Hydraulic Throwout Bearing Failure Saga - I've reached a supplier's Director of Engineering
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In just the latest update I've now been forwarded out of American Powertrain's customer service department and pushed to the Director of Engineering at their supplier that designs and makes their hydraulic throwout bearing, Powertrain Technology Inc. This director probably doesn't get bugged with product issues too often and has offered to correct the problems. He offered at my choice to have me send in the bearing for a rebuild or to ship me another pack of new o-rings to rebuild it myself. Have I karen'd too hard in my attempt to have someone fix this shit?
Based on his response to me I'm going to continue to rebuild the bearing with new o-rings, still not 100% sure on the root cause of why it failed but the guys trust in his assembly line and product design is at least (blindly) confidence inspiring. I've already got an o-ring kit in hand that came with the parts when I bought them and I'm on a deadline so I'm going to pass on their offer to perform the rebuild. Some excerpts from his email to me below are pasted for your pleasure with information redacted:
I am highly confident that the O-ring did not leave our factory twisted. We soak all parts in brake fluid and assemble them sopping wet. When we see twisted O-rings, it is usually because the customer has disassembled the RB, and reassembled it dry (or did not take care to ensure no twisting when the O-ring was installed back in the groove). [Bandit] clearly demonstrates that he knows enough to assemble everything wet. So, regardless of how it happened, let’s just send [Bandit] O-rings (or allow him to send it in), and get him squared away at no charge.
The small nick happened after the RB left our factory. We would not ship any parts with a nick. With that said, that nick will not hurt him. It is in the brake fluid cavity, which will never be exposed to air, so there is no chance of it corroding, or causing him any type of problem.
I am also highly confident that our parts are not out of round. Our quality control procedures have a certain German-like level of precision which simply have zero tolerance for parts which do not measure up!
[Inspect] the piston all over for the least little scratches, or dents to the thin wall section area. (some) Customers are pretty negligent about proper handling of such a thin wall piston. The discoloration on the piston (from the dye used on the body) will not hurt anything. DO NOT attempt to ‘clean’ the piston, as the surface finish is quite important to proper hydraulic sealing.
At this point I believe the only thing to do is attempt a rebuild, bench-press a transmission back into the car, gravity bleed the bearing, and hope for the best. I need the car to be drivable in two weeks for my wedding! If it dies again I'll go buy a McLeod or something from a company that I trust more... or go balls out with a TKO/T-56 swap.
1981 Pontiac Trans Am
2019 GMC Canyon -
@bandit said in Hydraulic Throwout Bearing Failure Saga - I've reached a supplier's Director of Engineering:
Our quality control procedures have a certain German-like level of precision which simply have zero tolerance for parts which do not measure up!
Seems like he's the director of engineering and the director of marketing.
Good luck on the rebuild!
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@bandit His response was basically, "Oh, we would never!" Well, you did buddy.
Good luck with the rebuild!
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@bandit
I'm strongly confident that it's not fucked and it's not my fault if you think otherwise...Take the hard road and walk it. Because hedges aren't as soft as they look.
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@shop-teacher Pretty much, but at this point what do I have to lose except time and money?
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@ibrad Yeah I cringed when I read that.... especially since I've previously worked as a quality engineer in Germany for a German company lol
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@silentbutnotreallydeadly Yep that's the tl:dr version of it.
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@bandit said in Hydraulic Throwout Bearing Failure Saga - I've reached a supplier's Director of Engineering:
I am highly confident that the O-ring did not leave our factory twisted. We soak all parts in brake fluid and assemble them sopping wet. When we see twisted O-rings, it is usually because the customer has disassembled the RB, and reassembled it dry (or did not take care to ensure no twisting when the O-ring was installed back in the groove). [Bandit] clearly demonstrates that he knows enough to assemble everything wet. So, regardless of how it happened, let’s just send [Bandit] O-rings (or allow him to send it in), and get him squared away at no charge.
So what he's saying is you were sold a used product that someone bungled. /majorsnark
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@bandit I would demand a 3L5Y and 8D by COB. And of course you'll want an updated copy of the control plan to ensure the corrective actions were implemented.
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The correct response should have been to send you a replacement ASAP and request the old one for quality control and rebuild. Do they sell rebuilt units?
Never discount the possibility that you might live through it.
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@bandit absolute certainty always greatly concerns me.
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@bicyclebuck That's the resolution I was hoping for and is what we made happen all the time when I worked warranty claims.
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First, I've lost confidence in titles. Is this person "the" director of engineering or "a" director of engineering. I work for a very large company. The promotion chain in engineering is: engineer, senior engineer, director of engineering, senior director, general manager, vice president, corporate vice president, executive vice president.
