How Hard Is It For Advance to Send the Right Part?

Like really? So yesterday my new springs arrived from Advance. Open the box of CC623 variable rate springs which look like this on their website:



What shows up is something with about 4 less coils, and looks like they were already on a car. I call them, and they apologize and immediately ship out the replacements, next day air. So today I get home from work, open the bix UPS box and what's in the box? The same exact style spring as I returned yesterday! So these are going back, I'm getting my money back and ordering them from Rock Auto. This is nonsense.

when they were Discount Auto, I ordered a starter for my XJS, it came in, looked like the core and off I went......to Tampa 260 miles and several hours later, I found out the damn gear had a different tooth count from the flywheel. It was a holiday weekend....so I had to drive all the F way back, go back to the store, get my original core back and go to the import car parts place and pay 50 more for the right part and rent another car the following weekend to go back to my sister's......swore I'd never shop there again......but I have just don't special order anytning from them anymore.

So before I get too angry at Advance, can someone tell me if this really is the Variable Rate rear spring?

The uneven spacing of the coils confirms the progressive (variable) rate.

Well now I just feel silly.

Now, hurry up, install them and post some pics

Wanting to install a pair of these in mine and Rock Auto has a nice price on them.

Ditto, I'm considering ordering a set for my car. Please tell us how it comes out.

I put coil-over shocks on my car when I removed the air shocks. It still has the stock springs that came with the air suspension. It's normally fine except when I tow, and it's almost time to start towing the motorcycle trailer.

Looking forward to pics/update!

-Mike

My springs are so worn out when I jack up the car they almost fall out. They make all kinds of noise pulling into and out of the driveway.

sdstick wrote:

The uneven spacing of the coils confirms the progressive (variable) rate.

Absolutely correct. A spring with a constant rate wold have evenly spaced coils.

Post with before and after pics here:

https://gmlongroof.4umer.com/t1735p20-wagon-shocks-and-springs#33020

Welcome to the joys of using stock photos.

I do work for an eBay parts seller 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. About 1 in 4 of the questions I get to answer are similar to:

"hey mang this sensor don look like teh part for my Spritzel can yuo gimme a real pic n stuff"

so if I don't have an exact picture or at least specs, then I have to go hunt down a picture on Google Image Search of that specific part number, watermark it, and hook them up hoping I found the right pic...

occupant wrote:

Welcome to the joys of using stock photos.

I do work for an eBay parts seller 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. About 1 in 4 of the questions I get to answer are similar to:

"hey mang this sensor don look like teh part for my Spritzel can yuo gimme a real pic n stuff"

so if I don't have an exact picture or at least specs, then I have to go hunt down a picture on Google Image Search of that specific part number, watermark it, and hook them up hoping I found the right pic...

Which makes me question why can't stores take 2 minutes, snap a picture of the real part to show customers what they're actually getting. In the long run it would save a lot of time and money on both sides. For instance, because I had no idea what the actual spring looked like Advance had to spend $50 to overnight the new set of springs to me. They ended up making like $6 on those springs because I had a discount code and the shipping cost as much as the springs! And for the record, Advance, Rock Auto, Amazon, Autozone and a couple other retailers all use the same default picture. Stupid imo.

It is.

Reason why we do it at the company I work for is I'm in Texas, the owner is in Iowa, and the warehouse is in New York.

Once I've exhausted the manufacturer's stock photos I do ask for specific photos for specific items but I rarely get them. Someday I plan to ask boss man:

"hey mang, u wanna send me like every piece you have that we don't have good pics of"

and he'll say no because the shipping costs will be stupid high...

but I will try!

Yup, stock photos led to quite a disaster last year on a header install. People kept asking about a set of cheap headers that looked like they should fit the B Body. So finally a local member bought a set so we could try them on his Impala. Once we opened the box however and saw the actual part we realized they would not fit at all. The actual part had zero in common with the photo that EVERYONE uses to advertise the headers.