performance car partustralia (pcpa), friend or foe??

[pomls1]

i am wondering if anyone else has experienced problems with this company as i am having a rediculous amount of problems with them. please take the time to help, thank you

[solid]

What problems are you having?

[Spider]

I didn't really have a problem..but...

My experience with PCPA..
Australian LS1 and Holden Forums (http://www.ls1.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=1573423&postcount=7)

[Delft Maloo]

I brought some stuff off them and had no drama's.

[pomls1]

bought a full exhaust system, headers hit the chassis, two leads are being melted by the headers, sent no bolts or gaskets, exhaust was wrong and had to be cut down and re tig welded to make it fit. have been told by pcpa that they will try and do something about the header hitting the chassis but im on my own with the melting leads (its where the lead plugs onto the spark plug is hard against and melting on the header, so hard against the header that it comes off the spark plug sometimes). also will not refund for the costs of having the exhaust modified nor will it refund the header cost. the exhaust sounds great but the headers are neither use nor ornament

[CalaisV8]

Am interested to hear how you got on, interestingly, I have a similar issue with a customer who has bought one of their exhausts. We have looked at it and have the same issue, drivers side header is knocking on the chassis and plug lead 2 on passenger side bank touches the header. We have also found that the header + cats dont align with the cat back system completely.

[EXCESSV]

Vlad seems to be getting more famous......not in a good way. shock horror :lol:

[VYSHSV8]

BOOM BOOM BANG BANG good luck :(:(

Shall I say the same place maybe not the same owners again has traded under at least 4 different names previously :( its called getting out of warranty claims :(

[Bosshogg]

I am not PCPA, and yes i am the new owner of that shop,if some one has a problem with PCPA take it up with them, i stock most of there products but i will not sell any of he's holden system's because thay dont fit, if people buy for E/bay and its cheap what do you expect, as for the last person if a job was done here under me i cover all warranty,what chance do i have if people post these sorts of remarkes, PCPA and i are not the same

[duke5700]

They sell rubbish.. poor quality chinese crap and don't cover anything.

[pcpa]

We will try to make this as short as possible without conflicting ls1.com.au rules.

To respond to the forum members;
Spider: We do not sell cap sets. I think you are confused who you dealt with.
pomls1: We have had problems with some of the exhaust components but at the same time, we have had the exact components fit perfectly to other customer's cars. We have improved the clearance problems to solve the above problems. We did have these headers fitted to a test car for around a year to see if there was any problems, which there were none.
Excessv: Are you trying to improve your forum post count? Because your comment is an absolute joke.
VYSHSV8: We have been running under the same company name for nearly 2 years. So you have made a false statement.
Duke5700: Is that from your personal experience or another false statement?

We don't think most people know exactly what we do. We deal directly to the manufactures from around the world and not just Asia. With customers wanting their parts at cheaper and cheaper prices, we always have to be more and more competitive. Most parts are fabricated in Australia and then sent to the manufacturers to make the production line. We would explain more about what we do but it might conflict with the forum rules.

Unlike most companies, we will admit we have had problems with parts, as most companies do but do not disclose the information. We have either resolved the problems or the product (s) are not available.

Customer Satisfaction;
*We currently have a 99.3% positive feedback on Ebay.
*Over 1700 individual feedbacks on Ebay.
*Many more 1,000's of customers.
*A minimum of 3 month warranty on all the parts.
*7 day money back gaurantee.
*We have seen some great results from customers including A holden owner with a twin turbo set up (using our turbos) getting over 700RWHP.

We at PCPA have a long term view and are developing more and more car parts especially for the VT-VZ and VE Holdens at extremely competitive prices!

We are looking at becoming forum sponsors later in the year when we have more time to contribute to the forum.

On a side note, The performance Shoppe is not a partner company of ours. They are only our distributor of most of our car parts. Any parts that are not bought directly through them should contact us.

Hope this clears up any misconceptions people may have about us.

[[TOPGEAR]]

dealt with them once, never again.

bought fuel rails which were supposed to be "a kit".

absolute rubbish, had to spend a further $150 on fittings and hose than werent supplied and the hose was too long. injector holes were too small. contacted by email and were supposed to send me another set. never recieved them.

the rails leaked from every 2nd injector and all the drill holes still had alloy burrs hanging off them.

they said they never had a problem with all the other customers. i went through all feedback for the item and contacted 10 people individually, out of 10, the 6 people that replied all had problems !

