<VV> Frustration with Clark's Corvair

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

Hello Carl,

I am sorry to say that, yes, you are expecting too much from Clark's or any 
other supplier under these circumstances.  

In this case, you are correct that Clark's sells mostly stock items.  I 
seriously doubt that they make these carpets in their back room.  They probably 
work with a particular carpet supplier to develop the tooling needed to 
make a quantity of carpets for them in a production run at a reasonable cost.  
The huge number (effectively all) of the carpets will eventually go to left 
hand drive cars.  To get a reasonable price, Clark's buys a quantity of 
these items and puts them on the shelf.  The carpet guy buys the proper carpet 
material, places numerous layers on the cutting machine which is likely 
programmed for the specific variety of carpets and cuts them out.  The cutter 
probably cuts or punches out the holes, etc. on the left side at the same time 
that the carpet profile is cut.  To make one carpet for you, the carpet guy 
will need to reprogram the machine and make a production run of one piece.  
I am not sure but if there are minor differences from right to left other 
than the vinyl heel guard, the molds may need to be modified as well.  This 
would probably cost thousands of dollars and you would be complaining about 
the price rather than lack of Clark's flexibility.

I think that Clark's as well as all of our cherished vendors do a pretty 
good job addressing our needs but at the end of the day, they are businesses 
who must make decisions on what they can and cannot do to service their 
customer base.  To try to be all things for all potential customers would likely 
lead to bankruptcy and we would lose suppliers.

Good luck with the needed modifications for your carpet.

Doc
1960 Corvette; 1961 Rampside; 1962 Rampside; 1964 Spyder coupe; 1965 
Greenbrier; 1966 Corsa turbo coupe; 1967 Nova SS; 1968 Camaro ragtop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 1/26/2010 1:26:20 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 10
> Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:08:06 +1100
> From: Arlette Carl <arlettecarl at hotmail.com>
> Subject: <VV> Frustration with Clark's Corvair
> To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID: <COL115-W335CBB6473034755748607AC5E0 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Like many of you I purchase a lot of parts from Clarks Corvair parts and 
> in the past year or two have spend thousands of dollars with them.
> 
> For the most part I have to say that my experience in dealing with Clarks 
> has been a positive one. However a recent molding carpet order has shown me 
> that Clarks are totally inflexible when it comes to handling even simple 
> requests that are even a little out of the normal.
> 
> Clark's as I see it, simply sell stock items and even a simple request is 
> totally beyond their capacity to deal with.
> 
> My most recent order was for a molded carpet set order to suit a 1965-69 
> Corvair. I asked that these carpets be supplied as follows:  
> 
> 1. With vinyl heel pad not attached (NOT SEWN TO THE CARPET) but supplied 
> nevertheless. 
> 
> 2.  That no holes are cut for the accelerator pedal and head lamp dimmer 
> switches.
> 
> I explained that these carpets would be installed in a right hand drive 
> car and that I would fit the heel pad and cut the holes on the right hand 
> side of car
> 
> Well Clark's could not deal with this simple request and  I told me that 
> the heel pad must be installed on the left hand side and the holes have to 
> be cut on the left hand side. In short it was just to difficult the leave 
> the molded carpet set uncut. Why this is so difficult is very hard for me to 
> understand?
> 
> Anyway I am ordering the carpets in left hand drive form and will have to 
> try to undo the damage to them when i receive them.
> 
> Am I expecting to much from Clarks?  I would hate to see how Clark's would 
> deal with a difficult modification!
> 
> Frustrated from 'down under'
> 
> Carl L. Kelsen
> 1965 RHD Corvair
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia