This is the story of how and why I got a new radiator from RockAuto, delivered and sent back the same day last week. When you hear this sound (»doink!«), y'turn the page. Ready? Let's begin:
A member of my chosen family is the service writer at a good independent shop in Northern Michigan. That was my first stop with the '91 Spirit (3.0 V6, 30k original miles); I took it in for him and his crew to make it ready for my transcontinental trip this past September. Leaky axle shaft seal replaced, loose heater hose clamp tightened, Koni shuts and strocks. The tech noticed some advanced-and-advancing corrosion of the radiator at the lower right rear corner and said I'd be due for a replacement soon.
Lately I've been smelling coolant when I walk past the front of the parked car; "soon" appears to be coming, well, soon. There's no gusher or geyser because I'm running waterless coolant, which operates at atmospheric pressure rather than 14 to 16 pounds -- I'm guessing that's probably buying me some time before absolutely needing to replace the radiator. But we're in Seattle from the middle of last week to the end of this one, so I thought I'd snag a radiator and swap it in or at least have it ready to swap. RockAuto listed a new Spectra Premium radiator, number CU-1108, for $75. Most of SP's stuff is made in Canada, but I wanted to check so I called up their HQ and asked. "Our CU-1108 is made at our facility in Laval, Quebec", came the answer. Fine by me, I went ahead and ordered from RockAuto, specifying 2-day shipping to give myself maximum opportunity to do the swap.
A business day and a half later, FedEx dropped off a radiator box festooned with "NEW RADIATOR" and "MADE IN CHINA". It also had a "Proliance" (used to be Modine before some dillweed MBA decided to rebrand that venerable company) sticker mostly covered over by a "Cooling Depot CU-1108 Made In China" sticker. There was also a sticker with a 15-digit part number (the last seven digits were zeroes), a bar code, and "MADE IN CHINA". Near that was a label bearing the name and address of an auto parts house elsewhere in the state of Washington. I called them and asked whether RockAuto had dropshipped my order from them. They had no idea why this box would have their label on it; they had nothing to do with my order.
I opened the box and took a look at the radiator: No manufacturer identification on it at all, just a small sticker that said "Inspect by BD12". The core was a super-thin aluminum one, much thinner than original. Won't fit right; will leave a giant gap between the front of the rad core and the A/C condenser. The plastic tanks gave every appearance of being made out of this-isn't-the-specified-material-but-the-owner-of-the-factory-in-China-got-a-great-deal-on-a-material-of-the-same-colour-from-his-brother-in-law.
Um...no.
I called RockAuto and the guy said "We don't list the country of origin on any of our parts. This is a global economy and companies make quality parts all over the world. Whatever brand radiator you received, it's equivalent, and we don't accept returns because the customer doesn't like where the part was made." I told him I wasn't rejecting it because of where it was made, I was rejecting it because it wasn't what I ordered. He said he'd have to call Spectra Premium and find out whether the radiator was theirs or not. I said fine and gave him my number.
Then I called Spectra Premium again and described the box and the radiator. The answer, which the lady was nice enough to double-check for me, was clear: if it was in fact their radiator, at
least the box would have a Spectra Premium label with a bar code on it, and probably so would the radiator, because that's how they do their inventory tracking.
No call back from "blah blah global economy blah blah" dunderlump at RockAuto, so I called RockAuto back. Got a different guy, explained the situation. He said he was going to put me on hold and call Spectra Premium. When he came back, he said they'd told him that if there was any label at all with the CU-1108 part number on it, that it was definitely their radiator because that was their part number. Um...
bulk wrap! Spectra Premium haven't got a trademark or a copyright on "CU-1108"; anybody's free to use that part number and in fact a fair number of different outfits do. I pointed that out. Dunderlump № 2 made a couple more halfhearted attempts to push this "Oh, no, only Spectra Premium can use that part number because it's their part number" line on me before relenting and emailing me a return label. The reason-for-return field was pre-filled-out: "Misboxed".
FAIL!
I'm getting an OE radiator. It's not $75, but it's also not a generic piece of almost-kinda-sorta-more-or-less-can-be-made-to-fit garbage from China. If I wanted a Chinese car, I'd have moved somewhere dumb enough to allow them on the roads and bought one.
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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.
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then we can get some of our jobs back 
