Quick feedback on recent purchases

[mamsterla]

So I am doing a restoration of my 1969 Fiat 124 Spider and have ordered a lot of parts from Vick Autosports. First off the packages have been arriving quickly and have been well packed.

I ordered the front wheel bearing kits - they were great, but one part needs to be called out. The slotted washer that was supplied with the kit just did not fit my spindle. I cleaned up the original, so nothing was lost there, but it is worth examining if the spindle is different on early cars like mine.

I also ordered the Prima-1 A-arms. The were great, however the upper A-arm seems to have the bushings pressed too far in to fit past my shock tower. I had to press both bushings out and back to make the extra room to slip it on. The rest worked find (but that is a tough job on an old car).

[chrisg]

Perhaps the nature of Italian cars (at least Fiats) & cars that are now quite old & thus may have been through a lot prior to our ownership is some inconsistencies. That, with these particular cars, is increased a bit by somewhat 'fuzzy' transitions between model years or series (A-B models, B-C models, 1438-1608, late 124 Spider to "Spider 2000", etc.) and unlike, for example, BMW where you can pretty much search parts by VIN & get exactly which part number & which supercessions of parts or groups exist...our cars rely a bit more on what I'd think of as folk history to know the right parts. I guess this can be annoying or part of the charm depending on how you look at it. That's not to defend or argue with your experience with this purchase, but it does help me in managing my own expectations with regard to plug & play. Early on in the Fiat world, I had to ask & compare notes with many others to figure out what works with what, what details may differ, etc. and I still learn more. For instance, a friend recently acquired a 124 TC wagon & found the brake calipers that to the eye appeared to be the same as those on any 124 Sport actually require thinner pads than our 124 Sports. Go figure. I have yet to find out if the same is true for my 124 Special TC...but I do have a solution if it's the case!

[JohnMc]

About 1.5 years ago I also bought the Prima 1 suspension and had the same exact issue on my '70. Sent photos and they agreed they were pushed in too far. I had them send me the regular A arms instead. They fit fine. Slowed my project down. I was annoyed that there was not better QC on what was considered an upgrade. I think the whole neighborhood heard me swearing.
I have ordered other items from VAS since and no problems.

[Frog2Spider]

I just had Prima 1s installed. The bushings had to be pinned in order to make them fit properly. Cost me $180 in shop time on $40 bushings. Not happy with Vick's, and not happy with the mechanic that did the pinning work, without consulting me first so I could have spoken with Vick's about their problem, before it became mine.

It appears now that this issue has been brought to Vick's attention and they have done nothing about it. Vick's just went to the 'back of the line' as my parts supplier.

Dave.

[MattVAS]

We have no control of shops to do things that they want to do and the way they want to do it. We would have gladly taken back any part you did not want to keep or use. I have spoken with a shop in Washington that does that same thing on control arms (both Prima 1 and Prima 2 units) he actually does not charge to do that job as pinning the bushings only takes a few minutes to do. He did tell me he had spoken with other shop in Washington that work on Fiats about this same thing, so your shop may have copied what he does. If you would like to talk with the shop I'm speaking of I'm sure he would be glad to help as well.

We're sorry that this shop did something without permission to do so. We are still glad to be able to offer some form of control arm as everyone is aware that the OE units have been sold out for about 1 year.

Most everyone is aware, as it has been posted many times, Vema in Italy provided the OE style control arms. We have an order outstanding with them for those very arms from November of 2016. They have produced zero of those arms to date and I don't have much hope that they will produce them any time soon.

[fiat218]

It easy to say- well send it back and we can make it right, how many times does a person have to pay shipping for one part or many

[DieselSpider]

Remember that we are dealing with cars that even at the time of manufacture Fiat had to play musical parts on to find the combination that fit. Hard to make replacement parts 100% guaranteed to fit when the basic shell of the car and the mounting points were not that exact or precise.

Shops doing things without permission and then charging hundreds of dollars for a nickle or dime adjustment is really a black mark on the shop.