I took my plane in yesterday to get the engine tuned. And they said to call today. So i called and they needed fuel to tune my engine which was messed up int he first place. And with fuel 20 bucks a gallon thats kinda expensive for me when they have gallons of it. They also accused me of taking my engine in because it needed tuning after i took it off. I said no, It didn't work well so i took it off. The gu also asked why i was using 15%. By now i was getting pretty fed up, So I told him one of you brilliant coworkers told me to. BTW my next plane or gear by will not be from them. I plan neevr to go back after i get the engine tuned. Since i have gotten my plane there, all these guys have been is jerks. I am seriously thinking about leaving some feedback.

I don't get it?

You are upset because they asked you to pay for materials??

Really, I am just not understanding

No, It's not cause they asked me to pay for materials. It's just the guy accused me of wanting it tuned because i switched it out. I thought it might have just been me. But i talked to my mom just now who took the fuel and she said he was a smartelec

You need to calm down and look at the situation. If you paid for the airplane and there is nothing stating that he has to tune the motor then his obligation to you is over and you need to act right . Why don't you try to enjoy the hobby and learn to tune your own motors. I see your still on here you could be in garage now tuning on it and seeing how things work instead of whining. This hobby will be hard on your MOM"S pocket book and I wouldn't expect anything less. Here is a link to get you on your way

http://jimsrc.com/

[:'(]

$20/gal is too high for 15% fuel anyway but 15% is fine for your engine, $15 would be a more typical LHS price(depending upon brand). I'm kinda surprised they offered to tune it in the first place. My LHS's wouldn't even know how, they are train people. If that is your only LHS, don't burn the bridge behind you. You will need to go back to buy little things from time to time. Work your way thru this one and shift your major purchases away if you wish but don't shoot yourself in the foot seeking revenge. They will be able to survive without you easier than you will without them. Fact of life.[]

Now go fly and forget them for the day if you can.

Bruce

NewbtoRC, give these guys a break -- they didn't build the motor, or the plane, & they are helping you to overcome your problems & they are entitled to be paid for their time & materials. So far I haven't seen anything in your post to get yourself upset at the LHS about.

It is reasonable to expect that the customer can operate the equipment competently -- it is also reasonable to expect to pay for services. I doubt if there is anything actually wrong with your engine -- just that you are not really "tuned" into it yet yourself. Perhaps there is something being lost in the message you are sending to us -- give us more details.

I know very few people that have ever taken an engine to their hobby shop to have it tuned. Your instructor or someone else at the club would most likely be happy to show you how.

You WILL have to learn how sooner or later, why not now?
Dennis-

Where the heck are you shopping?? My LHS has it at $22. They aren't plane people either and wouldn't know the first thing about tuning.

Back to the original post: I agree with the other comments. Just based on your writing and comments it seems you're a bit aggressive in the first place. Try working with them instead of against them. Ask questions and try to learn how to do this yourself rather than just have others do it for you. Express interest and a willingness to make an effort and I'd bet you'll be a much happier person... and not just in this hobby.

Good luck to you!

I guess i am a little upset. They just act real smart to me and stuff. And they think i am lieing to them everytime i talk to them. Pretty much they treat me differently than the adults that shop there. We have another LHS that i will be shopping at now

Well put Jason..I could not have said it better. I use the phrase, Kill em' with kindness. You would be surprised at how far you get

I hate to seem like I'm piling on here, but I would have to agree with most everybody else here. My wife and I own a computer business with a retail store front. When somebody comes in and buys computer parts it's up to them to know what to do with them. If the customer damages the part because they used it wrong then that is on them. If they don't have the knowledge to use the part properly we are more than happy to do it for them, for a fee of course. That's how a business stays in business. You can't expect them to do everything for free and stay in business. I've got a something I want you to think about before you start thinking about putting them out of business. Let's assume you didn't buy your plane at the LHS, but instead you ordered it online from Tower Hobbies. Ok, now take that motor you bought from Tower and go knock on the corporate headquarters door and have them tune the motor for you. See what I mean. You have to look at the big picture here. Just because the hobby shop is "Local" doesn't mean that he doesn't need to earn a living.