[OMR346]

Customer Satisfaction;
*We currently have a 99.3% positive feedback on Ebay.
*Over 1700 individual feedbacks on Ebay.
*Many more 1,000's of customers.

Not trying to start anything here, but i have to comment on this. Ebay feedback means nothing to most people in this sort of game (the car game). Im going to use Procomp (everyones favourite brand) as an example. SSS, on Ebay, have a great feedback rating, and are int he top 20 sellers on Australian Ebay. That does not mean they are good. When is the most common time people leave feedback on Ebay? When they receive there items, right? That is the problem. People receive there item, and they are in good packed condition, so they leave good feedback. A week or so later, they fit it to there car, to find there is problems with it. Or they fit it up, and with in 1000kms, it fails and they are up for new parts, or worse, a whole new engine (seen it MANY times before). But by that time, it is to late, becuase they have already left feedback???

As i said, no offence to you guys. I have never delt with pcpa before, so i cant comment on your service. But that is my personal opinion of Ebay feedback. Unfortunatly, it is true, and i know many people who think the same way.

[duke5700]

Personal experience. The product was rubbish. After sales service was rubbish. All in all I wouldn't trust you or you "company" with datsun 120y.

[[TOPGEAR]]

lol @ duke.

[RRossi]

I have not delt with either business, but from their response they seem legit, at the end of the day they are sealling cheap gear, nothing more nothing less,

If you buy there gear and have a whinge all you can really say is "I told you so"

There is a reason good quality gear cost more, its not always just because its a brand name, they spend more time developing the product, there not say mass produced in China with a few e-mails sent back and foward and pics to make sure they "look" okay, and hey if they are made in China, the company are over there making sure it is quality tested before being shipped and marketed here in Aus.

After 15 years of modding over 20 somthing cars, you just learn the hard way, mods cost money, any thing that is cehap is awaste of time, there are always exception to the rules but 99% of the time, stick with name brands, you cant go wrong, some times its bette to wait an extra week.month or year to buy the mod, but when it all bolts up and everything is dandy you will be thanking yourself.

Unfortunatly as time goes on and expenses increase these companys will make money as people try to take short cuts to save a dollar only to cost them more in the end, but hey people will learn some sooner than later.

Just my 2c

RR

[Groboz]

I agree with the e-bay comments. Many people & businesses protect their rating by leaving feedback only after you leave positive feedback first, even if you pay instantly. Feedback ratings can be manipulated and I wont rate until they do first.

Oh, I have no experience with the product so can't comment on it; I just wanted to have a rant about e-bay ratings in general.:soap:

[pcpa]

We appreciate any legit responses from forum members.

We really are pushing the limit when it comes to good quality products at very low prices. We have come a long way over the past 2 years. We normally would order products that were already available. We found there would nearly always be issues. We bit the bullet and we now fabricate our own products.

In response to forum members;
TOPGEAR: The fuel rail's injector holes were initially too small. We did offer the replacement rails, if customers had the old version. We have the new rails fitted to the VY SS turbo for 3 months and no issues at all. It's kind of hard to make a truly bolt on kit because we do not what kind of fuel reg you are going to use and also what kind of return lines will be utulised.
duke5700: Extremely informative. Thanks for your great feedback!

On a side note about ebay. You have 2 sides to it, you get people that give feedback initially or wait until the parts are fitted. Either way, we treat the customer the same. We have had cases where the customer had not even payed for a product and gave us bad feedback due to the fact that it didn't come in a colour they wanted!

As we said, we don't mind proper criticism as it shows us what we need to improve on. It may be a manufacture issue, which we don't know until it is received by the customer.

[ssv1]

pcpa, I have purchased from you quite a few times now and have not had a problem (I'm not saying others don't have genuine issues). When I have purchased your products, I have done so on the understanding that I am buying it at a reasonably cheap price because it is not necessarily the best product on the market.
I note that you say you have made improvements over the last couple of years, but in the past would my assumption have been correct?

