I am in the same situation here. My cowl was busted and the first customer support person I talked too at Tower asked me to only send back the cowl. That was a mistake. It took Tower over a week to forward the cowl to Lanier, and now they tell me is up to Lanier to send me a new cowl. You know how that goes; Lanier says they don't have any idea as to when they will have a replacement cowl. So I definitely agree with you, this is the last Lanier kit I buy. Lanier has the worst customer support I have experience so far in the RC business.

And Tower Hobbies is not being very fair either. If you tell them the plane was damaged by the carrier (UPS) they will ask you to return the whole kit back to them, and they send you another one from their stock. If you tell them the damage was due to poor packaging from Lanier, they ask you to deal directly with Lanier. Once you send back any part of the kit to Lanier, Tower refuses to accept the kit back because "is incomplete". A real life catch 22.

It sure is a rip off to spend almost $500 and now have to wait to God knows when. I am giving Tower one more week to make it up to me. I only live some 3 hours away from Champaign IL., and I have relatives up there. I will personally deliver my "incomplete" kit to Tower, and I promise you I will not leave their premises until I get a full refund on my money. This whole affair is completely unacceptable and it shows very poor customer support, both from Lanier and Tower Hobbies.
The least Tower could do is to open up one of their kit from stock and replace the necessary parts for the customer.