$20/gallon for 15%. Yes, that is a tad bit high but not unreasonable. Before you flame him for that consider this. After 9/11 there were a lot of rules and regulations in this country that were reworked or completely changed. One of those rules had to do with the transportation of hazardous materials that could be used in a damaging manner. Our fuel falls into that category. The new rules state that anybody that handles that material during it's transportation must have a background check. As a result UPS and FedEx imposed a $20/case handling charge on fuel. So if your LHS gets it's fuel shipping by those shippers it's going to be a little more expensive. My LHS gets his fuel delivered by a freight company and doesn't have to pay that fee. I get my 15% for $15/gallon. If you take the $20 fee/case and divide it by 4 gallons that comes out to $5/gallon additional fee. $15/ gallon fuel cost + $5/gallon transpiration fee = $20/gallon.

I try to treat each and every customer of mine like they are the best I have, but in business occasionally there are going to be people that you can't make happy no matter what you do to serve them. It's funny, but the ones that can't be made happy no matter what you do are also the ones that throw threats around when they get upset. I've heard plenty of them--"I'm never coming in here again"--"You won't last another year"--"I'm going to put you out of business"--"I'm best friends with your best client and I'm going to tell him to never use you again"--"I'm going to sue you unless I get better service". While no businessman wants to have unhappy customers we do tend to get a thick skin when somebody starts throwing around threats like that. Oh yeah, I've been in business for 10 years now. When a customer starts getting loud and making threats I tend to stop listening and to show them the door.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I want to give you some background before I give you one huge golden nugget of advice!!! What is that?? Kindness. It's plain and simple. I'll give you a little example from my world. If a customer buys a motherboard from me, takes it home, comes back and starts yelling at me because it won't work, and demands that make it work because I sold it to him, and starts making threats about what is going to happen if I don't. I'm going to tell him that since the part was a customer install it's not my responsibility to set it up for them, but I would be more than happy to do it for $75/hour labor fee. But if he comes back and says that he has a few questions. If he is nice about it and doesn't make threats I'm more than happy to spend some time with him to figure out the problem. First I'll talk to him about it, but then if that doesn't work I'll usually tell him to bring the system in and let us take a look at it and see why it's not working. "How much is that going to cost?" "Oh heck, it's not going to cost you anything. It's just one of those things we do for our customers". There is an old country saying that comes into play here, it's corny but true. "You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar".

I know this is a long post, and I seem to be on a soap box here, but this post struck a cord in my because I do own a retail store and I see things like this happen all the time. I just wanted to give the other side of the story here.

Take a little bit of time to think about it. You might be surprised what will happen if you take a day or so to calm down and then talk to them again. I know for a fact that he would rather keep you as a client, but he's not going to kiss your feet to do that.

Getting off my soap box now.

I have a LHS and his name shows he's new. From what I can tell from his post he's also young, put the two together and I know why he is mad. All boys get mad, it's nature. Bring an engine in for tune up and I will ask you for fuel. Why? I use 30% nitro. Want me to use that in your engine. Or better yet, I'll open a new gallon for you and then sell it to someone else. When I ask questions it's to better understand why you are having problems not to be a jerk. If he does that at a store what will he be like at the field ? OK he does't have to go the LHS anymore, he buy on the internet. Remember, to have YOUR credit card ready. O, yes when you need your next engine tuned call the girl at mail-order. Have fun and listen, there is a lot to learn. Dennis
PS Looks like I need to up my prices on fuel. 15% 2 stroke $14.95 15% 4 stroke $15.95

Nevermind guys... I got a little tempered and was wrong. I see this now. They were doing a sevice. All is well now.

Well, there IS something wrong with the engine. I'm the instructor and I can't seem to get the thing to idle after 5+ mins of running. After some more frustration, we took the .40 LA off the Superstar and replaced it with my OS .46AX (3 blade Graupner prop) and the thing flew like a champ. After we had the engine off the plane, I told Chad to take the engine to the shop (Hobbytown USA) and see if they could shed some light on the situation. Maybe they could get the idle issue worked out. It sounds like this did go badly. I know that these planes come with warranties and such, so if we really wanted to be jerks, we could just box the whole thing back up and say we want a new one.
I've really got to tell you guys, this engine is absolutely horrible. I'm not saying ALL .40LAs are bad, but man this one has got issues. I own engines in the following sizes: .049, .15, .25, .46, .75, 18CC Gas, and this little devil has me stumped.

David,
I got it back. You would be AMAZED. I sat and idled it on the ground for 5 minutes no problems. A little fuel down and 10 bucks down and I think it was WELL worth it. It was attatched to the servo wrong and i think there was more wrong, but I will tell you the rest tommrow.

