Shipping woes...
 

Last week I bought a used oem flywheel clutch and pressure plate off a bimmerforums member. Well the package arrived today and it had lots of tape on it and four or five plastic straps around it. I opened it up and the only thing in the box was the flywheel... I contacted the guy thinking he possibly sent it in two boxes. Nope just one. When I tried the tracking number in the USPS website it tells me it cannot be found and to contact the local post office.
Tommorrow I'm going to the post office with the package to see of they can pull up the tracking number and maybe see when the box was damaged and the other parts removed. This sucks.

What else do you guys think I can do?
Has anyone else had similar trouble?

First thing I would do if you can is find out how much the shipment weighed when it was shipped out. In certain cases when there is an obvious weight variance (such as yours) you can tell if something was lost or not included in the original packaging. If you can weigh your package as you got it, you should be able to figure out who the Red flag belongs to.

Not sure what procedure USPS uses for weight records...UPS and FedEx weights are always recorded on the tags.

On the postage its paid for like 20 pounds or so. I'll have to talk to the ppl at the post office tomorrow and compare weights.

I shipped Bluebimma an M3 flywheel in a usps flat rate box. The look on the postal clerk's face when she tried to pick it up was priceless.

Don't let the seller off the hook here. It does not sound like it was well packaged to begin with. Was it shipped insured? The weight will be on the label unless the seller used a flat rate box.

Hold the sellers feet to the fire on this... if you paid with paypal you have 45 days from the date of payment to open a dispute which is exactly what I would do if I were in your shoes.

I'm with BimmerBum on this one- an OEM flywheel alone is well over 20 pounds; I would think that the clutch would add at least another 6-8 or so to that and when you factor the weight of the packaging itself, I'd think that package should have been in the 35 pound range, minimum.

stock flywheel clutch/pressure plate should be over 30 pounds. Stock flywheel is 27# according to JBR. If the weight didn't change between sending/receiving, he didn't ship it properly. If the weight changed during shipping and you didn't pay for insurance, I'm not sure that is the senders fault.

it was shipped in a flat rate box. my dad took it to the post office today and they said the claims person isnt in untill tuesday.

FWIW, there's no way a pressure plate AND flywheel would fit in a single flat rate box. When Bluebimma received my old flywheel, he said the box was barely in tact. The flywheel itself barely fit in the box and I couldn't imagine a pressure plate and clutch disc would even come close to fitting with a flywheel. Sellers definitely trying to screw you. What city does he live in? Maybe someone could pay him a little visit.

He never said it was a flat rate box... paying someone a visit for a part someone else bought sounds like an awful idea.

Give us more facts!

Post #8 says flat rate box. Rochey tell us who the seller is so the rest of us can avoid him.

I stand corrected! Sorry Jess!

A clutch and flywheel should fit nicely in a large flat rate box... so the question is... was it a large flat rate box you received?

Let's hold off passing judgment on the seller just yet. As someone who has sold tens of thousands of items on the internet I can tell you there is nothing more annoying than a thread on some forum bashing you before you have had a chance to work the problem through with the buyer. (Especially when a lot of these forums will not let you post unless you want to pay $200.00 a month to be a sponsor!)

X2 whos the seller and where are they from so we know to avoid.

What's the emoticon for face-palm?

It was a large flat rate box because there was extra space in the box when i opened it. however there was no packing material. so i do think the guy really shipped all the parts. the box was in pretty rough shape like it had been dropped or stepped on. id take a pic off the box for you but my dad left it at the post office for the claims guy. im not pointing fingers at anyone just yet but if it comes out that the seller was being a dick ill let everyone know who he is.

i think it got dropped in-transit somewhere and a USPS worker was like "for shipping this heavy ass **** ima gunna steal your stuff!"