benino

purchased and paid for a transmission from lart951
Drove up to LA from San Diego and picked it up. Once home, found out it is broken.
No issue with this, it is a used item and we both missed the problem on initial inspection.
He promised to replace it.
Agreed to a date and time to meet in Chino CA to exchange for another one.
I drove up to meet him and he completely flaked. Drove up for nothing.
Hasn't responded to voicemail, many calls and text messages.

I have driven hundreds of miles, paid hundreds of dollars, and don't have a working transmission.
Anybody had a similar experience? Any suggestions on what I can do at this point?

I contacted Lart951 in the first place because he seems to have a good reputation here and people seem to have had good experiences purchasing from him. I assume he is a good guy and that something unusual came up, however I am at a loss as to why I haven't been able to communicate with him at all in the last week.
I'm not calling him out as a deadbeat, but have been unable to reach him and am hoping that he will see this or someone who knows him personally will see it and we can resume communication and complete our transaction.

Adonay

I have the impression that he is a stand up guy.
Bought a rebuilt cylinder head from him a year or two ago .
He noticed there was a problem with the head as he was suppose to pack it he checked the ceramic liners, there was something missing in a port.
He got me a even better head with new parts and lost some $$ in the process but he did try his best to help me out.

Other than that i have bought allot of used parts from him and even after shipping to Europe i have had no problems.

Ky944TurboNewbie

Only time I had trouble communicating with him was through the Rennlist message board. I had the most luck communicating by email to his earthlink email address. I have always found him to meet or exceed my expectations. Hope you get it sorted out.

lart951

I have been in trial the past 8 weeks this is something a lot of the guys here know, i barely have time to reply. You paid around $ 200.00 for the early tranny it was almost 3 weeks later after you picked up and inspect it that you contacted me to report the issue, with that said you commented that you have broke some trannies in the past. I can refund you the money no exchange. Contact my son he will be able to refund you the money once you bring the tranny back. I will text you his #

333pg333

How did you find it broken once home? What is broken?

lart951

It was 3 weeks after he picked the tranny that he email me to let me know that the tranny was broken. If it had been the same day or a week after, that would be another story but almost 3 weeks later? I can show the emails and text. So he is not been truthful about that for sure

MC951

For $200 you take your chances...just saying. The fact that Lart is willing to provide a refund is proof that he is a "stand up guy".

333pg333

Yes that sounded like he got home and discovered it broken there and then. I have no reason to doubt him. Don't know him. But 3 weeks is plenty of time to install it and dump the clutch too.
I have no qualms with any parts or service I've received from Lart's parts. Always good and fair representation of the described parts plus packed well and priced well.

lart951

It might have been $225.00 but not hundreds

CyCloNe!

Never had an issue with Lart, he's always treated my like a MVP. I've bought parts with him for over 3yrs, always excellent quality and a honest seller.

reno808

I mean sometimes i have bought stuff and not installed it for months. Life happens. CEP sent me this part i need told him to pretty much rush it for me and i have yet to install it because things just keep come up non stop. I am sure not covering for the guy as never seen him on here. But i dont think that maybe a reason to say he is lieing or broke it himself and then wants to return it. That being i have not a problem returning things back to Lart. Lart knows his parts so i am sure he can tell what the real story is.

benino

I didn't intend to start any kind of argument. I was trying to reach lart951 because I have been calling and sending text messages for a week with no response. I was told nothing about any trial or any other scheduling conflict and I had arranged a meeting directly with Lart and drove up to Chino for this meeting, for nothing.

Unfortunately, it took making this post to hear back from Lart. I am sorry about whatever personal matter he is dealing with, I just wish I had received a simple text message telling me "I'm dealing with a trial and extremely busy right now, please contact my son, here's the #xxx-xxx-xxxx" so that I could avoid a wasted evening and a long drive for nothing.

What is broken is the u-shaped part inside the transmission that the gear selector pushes against to engage 3rd gear. it is cracked and leaning away from the selector. I didn't install the transmission. I discovered by manually shifting the selector, that when you shift it into 3rd the selector is able to swing way beyond the intended travel (out of the u-shaped bracket).

I had no intention of misleading anyone. I just intended to say that I didn't discover the problem until after I had brought the transmission back to my house. I didn't find the time to work on it until 3 weeks later, which is when i discovered the problem.

spencang

Lart, you have a PM from Me!

aventari

I just want to add that I'm Benino's friend and when we went to install the transaxle, it was already broken. The selector shaft for 4th gear didn't have an internal stop for some reason. We could push the selector by hand all of the way until it hit the case which was way beyond where the internal stop should have stopped it.

We removed the selector shaft from the trans and noticed that the U shaped gear selector that the selector shaft pushes against for selecting 4th gear was actually broken and leaning back at a 45 degree angle, allowing the selector tab to pivot completely out of the detent.

It would take considerable force to break the U gear selector piece like that, and I'm guessing that the tranny was either dropped or pushed really hard into something such that the selector (that naturally centers in 3rd/4th gear) was pushed REALLY HARD into 4th gear and when it was dropped or pushed right on the gear selector arm that it broke the piece internally. That's just a guess though, who knows. I totally appreciate Lart standing behind his products and offering to swap it with a good tranny. I think the only problem was communication.

The point is that it wasn't caused by installing it and dropping the clutch or anything, and also it would be a fairly simple fix if you're comfortable cracking open the case and replacing the shift selector bits.

Here is a picture I took of the broken part. It's really hard to see but the broken "tooth" should be sticking up vertical like the one in front of it.

I have a lot of experience with old watercooled VWs like Rabbits and Sciroccos, and it's funny how similar this mechanism (and the whole car for that matter) is to my VWs heh



zoomed



and I drew where you can't see but the selector 'tooth' broke and got bent backwards



Since I might be driving up to LA anyway this weekend, maybe we could swap for a good tranny or whatever you guys decide to do.

LUCKY DAVE

I emailed Lart about some 951 injectors, this was my first contact with him, I'm not a long time valued customer or anything.
He got back to me in three minutes.