Jack L.

I had been a happy rock auto customer in Canada for over 5 years. I only ever had one small issue last year, and I was able to get it resolved after talking with a customer service rep located at their head office in Madison, WI. Ive easily spent over $10,000 us with them since ive been a customer with them. As they have almost all the parts for my collector cars, and harder to find European parts.

This last order though was completely unacceptable. Simply put, I had ordered a fan clutch for my Mercedes, having experienced poor quality fan clutches from china in the past, for this car it had to be an original Sachs made in Germany (the original OEM supplier). I did a quickly lookup on their site, and they had about 5 options to choose from, ranging in price. I could clearly see from the photo which ones were "china brand" from the desgn, the 4 Seasons brand, was higher prices (in the range of the Sachs pricing), and the photo clearly showed a Sachs branded clutch with the words printed "Made in Germany" simply I could see that 4 seasons put a Sachs brand part in their box, and off it went. Not uncommon for "house brands" to do with parts. Also reason I ordered it from RA, and not elsewhere online is their shipping to Canada is pretty reliable, and I needed it asap.

Today box shows up, and on the packing slip, it clearly states "Country of origin - Germany", so I was glad. I open up the part box, and low and behold a cheap china knock off that clearly says "Made in China". I was disappointed, but needed it asap, so I paid more for express shipping and begun the order process to order a Sachs from another local supplier.

I call up their head office, and instantly get told that there is no one I can talk to and they "Discontinued" the customer service reps last fall. I was a bit disappointed, but regardless, I thought I would start the return process. Obviously with the notion that they sold me a "Not as described" part, and they should refund me the ship price to me, the part price, and the ship back amount for the return.

I quickly got a response back from customer service, and instantly they said, not their fault, not our problem, if you want to return it you will need to pay for the return shipping. After a lot of back and forth, I was getting nowhere. And I was completely dumbfounded, that they were treating this simple issue that was their fault, and blaming it on me.

I had to file a claim thru paypal, and will wait to see what happens.