Shipping Woes - Quartzsite AZ – Part 2

When we were in California this past fall, we stopped at Chaparral Motorsports to explore their gigantic store and to pick up the parts Wayne would need this winter to work on his KTM 525. So once he got the Gas-Gas maintenance done, he started in on the 525.  However, he had forgotten to get a gasket that he needed.  Plus he had purchased a high output stator for my bike while at Trail Tech and it would need a gasket when he installed it.  Usually we order everything we can from Rocky Mountain MC/ATV in Utah, but they didn’t have these particular parts, so remembering Chaparral, he decided to order from them, plus they are really close by.  The parts arrived via UPS very quickly, but several items are on back order.  Nothing we needed immediately, so no big deal.

 A week later the back order is still not here, so Wayne calls Chaparral, only to find out that the backorder was sent out the next day, but it went through the Post Office.  Great, Quartzsite is one of those towns that have NO street delivery, you have to use a PO Box and no one had called to get an address (how could Chaparral know to call??).  When something comes to a street address the post office promptly returns it to the sender so Chaparral has it and will resend it. He asks if they can add a puller and an installer to the order (he needs these to finish the 525) and they agree and will send the package out via UPS this time. 

We wait another week and Wayne rides his Gas-Gas instead.  During one of these rides he is having too much fun zipping down a gravel road and seizes the piston. And to confuse matters he loses spark at the same time. It makes it really hard to figure out what is wrong with his bike. This means both his bikes are now out of commission. The 525 is getting closer to being done, our friend Rainer has the puller so he gets the flywheel off, but can’t put it back together without the seal installer. So Wayne calls Chaparral again (and they always have you on hold for 15-20 minutes before you get to talk to anyone) to see where his parts are. The rep tells him it did go out via UPS and traces the package; it should be there by the end of day that day.  Yeah!  And our friend Richard realizes that he has the installer Wayne needs, so the 525 is finally up and running again!  Yeah!!

Only no happy truck (UPS truck) comes to see us.  It doesn’t come the next day either. It is now Friday so Wayne calls again, sits on hold again and when the rep verifies the package information she keeps saying it is going to Quartzsite Idaho. No we say, that is Arizona, there is no Quartzsite Idaho. We ask for a supervisor, and go through the whole explanation again and this person reads the whole address to us and I realize that someone transposed the zip code from 85359 to 83539 which is Kooskia ID.  The supervisor goes online and redirects the package to 85359 and says it should be here by Tuesday. The original order was placed January 14^th, it is now February 1^st and we are leaving Quartzsite on Tuesday, but our friend Kenny will still be there and he will call when it arrives.  Wayne will have to drive the 100 miles back to pick it up. 

Kenny finally calls on Wednesday, still no package.  Wayne calls Chaparral and is put on hold again, and finds out the expected delivery day is now put out to Friday.  By Friday when we call, they know us by name and say it will be there by Tuesday the next week.  Sheeze!!! Finally we get the call from Kenny that the package has finally arrived, it has taken 4 weeks to get a gasket for my bike and 2 tools that Wayne no longer needs.

During this same time, 2 more friends have ordered from Chaparral, had the website say the package will ship by standard shipping, so they figured it was UPS and gave the street address.  WRONG! Both were sent via USPS and they both were sent out and returned to sender just like ours.  One package took as long as ours, the other has never arrived.  Obviously we won’t be ordering through them again.

If this sounds like bad luck, wait to you see what else was going on in our life.  If it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all!!!  Stay tuned to next time.