Parts Gateway www.partsgateway.co.uk Review

Overall Rating

I am writing to describe one of the worst purchase experiences that I have experienced online or otherwise.

We purchased an EGR valve through Parts Gateway with the understanding that we were purchasing a reconditioned part. I have made frequent online purchases and, being handy at auto repair, have bought many reconditioned parts. A reconditioned part, as I have come to expect, shows signs of wear but has been obviously been restored - clean with apparent maintenance to the component. Understanding that many component reconditioning efforts are internal to the comomponent and can not be readily seen, the part has all the outward indications of being professionally rebuilt - newly installed fasteners, no signs of dirt or loose contaminates, and packaged with sufficient care that the quality rebuilt back into the part is maintained.

This part arrived in packaging that was in such poor condition that had it not been for the bubble wrap around it and the last of the cello tape given to the brown paper wrapping around the box, would have probably fallen out before it arrived. It honestly was the poorest shipping care that I have ever experienced. Can you imaging where eBay would be today with such shipping? But it did arrive so I unpacked it.

The EGR, with no exageration, honestly looked like it had just been removed from a vehicle, quickly wiped, marked with a paint pen for year and model, and shipped to me. I had removed the EGR from our car several times and know, based on this experience, that the gasket between it and the manafold partially sticks to the valve body and the manafold. The part sent still had at least half of the original gasket still stuck to the seating surface, I have come to expect that a professionally reconditioned part would have such things as stuck gaskets cleaned off of the part. Wouldn't you? Not a good indication of things to come.

The EGR valve recycles exhaust gas back to the intake manafold under certain driving conditions. As such, the valve seat will accumulate carbon deposits over time. After unpacking the valve and noting the condition of the gasket surface, I noted that the valve area seemed as though it had not been cleaned. A light wipe of my finger over the area resulted in carbon on my finger. Understand, I am not discussing a bit of carbon. This part appears as though it came straight off of a vehicle and was shipped as reconditioned. When we called them the first time, they said the the reconditioning of the part was not apparent in that it was internal to the valve. I bought a lot of parts, both reconditioned and directly from the scrap yard. I feel that I fully recognise the difference.

Further, this company's customer relationship practices is beyond the worst that I have ever experienced. They failed to receive our return because they were not there when Royal Mail attempted delivery. Today when we called them (third time), they admitted that the part delivery was attempted and, after the representative complained about the distance that she had to travel to retreive the part, apparently hung up on my wife when she requested a refund. There was no argument going on. My wife does not use bad language or easily loose her temper - especially over calls for my car parts.