) very public about our exclusive propriety manufactures. Because their brands speak for themselves. This also gives owners the piece of mind that heaven forbid DPI explodes and life time warranties can still be honored.

Example: If you purchase a SPEC I exhaust system or other Original stainless component from DPI that includes a life time warranty. The PO/invoice with your current contact information is put on file in our system and backed up weekly. In the event of DPI exploding (and me taking a dream job in F1 while no one is looking) this is given to SW and as stipulated in our manufacturing contract and extends the warranty directly with the manufacture.

As always I invite all other suppliers to step up and perform transactions as we do.

[ccurzio]

Hey Chris did you get any official responses from DMCH about these oddities?

In the sense of an "official response", no. But as previously mentioned, they were more than happy to swap out my first failed unit within the warranty period, no questions asked. And in fairness, I have not contacted them about the new failed unit as I am outside the warranty.

Angle drives I assume just universally suck, regardless of who makes them.

[Delorean Industries]

Also Josh, one thing I've noticed about your operation is the understanding and the need to expand. Lots of your parts (exhaust systems and the like) aren't mechanical and are ideally meant to be bolted to the car once and never looked at again. So you kind of fall into that scenario I mentioned above, where you have the possibility of having your market dry up once everyone has your parts. Though you've been able to adapt and change with additions of other products and of course all of the services you offer, and that's an impressive skill. If you were parts-based alone I would be concerned, but long-term viability doesn't seem to be an issue for you.

DMCH does this as well of course, but being a larger operation I don't think they've been as... "nimble" I guess would be the right word.



YES PLEASE.

As many know I have another business that is my bread and butter in life that I leave to much more suited individuals to look after. If this market becomes dry I would be surprised. I'm the only one doing what we are doing and I can't quite see us completely running out in the near future. Even if the day were to come where DPI was no longer viable I would continue to professionally build cars under the marque on a smaller scale.

[Tillsy]

That fuel pump saga really bothers me.

I installed mine over a year ago when I did my original work to bring my baby to life - thus I have only ever run her with that new pump and know no different.

I've always had a pressure loss issue - within an hour I can hear a popping noise from the accumulator as she slowly looses pressure. No worries I presumed the accumulator needs replacement and have one but still to this day haven't got to it.

But then I read a thread where someone is having all end of hell with rest pressure loss. It takes pages of diagnostic later before it is tracked down to the combo pump, and suddenly it is acknowledged this was a known issue with the new pump. Furthermore, it was akcnowledged the problem was specific to pumps sold in a known period of time.

To that end I asked what I felt was a pretty darned obvious question - if the vendors know the specific time those pumps were sold, did the vendors contact those customers regarding a "recall". Feel free to go browse that thread and see that the question was ignored.

I continue to feel very sick about that silence, it greatly disturbs me. I may potentially be one of those customers, I need to get around to installing my new accumulator and confirm whether the problem still remains, and if it does I've had the problem all along but obviously way out of warranty. If I am one of thosecustomers I will be absolutely furious, way more than furious, that I've had a faulty unit all this time that was known to be faulty and nobody gave a hoot about contacting me about. If I am not affected I still remain very sick knowing hat others do fall into that category but were never contacted. I had to let a local know here in Australia that the rest pressure saga he found and had to eventually solve himself with the new pump was actually a known issue because, you know, nobody thought to let the customers know they spent top dollar on a faulty batch.

Regarding whether the pump would be repaired or replaced for free even though it is out of "warranty" yet was specifically known to be faulty, must be a very different world in the US - here in Australia it would be illegal to deny that.

[DMCH James]

First, it's *six* month warranty - not three - it's printed on the line item for every invoice (along with the disclaimer about fuel tank contamination voiding the warranty). If someone told you three, they were mistaken.

Next, since you haven't contacted us about the second failure I encourage you to do so - with this product we have been very liberal with replacements for failed check valves, and here's why:

We tested three units on three different cars for nearly a year in three separate parts of the country. As you recall, we first showed this unit at our open house in the summer of 2011 - and production units didn't really start to ship until May/June of 2012. We had zero problems with any of the test units. We've had about an 8% failure rate on the first batch of about 250 or so units, and SOME of the those were swapped out with later units FROM THAT SAME BATCH which in a few more cases exhibited the same check valve failure.
Based on this, we went back to our supplier and as of February of this year they have been supplying units with a different pump. These pumps have performed well and the only failures (3 to date) on those were ALL due to fuel tank contamination upon inspection of the failed pumps/filters. Units with the later pumps can be identified by the letter "A" at the end of the serial number affixed to the controller box. As of June, we are also hot stamping the letter "T" on the fuel modules with the later pump or that have had the pumps replaced under warranty.

