Zenith Aircraft Builders and Flyers
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Horrible experience with Rotec Aerosport
On March 23, 2020 I ordered an alternator upgrade kit from Rotecaerosport for my CH601XL-B. I had a series of problems with this company, including:
- They promised me a total price of $750 for the kit: $625 for the kit and $125 for shipping. However, my credit card was charged twice for the kit, once to my credit card and another to a PayPal account. So, I contacted my credit card company and disputed the charges. They said the second charge was fraud and cancelled my credit card. Then they sent me a new card, but my account showed a charge above the $750 agreed upon amount. I asked Paul Chernikeeff of Rotecaerosport to issue me a credit for the overcharge. He said that he would do it. Fortunately, on 8 April I get a credit for the overcharge to my credit card.
- When I ordered the alternator kit, Paul told me that I would get it at the Sun n Fun special price of $625. However, when I checked the Rotecaerosport website I discovered that the Sun n Fun price was actually $525. I was overcharged $100. On three separate occasions, I sent email messages to Paul asking that he refund me the $100 price difference. He never responded to any of them. My assumption is that he will not give me the refund.
- On the Rotecaerosport.com website it very clearly states that all items are shipped via Fedex. So, I expected that the company would use that shipping service. Instead, the alternator was shipped via Auspost. The Auspost website showed that the alternator was shipped on 27 March 2020. As of today, 14 April 2020, it has been 19 days and the alternator has not arrived. Moreover, I have checked the Auspost website for the past 15 days and there is no update on the status of the shipment. So, I emailed Paul of Rotecaerosport and asked him about the status of the shipment. He told me to check the Auspost website and that he could not provide any additional information. I then told him that his website stated that all items were shipped Fedex and asked why the alternator was not shipped that way. He told me that his company had nothing to do with the website. I was shocked at hearing this because orders are placed through the website and its's his company.
- I then asked Paul why the alternator was not shipped via Fedex. He wrote the following: "FedEx shipping was not available in my area at the time of shipping so EMS was used instead." I checked the Fedex website and it showed 7 Fedex office locations in Melbourne, Australia. See https://local.fedex.com/en-au/melbourne/
So, Paul's excuse for using Auspost does not seem credible. Note, in addition, that the Auspost service is notoriously poor. When checking the Internet for reviews I found the following website:
https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/australia-post
The site had 8,730 reviews of Auspost. 6,346 of these were highly negative. That is 72.69%. Many users of Auspost wrote that it could not even deliver packages within the same city in a reliable and timely manner. Thus, Paul should not have shipped the alternator kit via Auspost.
- Since ordering the alternator kit from Rotecaerosport at least 5 fraudulent charges have appeared on the credit card I used to order the alternator. Several of these were from Amazon in Australia. Note the I never had this sort of problem before ordering the alternator from Rotecaerosport. When I reported this problem to my credit card company they cancelled my card to prevent further fraud.
5. I finally received the alternator kit on 28 March 2020.
6. Along with a highly skilled A&P I installed the kit in my plane. The installation instructions are extremely poor. I had a number of questions about the installation that I sent to Rotec. They never responded. So, there was considerable trial and error during the installation process.
Overall, my experiences with Rotecaerosport can be summarized in a few words, frustrating, irritating,and horrible. Had I known that the company would provide such poor service, I never would have done business with them.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by christopher fryatt on
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hoping it works out, I have found when ordering some European stuff (air parts, car parts, watches) shipping seems to move at Mayflower speeds
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Permalink Reply by Robert Lemke on
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Corona Virus, the airlines slowing to a crawl, and some countries blocking all merchandise imports is today's current state of affairs... I sent an interior to a customer in Australia, and it came back... Australia is blocking all incoming shipments at the moment. Canada is as well. There could be issues sending out... I have another interior kit that has been stuck in Frankfurt for 3 weeks...
Right now it may pay to be patient.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Jegachandran on
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Were you able to get the Alternator Conversion Kit?