[duke5700]

I will see if I can dig up the emails for you.. I think I even have the product somewhere deep inside the shed.

I could give you plenty of feedback. Then again it would all revolve around the simple fact you need to introduce some quality control and have a concept of how to modify a car correcty. Not just buy parts in bulk from China and have a she will be right attitude. When you can't wind the NPT bungs into the holes because the thread is so poor on both accounts not even thread tape will save you I have issue. When you use a tap and die set to "hopefully" clean the part up so its useful and because the casting is so poor the thread crumbles and breaks away I have issue. When a part supposedly going into the oil system of a car had aluminium chunks left over from whatever it was you did to it I have issue.

I would be happy to supply you with feedback. I can even provide my engineering services to guide you on how to do it correctly though I fear you couldn't afford my services and providing a high quality product to the automotive industry is not in your interests anyway. Providing cheap nasty chinese rubbish with no quality control and massive mark up is.

Enjoy defending yourself, I for one and certainly done with this thread.

[hsv364]

I will see if I can dig up the emails for you.. I think I even have the product somewhere deep inside the shed.

I could give you plenty of feedback. Then again it would all revolve around the simple fact you need to introduce some quality control and have a concept of how to modify a car correcty. Not just buy parts in bulk from China and have a she will be right attitude. When you can't wind the NPT bungs into the holes because the thread is so poor on both accounts not even thread tape will save you I have issue. When you use a tap and die set to "hopefully" clean the part up so its useful and because the casting is so poor the thread crumbles and breaks away I have issue. When a part supposedly going into the oil system of a car had aluminium chunks left over from whatever it was you did to it I have issue.

I would be happy to supply you with feedback. I can even provide my engineering services to guide you on how to do it correctly though I fear you couldn't afford my services and providing a high quality product to the automotive industry is not in your interests anyway. Providing cheap nasty chinese rubbish with no quality control and massive mark up is.

Enjoy defending yourself, I for one and certainly done with this thread.

Mate .. I don't no pcpa or do i care about what they do or sell ..
But in your case it seems to me you clearly new that you where buying cheap performance parts at a cheap price ( no name brand stuff ) but you where unhappy with the quality ? You go on about how expensive your engineering services are .. what ever they maybe because i assume you think there good that's why there expensive ? but when it comes time to forking out good money on other good quality products ( well known and proved products ) that yes are expensive !! you take the cheap option and find yourself being unhappy with it .. you brought the cheapest option possible and you got what you payed for ! Not having a go at you just reading between the lines as there is always is two sides to the coin

[duke5700]

Always two sides to every coin but when the product quite simply could not even perform the task it was advertised to do at all, in any shape nor form. I call that rubbish. If I wanted a work of art for the banger I was working on at the time I would of had one made or ordered an ASE one. It didn't need it to be blingy and it didn't need to be pretty but sure as hell it needed to work.

[RRossi]

Mate .. I don't no pcpa or do i care about what they do or sell ..
But in your case it seems to me you clearly new that you where buying cheap performance parts at a cheap price ( no name brand stuff ) but you where unhappy with the quality ? You go on about how expensive your engineering services are .. what ever they maybe because i assume you think there good that's why there expensive ? but when it comes time to forking out good money on other good quality products ( well known and proved products ) that yes are expensive !! you take the cheap option and find yourself being unhappy with it .. you brought the cheapest option possible and you got what you payed for ! Not having a go at you just reading between the lines as there is always is two sides to the coin



That sums up exactly what I was saying!

There will always be somone that will want to save a buck, and some willing to sell a cheap product whit big margins, and again somtimes it does work out for the best, but most times it ends in frustration.





