Buyer Beware Of Mack Parts

[AutomaticMack]

An open letter to MACK Truck, Today I purchased a New 150 Amp Leece-Neville alternator for my 1985 R686 Dump Truck From Flag City Mack in Findlay Ohio. The orginal alternator was working good with 12 years of service however it was only a 100/105 amp output.

My intent was to have more power for more electrical goodies. Well upon installing the new unit I discovered that at idle it was only outputing 11.0 volts with no load ("lights, AC, etc.") and when I crank it up to 1100 RPM the alternator would start outputing 14.01 volts. So I decided to take the bad out of the box unit back to Flag City Mack for a good one. Well it turns out Mack Corp. policy states that anything sold over the counter that is bad out of box needs to be sent in for replacement. And I would need to purchase another one at a price of $130.00 USD .......ok so that means I am out 260.00 and who knows if the second one is going to work.

I contacted the Leece-Neville service rep. and he had me do some measurements while it was still on the truck, and YUP!!! its bad out of box! he suggested I either take it back, or get smaller pullies for the unit and not use the orginal pullies.

After all this I decided to go to my local NAPA store and purchase a rebuilt alternator from them. wouldnt ya know it !! it worked !!!!

I have talked to other Mack truck dealerships around the USA and all of them state it is Compay policy. That if a unit is bad out of box. Either be it a alternator fan clutch or any other part or parts installed by a customer. The customer must purchase another replacement and wait for a POSSIBLE? refund and no time frame? two months? year? who knows !!!.

This is not customer service !!!!!!! This is out right Screwing of the loyal Mack customer!!!!!!

A Loyal Mack Customer

Tyler Y.

Degree in Industrial Electricty

Degree in Robotics

[ThaddeusW]

Maybe you had a bad voltage regulator. Sorry to hear of your troubles. These guys know since a customer installed it, their is a possibility that the customer knowingly damaged it and is playing stupid. This kinda thing happens allot; someone buys something, breaks it then claims ignorance saying it was DOA. Mack is just trying to protect themselves from fraud.

[rick harper]

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are alot of those around. Should take around 60 days for warranty to accept or deny the claim.

[Barry]

I'm staying outta this one! LOL We are sometimes guilty of this also. But most of our local customer base has in house charge accounts and they usually never have to pay out cash for the 2nd time charge. We just put it on their account and then credit it when we get credit. It is due to Mack's policy because they demand invoices for replacement purchases. We can't return it without an invoice. Like Thad said, customer misuse is a big problem. We can't give out a part then not be able to get reimbursed from Mack because they said it was broken by the user. We try to be fair, but it usually comes down to Mack and their vendor experts who determine the warranty issues.

I don't think this is the case with Mack Dealers only...I bet that if the NAPA Alt was bad out of box...they would also want to bill you for a new one until they got credit for the defective one.