Ahhhhh, Hobbitown USA. Our local HT-USA is the LAST place I would go for airplane advice. They have one guy up there that knows something about airplanes, and they've got him on the cash register all the time. Airplanes just aren't big buisness for them.... that's why they've had the same spinners and wheels on teh wall now forever. I'm sure there are better HT's, but it'll be a long, long tiem before I go back into our local one...


Andy

Actually, the two we have(in Tucson) are really good, but yes, they are rather more car oriented. At least we all have choices. [8D]

this one is pretty even on everything. Most of the guys there are knowledgeable but they just act like jerks to you. At least they can fix things though

RCRAINMAN,

Sometimes it's the way things are presented by the original poster. That's why we said the things we said. This is not the first time things were presented the way they were. Is he being taught how to tune engines, it sounds that way from your post but the original lead me/us to beleive that maybe he is aggressive and wants everything perfect right out of the box which I am sure you know is very rare indeed.

I know I am sounding a little harsh, but when a thread starts out or ending up in threats usually will turn me off quickly. His thread also struck a nerve with me as I worked in the customer service area of technology for 10 years. Patience is a virtue.

'nough said....

It is good you made peace with those at your LHS

You are all paying too much for fuel, this is what I pay. http://www.s-whobby.com/prices.html

You, too, Andy? I don't really like to bash anybody's business, but of the four different Hobby Towns I have shopped at (all in NC), I get the impression they are required to take jerk lessons. They all remind me of car salesmen (full-size); they will do what it takes to send you out the door with an armload of s**t and a lighter wallet, but ask for advice or help with what you just bought, and they've never seen you before. They don't seem to know their products or have much technical acumen.

New-b---Have a little patience, as others have said, learn to tune your own. Fiddling with your stuff can be as much fun as flying it, and you'll learn more, and faster, too. Maybe you did get a bad engine, and maybe it was your approach to them out of frustration that set the tone; it does seem like they should be willing, though, to figure out what the problem is, and OS should be happy to stand behind their product. As far as them charging you for fuel to run your engine, or making you bring your own, if you had taken your car to the dealership for work, they would have charged you for gas if they had to have it in order to run the car to fix it (if you left it with an empty tank). They also charge you for all the supplies they use (gasket sealer, brake and carb cleaner shop rags, etc.) Cost of doing business, and it gets passed to the customer.

Oh, BTW, welcome to r/c flyin'

I did have patience. I just didn't show it. I have been in there 4 times. The onyl time they were nice to me was the time i bought my plane. Other than that when i buy small items, NOTHING

Well, its so easy to tune an engine a "caveman" can do it! What you need to do is learn how to properly tune an engine. There are foolproof techniques and procedures which are in print but rarely used. You want to learn, you let me know and I'll write it out for you.

We had 2 HobbyTowns here in New Mexico and they both went bankrupt a couple years ago. They tried to corner the market here and it failed. They ordered every highpriced Arf known to man and had it on the shelf. it was actually impressive to see walls and walls of 120plus size planes but hey kept them at the high retail price and they just sat their . By the time he came around , the majority only went in to buy little hard ware and stuff but left the major purchases for the other stores.

I Love our LHS.. You need to find you a LHS with one guy who owns and operats it.. Ours even though is 45 minutes away I go there for every thing! Last time he spent 2 1/2 hours rigging me up a custom tailwheel unit using his materials for free!! Then he let me help him work on a Piper J3 he's building. This guys great if anyone lives in western KY go to jackson purchase hobbies!

Sorry to here about your problem man, i know how you feel. There's a guy out at the field who used to treat me that way (I'm 15)... Then one day he couldn't get his engine to work to save his life. He asked everyone at the field no one could fix it. SO finally after every one had tried and he was still working on it i walked over there. I could tell he didnt want me there but I stayed anyway and when he realized I wasn't leaving he let me work with it. Pulled the carb took it apart cleaned it.. put back togethe rstarted it tuned it... Ran it up and set it on the runway for him... All in the span of probably 15 minutes where he worked over an hour. He treats me about like everyone else now and asks me first when he has troubles.. Bottom line is if you don't have another LHS around, hang around with these guys, ask them some questions, try to learn and once you learn and they realize that you are serious about the hobby and show that your eager to learn they'll help you out too.

ICE MAN, There is another here. Just a little bit further away that i haven't been to. But RCRAINMAN (my instructor) says its better