Now that we've been about six months on these new units, with the aforementioned good results, we've determined that we will extend the warranty on each unit that was originally sold prior to February 2013 by an additional 12 months. This is done on an exchange basis, simply contact your selling dealer to have this exchanged. As always, units that exhibit fuel tank contamination are not covered under warranty, but *may* be able to be repaired by the dealer for a nominal parts & labor charge. Letters to the this effect are going out early next week, once we are sure that we have identified all the purchasers of this part. The majority of them were sold by our dealers (not DMCH) so we're working with them to get this list as correct as possible.

We're also working with our supplier to develop a "user -installable" replacement pump, and have actually sent a couple of these out to a few users to test - this will mean that the user can replace the pump down (or on the side) of the road should they experience a failure in the future.

Chris, I sent you a PM - please call/reply when you can and we'll get you sorted out.

[ccurzio]

All of this really circles back to my original question:

How often does this happen with companies? Specifically those that deal in niche markets?

For the purposes of my concerns, replace "DeLorean" with any other car that has a small community and has parts that are difficult to obtain. What kind of incentive does a business have to offer excellent and highly-reliable parts for those cars?

The only thing I can think of is the kind of business that spins up short-term to make an immediate profit off of a need, and then wind down after they made their money and the customers are happy so the owner(s) can retire. That doesn't jibe at all with DMC's business plan, as they're quite obviously (as far as I can tell) in it for the long haul.

I really and truly don't believe that DMCH is shipping shoddy parts on purpose, but the question still remains.

[Tillsy]

If I am one of thosecustomers I will be absolutely furious, way more than furious, that I've had a faulty unit all this time that was known to be faulty and nobody gave a hoot about contacting me about. If I am not affected I still remain very sick knowing hat others do fall into that category but were never contacted. I had to let a local know here in Australia that the rest pressure saga he found and had to eventually solve himself with the new pump was actually a known issue because, you know, nobody thought to let the customers know they spent top dollar on a faulty batch.

we've determined that we will extend the warranty on each unit that was originally sold prior to February 2013 by an additional 12 months. This is done on an exchange basis, simply contact your selling dealer to have this exchanged. As always, units that exhibit fuel tank contamination are not covered under warranty, but *may* be able to be repaired by the dealer for a nominal parts & labor charge. Letters to the this effect are going out early next week, once we are sure that we have identified all the purchasers of this part. The majority of them were sold by our dealers (not DMCH) so we're working with them to get this list as correct as possible.

Awesome news

[ccurzio]

Hey James.

First, it's *six* month warranty - not three - it's printed on the line item for every invoice (along with the disclaimer about fuel tank contamination voiding the warranty). If someone told you three, they were mistaken.

My apologies. It's been so long since I've dealt with the issue that I didn't remember, but I do remember being surprised to see a < 1 year warranty in either case. Still, I've corrected my original post.

Next, since you haven't contacted us about the second failure I encourage you to do so

I appreciate the information you've posted. That's great news, and in all honesty that's why I mentioned that "in fairness" I hadn't contacted you guys about my second failed pump. I'd gotten out of the habit LONG ago of contacting businesses for concerns outside of warranty, as I've had too many hassles to count. Hell, in one case I had a manufacturer (Compaq) refuse to honor their warranty on a laptop while it was STILL UNDER warranty. Eckhard Pfeiffer can eat a dick to this day.

Still, while the pump thing was what started me thinking about this issue it's only really partially related to my thoughts here. Pump issues aside, what are your insights into trying to cater to our market in this regard? (If commenting won't cause any issues for you, that is.)

(As an aside, I just saw your message. I've been slammed with work the last two days so my phone-time is limited but I'll try and give you a call tomorrow.)

[ccurzio]

I also kind of wish I knew about the replacement availability earlier this month when I had the shock tower brace out of the car and fuel pump access panel open to clear my AC drain tube.

[DMCH James]

Still, while the pump thing was what started me thinking about this issue it's only really partially related to my thoughts here. Pump issues aside, what are your insights into trying to cater to our market in this regard? (If commenting won't cause any issues for you, that is.)

I *just* had this conversation with a client at the Dream Cruise in Detroit over the weekend, and it's also something I typically talk about when I visit local club events. I'll put it down in writing over the next couple days and reply. Thanks.