First chance I've had to get on here and relay a story from our yearly trip down to Forster.
A little long winded so bare with me!
Before we picked up the swan the suspension in the pathfinder was starting to get a little soft. We don't do any real serious off roading just the occasional bush track and beach driving. So I decided on Pedders Heavy duty springs all round , air bags for the rear, tough dog foam shocks in the rear and stuck with the Pedders Gas shocks on the front as we would have had to change the mounting plates on the front to accommodate tough dogs on the front, which could create an issue sourcing parts if there was a failure in a remote region at some time down the track.
So it was all installed at Pedders Toowoomba prior to picking the camper up. 1000km down the track back for a tighten up and check over all good.
We headed down to forster with a couple of nights stay near coffs harbour (Trip report to come once I get a chance to organise some photos) arrived no issues and ready to relax.
A day latter driving around town the tug develops a squeak from the front left, thought something might just be a bit dry and dusty from some mud we picked up on the way down, within a couple of km's the noise grows and sounds pretty nasty.
Right, Google pedders on the phone thinking we would be on a tow truck to Newcastle or Taree best case scenario, an Agency comes up in Tuncurry just over the river, perfect. Drive over to find out that they weren't selling enough and had lost the agency. They then said they would make a phone call to see where the closest agency was, I'm back to thinking taree or Newcastle. We are then sent down the road to
Forster Tuncurry Transmissions and ask to Speak to John, who it turns out had been doing the Pedders work at Great Lakes Tyres that I originally went to. John had a look and informed us they were looking at picking up the pedders agency for the area. He jacks the car up and turns out the piston has pushed up through the top of the mounting plate and the the car was resting on the spring with no assistance form the shocky. Stijn the owner of the business came out to have a look at the issue. I told him the shokies were only about 5,000km old and where it had been done etc. This was late on the Wednesday afternoon, Stijn rang pedders in Sydney and explained the situation and they advised they would assist with a replacement shocky to help us out. So we were to take the car back in first thing Thursday morning for them to look closely at and identify what was exactly required. Thursday afternoon Stijn rings me to let me know that basically the shocky had been installed incorrectly (bear with me here I'm not that mechanically minded) and that a part was not installed which assists with holding the shockie in place and is the also the stone protector for the piston. Stijn was waiting on a call from Pedders Toowoomba to OK him to bill the labour costs to them along with a new mounting plate from Nissan, which couldn't be purchased separately but only in a complete shocky assembly at about $300 plus air freight from Melbourne. I rang Pedders Toowoomba to hurry them up in authorising the work and to give them a piece of my mind. Shane in Toowoomba immediately apologised and explained that the guy they had recently employed had done a number of dodgy installs and had cost them some considerable dollars in repairs already. I didn't have to push Shane at all and he said they would be covering all costs to get me on the road ASAP.
Stijn from Forster Transmissions then rings to advise he has the all clear from Toowoomba to go ahead with all repairs and parts. Stijn then offers me the use of a vehicle for the weekend so we can still get around while the tug is out of action, as long as we can get over to pick it up. A quick taxi ride over the river and Stijn fills us in on the details and asks if we have kids that we need to get around as well, which we don't otherwise he would have given us his landcruiser to get around in!!! So we get the loan of the company Ute, a SS V8 Holden, nice.
Weekend passes Monday lunch time Stijn calls to inform that the tug is repaired and ready to go!!
Pedders Toowoomba have covered all costs, Stijn who as of yet has no formal arrangement with Pedders went out of his way to arrange to get us back on the road under warranty including the offer of his vehicles to ensure we still had transport and could enjoy our holiday. He made all the pone calls and made sure parts were delivered as soon as possible.
This was exceptional customer service in a time where you see and read about a lot of places that would normally just take the attitude of not our problem, or we can fix it and you can try and get the costs back from the originally company.
I did not have to get pushy with any one to get the work done, not that I would have with Stijn at Tuncurry but Pedders in Tooowoomba were straight up with the mistake that had been made and were ready to cover any costs.
So I could not recommend highly enough Stijn and his team at Forster Tuncurry Transmissions if any one is in the area and has a mechanical requirement of any sort!
I dropped off a Carton of Cold
for the boys when we went back to pick up the tug!!!
Mark.