RR

[[TOPGEAR]]

In response to forum members;
TOPGEAR: The fuel rail's injector holes were initially too small. We did offer the replacement rails, if customers had the old version. We have the new rails fitted to the VY SS turbo for 3 months and no issues at all. It's kind of hard to make a truly bolt on kit because we do not what kind of fuel reg you are going to use and also what kind of return lines will be utulised.


when i emailed you, you never told me this. you just said that no one else had problems. you were supposed to send them out but i never got them and you stopped replying to my emails.

the braided hose across the front was about 15cm too long, had have it shortened. there was no fittings for the braided hose to connect to the fuel rail so i had to buy some. the only fitting that was included was x1 to connect a hose at one end.

even then the fuel holes (inside the injector holes) were off centered.

the excuse "you not knowing what fuel reg and fuel lines i was using" has nothing to do with it, thats not the problem. the problem is the fuel rails itself and the braided hose you supplied did not fit and you did not want to help with the issue.

even after i spent the extra $150 having braided hose shortened, enlarging the injector holes, getting all the burrs that werent cleaned up off and all the extra fittings. when they were eventually bolted to the car the pieces of shit "lifted off" the injector and sprayed fuel everywhere and nearly set my whole car on fire because your shit rails have no room for safety clips to hold the injectors in place>

just sharing my experience. it doesnt matter now because in threw them in the bin. bottom line is i wasted $400 on your shit product. ($250 for fuel rails + $150 modifiying)

[pcpa]

duke5700: We don't think you have any experience in overseas manufacturing processing, nor do you explain what product you actually purchased! We definitely do not have huge mark ups when you consider the initial fabrication costs especially when that is done in Australia. There are also set up costs for every item we need manufactured which runs in the $1,000's + a minimum order each time. If a product is faulty in anyway, there are extra costs involved. For example, the VT-VZ turbo kits have cost us around $50,000 (not including the kits them selves) so far, getting them to the level they are now! The reason why the products are not manufactured in Australia, is that the prices would then double automatically due to the high costs that Australia is well known for. If the manufacturing costs were competitive, we would love to have our parts manufactured here. As a new company we have to produce parts at very low prices to even compete.

[TOPGEAR]: As we have previously stated, without looking at your individual case, we can not comment. What we can say is that we have installed the rails and the current ones available work very well as it has gone through several dyno sessions and a drag meet.

We sell over 200 different products (not just for Holden). So the issues we have had is on a small percentage of items which have been NOW RESOLVED.

The last thing we would like to say for now is that we do look after our customers extremely well. We do apologize for the ones that have had bad experiences in the past. We are not denying you didn't. We do offer offer fair solutions for every situation.

[duke5700]

Nope no experience at all :confused:

If I can give you some advice, manufacturing O/S is great for the bottom line, however you need a decent product first that is well designed and easy to manufacture. Then quality control is the next battle. Then easy fix for us was put a guy over there to control and oversee our operations that understood the levels of QC that was required. Problems solved. Not just dump shit all over the market.

Anyway I would love to rant a little more but I would like to see this thread stay open.

Peace out.

[TUFFIE]

Well all I can say is if you call yourself performance car parts Australia...i would imagine you would need to have a good understanding of a performance based builds etc..and if you did then you woudl know what questions to ask customers to ensure that they get what they are after. as for it being cheap well ok you get what you pay for but you would hope at least what you pay for WORKS.

As for me enough proof from members that know what they are talking about for me not to go anywhere near this so called Performance shop.

Thanks for the heads up guys and saving a lot of people money.

Just noticed PCPA ACCOUNT FROZEN......whats with that? WHY??????? were they too cheap for the forum...LOL

# Ban date: 24-05-2010 / Lift date: Never (Permanent ban)
# Reason: Please contact the moderators ( ***********ls1.com.au ) re: Breach of forum rules. "Use of a non sponsor business name for your forum name".

Hahahahahhah enough said.

[vyls1wa]

Cop that, but I would of atleast liked to of seen them defend themselves, no clips for injectors on a fuel rail? could of ended very badly

[LS1-5.7]

Mmmm ... Just because parts are cheap/cheaper than others does not have to mean they are "not fit for purpose" or "other than described". The word fraud seems to come to mind there straight away...
If a product is advertised as doing something and being suited to a particular vehicle, then it MUST do and be that. The promoter of a third party product must be very aware of the product's downfalls BEFORE he/she decides to sell it. An ironclad warranty policy would also be helpful. A product with no quality control is not really much of a product and will ultimately be phased out by bad press and disgruntled customers. Unfortunately, some of us will not escape such an experience before they do :mad:

At the end of the day we have to do shitloads of research and comparing etc before we commit to buy anything these days, as there is plenty of rubbish out there which is not always reflected by it's price .....