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Avoid doing business with Tony48

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Keml

Ready to race!
I shipped this dude a BBK, he checks the package, says everything is fine. Two weeks later he messages me saying one of the calipers is stripped and he cant thread a bleeder nipple in it. He clearly doesnt know what hes doing and stripped the caliper himself, then wants me to pay for a new replacement. I refuse because I know the caliper was in good standing, and he also wants me to incur the cost of having it repainted.

He files a claim, I lose (not surpised as paypal favorites the buyer no matter what evidence you have). Anyways, I'm out $680, he's out $100, I'm stuck with damaged calipers that HE ruined.

Please avoid this scammer as he has no mechanical knowledge and any part you sell him, he will destroy during the install process and then file a claim against you.
 

Keml

Ready to race!
take the calipers back, re tap the bleeder and sell them again. Sucks but it's certainly better than you being out $680.

That's what I'll probably end up doing... I'll have to sell them for cheaper too since people will probably complain that they had to be tapped.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
After some back and forth via Paypal, I've decided to post here to clear some things up. This will be my only post in this thread. I will not respond to any further unscrupulous comments. Please bear with me as this is going to be a long, detailed post.

As with any incident, there are two sides to the story. Keml and I agreed to a purchase price and shipping arrangement on 8/13. The negotiation was very cordial. It is important to note that I was agreeing to purchase a brake kit that was currently fully disassembled (bleeders, crossovers, & pistons all separate from the caliper body) and required a rebuild with new piston seals. Keml got the brake kit shipped to me and I received them on 8/15. I was out of town so I did not have a chance to open the box until the night of 8/17. Naturally, it was a very large box with a ton of parts: rotors, caliper bodies, pistons, crossover tubes, mounting brackets/hardware, old piston seals, brake pads, etc. I quickly checked that everything was there and ogled over my new, bright yellow calipers. On the morning of 8/18 I sent Keml the following message.

Tony48 said:
I finally had the chance to pop open the box and check everything out. I gave everything a quick glance and it appears as though it all arrived safely.

At this point I figured, hey, another great transaction through the forums. As I would soon find out, I should have given everything a more thorough check.

I then proceeded to order the parts I needed for the caliper rebuild and install: new piston seals, copper crush washers, caliper carrier bolts, and new brake pads (I thought the EBC yellows Keml included were a little too aggressive for my daily use), etc. I ended up spending ~$180.

After receiving all my rebuild/install parts it took me a week to find the time on a weekend to tackle cleaning the calipers and rebuilding. I finally had the chance on 9/2. I spent about 2 hours thoroughly cleaning and drying the calipers and pistons. Note, I received the caliper bodies from Keml separate from all pistons and threaded pieces. So, at this point I had not installed or removed any threaded pieces from the caliper bodies, yet alone torqued anything down. I proceeded to thread in the crossover tubes finger-tight and then continued by attempting to do the same for the four bleeder nipples. This is where I noticed a problem.

On one of the previously used bleeder nipples was a thin ring of aluminum. I pulled it off and didn't think anything of it until I went to screw the bleeder nipple into the caliper. To my surprise the bleeder hole was stripped smooth besides 2-3 mangled threads at the very bottom of the hole. The ring of aluminum I'd seen was a piece of one of the threads that had stripped out of the caliper when it was removed by Keml, his mechanic, or whoever last worked on it. I was really bummed out and immediately sent Keml a PM to let him know what I'd discovered. His reply was as follows:

Keml said:
I can send you back money to cover the cost of the caliper if you'd like. Sorry about the inconvenience.

I thought, great, this is why I purchase things via the forums and not ebay. However, things broke down quickly when we began negotiating a price to replace the caliper. I requested that Keml help me cover the cost to powdercoat the replacement caliper yellow to match. Maybe this was greedy of me, but I didn't want to be out another $100+ to have these re powdered because of an issue that wasn't my fault. Keml then accused me of attempting to scam him and refused to send any refund. I did not attempt to contact him again.

The next thing I did was look into tapping the caliper for a brass NPT sleeve repair kit like this one but I realized that the 10mm hole was slightly too large for a 1/8npt fitting and a 1/4npt fitting would leave only a tiny amount of aluminum surrounding the fitting. I read about helicoils not working well for this situation because it was so difficult to get it tapped perfectly straight which is necessary for the bleeder nipple to make a full seal on the tapered seat (I also spoke to a european car indy mechanic who confirmed this). I did not want to risk ruining the caliper or having a mechanically-compromised component in my brake system. I felt I had no recourse other than to file a Paypal claim.

I proceeded by filing a Paypal claim requesting a partial refund of $225 which is the cheapest I could find a used caliper (Porsche part # 996-351-426-11). Note that this $225 did not include the price to have the caliper powder coated. At this point I just didn't want to get stuck having to pay for a new caliper out of pocket. I would separately deal with the fact that I would have one red and one yellow caliper.

After some back and forth Paypal notified me that Keml had rejected my partial refund/return. However, Paypal ruled I "won" and said Keml must refund the full purchase price pending I fully return the brake set. Now, that isn't a great situation for me. If I were to return the package it would cost me $70 to ship (that's the shipping price Keml and I split when I purchased the brakes) and I would also be stuck with $180 of caliper seals, hardware, and brake pads.

So, here I am now. I'll be out $250 if I proceed with returning the brake kit to Keml. Paypal told me my only other possibility is to dispute the charge with my credit card company. I've proceeded with a dispute of $225 and we'll see where that lands me. If I don't get refunded then I'll be attempting to tap the bleeder hole for a helicoil or NPT repair kit. If that doesn't work then I'll shell out the $225 to purchase a new caliper and pay for the set to be re powder coated before I rebuild them.

I believe Keml may not have known about the stripped bleeder hole when he shipped it to me so I'm not upset at him for that. And I also understand he's upset because I didn't notice the issue for 2 weeks. But the fact is that I received a damaged caliper from him. I'm now in a bad situation because of my negligence to thoroughly inspect the calipers for problems when I first received them. Hopefully my credit card company can help me recoup a bit of money, but either way I've learned an important lesson about the importance of inspecting used goods upon receiving them.

Summary: This transaction has led to a difficult situation for both Keml and I. I'm not trying to "scam" anyone and don't appreciate the unprofessional way Keml has handled this dispute. I'd really appreciate if the moderators would delete or lock this thread. I will not be responding to any more of his accusations.
 
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