After reading this thread: http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11373 i decided to order a re-manufactured Quadrajet from National Carburetors. It took quite a few months of phone calls until they had the right core in stock and could build one for me. Finally, January 24th my carb arrived. Not only was is missing the rear vacuum choke pull off and had the incorrect choke spring housing, but the baseplate was cracked where they re-bushed the primary throttle shaft. I contacted them by phone and they happily told me to send it back for replacement. I had to ask for them to send me a return shipping label. I was NOT going to pay for the return shipping. March 23, my carb arrives again... My RMA invoice reflects my notes that the rear vacuum pull off was missing and had the incorrect choke spring housing for the application. (76 Pontiac has the heat inlet facing forwards.) The baseplate had been replaced but it STILL had missing and incorrect parts. It is also missing the secondary lockout lever. I installed used parts I already had so that I could install the carb and get my wagon fired up. Then I notice the secondary air doors are binding up. The secondary rod hanger was mangled, and one of the rods had a bent tip. By this point, I am seriously pissed off. I swapped out the rods and hanger from my old carb and get ready to install. I decide to open the fuel filter housing to confirm that there is a fuel filter inside and it is installed correctly. They used a a fuel filter housing that is shorter than normal and had completely crushed the fuel filter. (pictured with my old parts for comparison) Swap out those with my old parts and finally get it bolted on. Car starts right up and after some minor tweaking to get the choke dialed in, it is running great. I called up their sales department and they connected me to one of their specialists. I emailed him pics of the problems, but he didn't get the email right away. I had to leave for work, so he said he would call me within a half hour. A week later, no phone call. I called again and requested to speak with a manager. He informed me they had some issues with receiving large email attachments. (fair enough) I emailed all the pics to him one at a time. He put me on hold while he consulted one of his techs. When he came back, he sounded irritated and told me he would send out a return shipping label so I could send it back and he would refund my purchase. "We've tried twice and couldn't get it right, so we will just refund your purchase." I told him absolutely not. They had already wasted 2 months of my time. If I just sent it back, I would still be out of a working carburetor. Send me the missing, damaged and incorrect parts, and I will install them myself. The next day UPS delivered a box with my parts. Everything looked good until I tested the vacuum choke pulloff with my vacuum pump. Although it looks new, the diaphragm is ruptured and it does not work. I am fuming mad. I have had better customer service from the DMV!!! Absolutely unacceptable. I say avoid this place like the plague. With service like that, they don't deserve our business.
Thanks, Steve. Awhile back someone here highly recommended them. With your post it is quite obvious that things must have changed at National Carb. Or the other guy just got lucky. What ever the case....I agree that our wagon family members should avoid the place at all cost. The QJ is problematic enough when not working properly and requires experienced hands. It is my favorite carb and if I still had a car requiring one I would avoid Nat Carb because I know you and know that your analysis of the place would be accurate. This info is important because Nat Carb is another one of those businesses that appears large and trustworthy. We all know that in this day and age of the computer....looks can be deceiving. Nat Carb is off my list.
I decided to Google them and see what type of reputation they have. It is at both ends of the scale. Some people say that they sell nothing but problems, and others say that the product is great. It might be a seasonal problem, where in the spring they get swamped with requests for product, and can't get out quality work, and other times they are not as rushed. It also might be the techs that are working on the carburetors, just don't know the product as well as some of the seasoned techs. Another thought might be that they don't have enough experienced techs to do all the work. The guy that is great on a Holly carb, might be terrible on a Q Jet, but because of high demand for the Q Jet, he has to work on them. The one thing that I did find was that there is one company out there that I couldn't find one bad review for. Cliff's High Performance They are also a lot more expensive than National Carburetor.
I have ordered 2 Q-jets from Summit Racing. They are about $300, unless you catch them on sale, but the only problem I ever had was the first one, the electric choke did not heat. It looked new, but would not heat up. I called Summit and had a new choke cover within about 2 days. Sometimes, paying a little more from somebody that backs their merchandise well is a better bargain.