I have exact same situation and just about to order one from Rotec Aerosport Pty. Ltd
I had email communication with Nilay Dave but the actual emils are from anther person Andrea Chernikeeff
Nilay is asking for payment via PayPal
Just concerned about the whole ordering , as I know charge backs are difficult to deal with via PayPay if I don't get the products
Please let me know if you have been able to resolve and able to fit the Alternator Conversion Kit?
Thanks
Peter
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Permalink Reply by Eugene Stone-Romero on
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Hello Peter:
I finally got the alternator kit on 28 April, 34 days after paying for it.
Along with a very skilled A&P, we installed the kit. The instructions for it are very poor. They do not cover all of the procedures needed to do the installation. So, the procedure took much longer than expected and was more costly than I anticipated. Moreover, I sent Paul Chernikeeff an email asking about the installation procedures. He never responded. Very poor customer service!
I definitely would not order the kit from the people in Australia unless Rotec will guarantee that it will be shipped via Fedex.
There is a U.S. distributor that might send you the kit. Contact Brian Kelly at radialconversions@gmail.com. He lives in Florida. I'm confident that it will take far less time to get the kit from him than from the people in Australia. If he will not sell you the kit and you end up having to get it from Australia, make certain that they will ship it via Fedex.
If you need any help with installing the kit, you can call me at 505-867-5370 or email me directly at wolfcub1945@gmail.com.
Best regards,
Gene
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I actually had a completely opposite experience. I ordered off the website, paid for it and before it arrived had a question which was answered in a matter of minutes. I found Paul very responsive and it arrived in less than the 7 days it was supposed to.
I found the instructions very straightforward and easy to follow and really not even necessary, as it pretty much goes in straight forward and logically for anyone with the slightest mechanical ability.
The only thing I had to do outside of the scope of the instructions was to remove the flywheel to cleanly and safely remove the magnet ring. In order to do that the distributor towers need to come off. I would not expect Rotec to include this in their instructions as it is outside the scope of the install and any instructions needed for that are already (and properly) found in the Jabiru overhaul manual.
I was happy to do this as it allowed me the opportunity to upgrade the flywheel bolts to Nordloc washers and really only added a couple hours to the install.
I'm not trying to flame your A&P, but I would think about "upgrading" him if he couldn't do this easily.
My pleasant experience may be unique with Rotec, but it's the only experience I have with them.
Oh, one more thing to take note for anyone thinking about this. It works great for me, but you will need to take an allen wrench and use a cutoff wheel to shorten the small L side of the wrench in order to access the ignition coil bolts because the new bracket covers access with a long allen wrench whereas the original bracket was wide open.
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Sean,
I'm happy that you had a good experience with Rotec. As noted in my post, I did not. Moreover, I can document everything that is in my post. Maybe the folks at Rotec changed their behavior in response to the issues that I raised. Who knows?
By the way, my A&P has about 30 years of experience and is highly competent. He doesn't need upgrading. Instead, Rotec needs to provide better instructions on installing their alternator kit. Even if they opt to not do this, they need to respond to questions raised by purchasers of their products. When we contacted them for clarification of several items associated with the installation of the alternator kit they never responded.
All in all, I stand by my comments about Rotec. The behavior of Paul was abysmally poor.
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Hi Eugene,
Not calling you a liar or anything and to be honest, I have seen the same type of complaint you leverage by other people in other forums, so i'm sure there is plenty of weight to it and I would be frustrated if in your shoes as well. Maybe I just caught them at a good time, but I actually spoke with them on the phone and they were very cordial and not in a rush or anything to get off the phone. Maybe it's a cultural thing, who knows.
By the way, I saw your post about grabbing a tach input. It may be too late for you right now, but after trying a couple of options I went with a rock sensor that I have about 10 hours on now and the original poster has a ton of time on and it is working great for both of us.
See post http://www.zenith.aero/forum/topics/honeywell-gt-1-hall-effect-tach... for details on that with pictures.
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