Second, that is lousy customer service. They are basically saying "We think you are lying to us and trying to cheat us." Well, maybe they have a problem they aren't aware of. Maybe their QC procedures aren't as good as they think. Maybe somebody showed up to work drunk or stoned and let a poor quality part out the door. They sound like a company that has decided that losing one customer is a better option than the cost of replacing one part. They may not care about the loss of reputation.
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@roadkilled yeah I was a little offended at the tone the first time I read it through accusing me of not knowing what I'm doing. I usually dont know what I'm doing in life, except when it comes to cars.
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@bandit If it were my car I'd return the part, demand a full refund, and get something else. That shitty attempt at weaseling out of responsibility doesn't paint a good picture of the quality of their craftsmanship.
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@roadkilled said in Hydraulic Throwout Bearing Failure Saga - I've reached a supplier's Director of Engineering:
Second, that is lousy customer service. They are basically saying "We think you are lying to us and trying to cheat us." Well, maybe they have a problem they aren't aware of. Maybe their QC procedures aren't as good as they think. Maybe somebody showed up to work drunk or stoned and let a poor quality part out the door. They sound like a company that has decided that losing one customer is a better option than the cost of replacing one part. They may not care about the loss of reputation.
That's what I was thinking. If I were the customer service representative, I'd be working my ass off to make sure @Bandit was happy. Unhappy customers are a major liability in this day of social media, especially for a small specialty supplier. If I were over quality control, I'd start randomly pulling product to check on the condition. That's something they should be doing anyway. Quality control was drilled into me when I worked at a chemical plant. We checked all materials, including incoming raw materials, the condition of materials in holding tanks before a production run, the condition of materials in the pipes before they are put in the reactor, the condition of the materials after the reactor, the condition of the materials before the storage tank, and the condition of the materials at several points during the production run. The scale and cost were quite different at the plant, but quality control is quality control and it shouldn't be ignored. When errors are found, they should be addressed. They might find that one of their techs isn't as good as they think.
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@bandit said in Hydraulic Throwout Bearing Failure Saga - I've reached a supplier's Director of Engineering:
Our quality control procedures have a certain German-like level of precision which simply have zero tolerance for parts which do not measure up!
This guy sounds full of shit. Anyone unwilling to recognize that their assembly line could have made a mistake when a part fails is full of it.
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@bandit yeah, i used to do post market surveillance for a regulatory agency, and this is crap. When we talked with a quality company and asked "what's your expected failure rate?" we'd get an exact answer as well as where they were to date. No company worth a damn thinks it makes something 100% correct 100% of the time, and as a regulatory agency we didn't expect them to, because we have a basic understanding of manufacturing and we're not idiots.
The crap companies? "Oh, we don't expect any of our devices to fail." Bullshit. You're either a lawyer or an idiot. Get me an engineer worth a damn.
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@bandit Many automotive engineers don't live in the real world and will go full on Nice Guy when you try to point that out. Talking to people like that is a futile exercise in patience. If a rebuild doesn't work here, I'd cut my losses and buy from a different manufacturer because this one doesn't give a damn about anything except sales.
2022 Defender
2023 Ducati Desert X -
@bandit holy shit this guy sounds like the tool used to assemble the bearing XD
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@amgtech That's where I'm at too, thankfully since i've got a solid wilwood master cylinder I should just need to replace only the bearing/slave itself. Any suggestions of solid aftermarket companies that make bearings? I'd go OEM but unfortunately GM never made a hydraulic clutch setup that was 4-speed compatible like Tremec TKO parts. Ford did but their TKOs have different input shafts so their parts arent compatible.
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@bandit As someone who worked for a "high end" "precision" company that shipped crap all the time and also had bearing suppliers lie to our faces... yeah this guy is full of crap. What he is saying might be true, but not sure why he is risking it. Just send you a new one and get some good PR out of it.
But yeah, we were one of those "our shit is the best because it is American!" companies, yet every day manufacturing would ask engineering for significant deviations because the supplier effed something up and the part has a 14 week lead and we don't have any replacements on the shelf because inventory is poison (LEAN!) and we're already six weeks late shipping this so can we pretty please "just this once*" ship the customer something "slightly" out of spec? (*Until tomorrow, when we'll ask the same thing again for a different part and customer.)
Then again we'd also routinely install bearings and bearings upside down or backwards causing $500k+ machines to fail immediately after install but like... at least we shipped it sort of on time?
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@bandit I hope you can get it working reliably with a wet rebuild, but I'm still skeptical. But hey, they're sending you $4 worth of o-rings for free!
Losing his hearing but he don't care what most people say
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@old-busted-hotness I told them to not bother. I've got a rebuild kit already and I'm tired of dealingwith their shit. If it blows up again I'll get a new bearing. Shit, the generic summit racing brand bearing is probably better.
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@bandit Why can't they mail you an entire assembly and you mail them back the failed assembly?
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