Damage to radiator during shipment

[OR VietVet]

I really do appreciate all that RA does for this forum and the additional 5% discount but now I gotta ***** a little. I ordered a new GM radiator from you guys and included in the original many items order, was upper and lower radiator hoses and a new thermostat and a new water outlet housing for that thermostat. You shipped it all together and during the shipping process the water outlet came out of box and rattled around on the aluminum core of the radiator. It left numerous marks on the cooling fins and could have damaged or put a hole in the rows that carry coolant. I inspected thoroughly and plan to use the radiator but now I have to do some straightening of the fins for the best cooling for the engine. The order number is 217267022 and the damaged radiator is a Genuine GM #21372. I shot pics of the way it looked when opened and the damage to the radiator. The least that could have been done was to tape the ends of the water outlet box to keep it from opening during shipment. Believe me, if I put this in and it leaks I am not gonna be happy and if this repair wasn't time sensitive, I would wait for another radiator. To say the least, this is very concerning about the quality of the shipping. C'mon man, this could have easily been avoided.

 

[OR VietVet]

Hopefully you will respond in a timely manner.

 

[OR VietVet]

Here are the pics of damage to the radiator:

 

[Doubeleive]

Hopefully you will respond in a timely manner.

they won't and they won't answer the phone or anything else.
best bet is to open a return and click on arrived damaged, keep on clicking thru
eventually you will get to a point where it will ask if you want a refund/store credit/replacement.
once you choose an option and finish it out you will get a return shipping label via email
it's all pretty automatic and does not involve any human input. they do this to keep prices competitive.
if you install it and find it leaks then you will have to do basically the same thing anyway.
do not expect any apology from them of any kind or even a wink of a response, that's just how RA is setup.

 

[Doubeleive]

Here are the pics of damage to the radiator:

View attachment 380711

View attachment 380712

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that actually doesn't look too bad at all

 

[OR VietVet]

they won't and they won't answer the phone or anything else.
best bet is to open a return and click on arrived damaged, keep on clicking thru
eventually you will get to a point where it will ask if you want a refund/store credit/replacement.
once you choose an option and finish it out you will get a return shipping label via email
it's all pretty automatic and does not involve any human input. they do this to keep prices competitive.
if you install it and find it leaks then you will have to do basically the same thing anyway.
do not expect any apology from them of any kind or even a wink of a response, that's just how RA is setup.

I am confident the rows have no leaks but pressure test is gonna happen. I did go thru the damaged/return process of all the clicks and they are paying me 425 to straighten the fins and I know if leaks after install I will go thru it all again. At least I got to give them a lot of details and pics.

 

[Sparksalot]

When I was a kid, I learned how to disassemble, repair, and rebuild radiators from my grandpa. We often did work for other shops, including the Chevy house.

One time we did one for the Chevy guys. Then a couple of days later it came back, with the perfect imprint of an acetylene torch in the fins. One of the guys had dropped his torch on the radiator while it was flat on the floor. The impact left some pinholes in the tubes, so we got to fix it again.

 

[ScottyBoy]

I've had a few issues with orders from Rockauto. EVERY SINGLE ISSUE was caused the same way your did, from poor/inadequate packing. I've had many items all stuffed into one big box, but a heavy item bounced around and ripped a hole in the box and ended up losing a few items. One time I had a tub of Fast Orange hand cleaner added to my order, it arrived cracked open and spilled ALL OVER the box, even leaked out of one end. They usually blame it on FedEx, but we all know how rough they handle packages, and stuff should be packed accordingly. A sheet of crumbled brown paper isn't gonna cut it. They need to use bubble wrap or even those God Forsaken foam peanuts. ( I hate them, but they do actually do an AWESOME job protecting stuff) and they should use double walled boxes with as heavy as a lot of these parts are.
But even though I've had a few issues with damaged packages and missing items, they ALWAYS made it right. I'll admit that much. They either resent what was damaged or missing or else refunded me.