Aaron (and Dr. Vanos staff),
I was able to get to the exhaust solenoid after a last minute trip to the hardware store and about 3 hours of trying to remove it in tight engine bay quarters tonight. I cleaned out all of the grit, relubricated and reinstalled all of the components and got the car working the way it should (for now). I don't need a warranty unit sent out for now but thank you for that offer. To be honest, it would have been harder for me to go through an entire vanos removal again than it was to fix it this way, as my skills under the hood are fairly limited.
With that being said, I wanted to voice my displeasure with the entire process I just had to go through to get to where we are now. Originally I weighed the pros and cons of your product, a total vanos replacement swap, with the one of 1/2 the price in the Beisan Systems seals and rattle kit. Your kit is advertised as one that is "professionally rebuilt to a much higher standard than the factory refurbished units" and claim that you are second to none in the vanos industry. It was because of this claim of high quality and ease of install that I chose your product.
With the 6 hours I spent on the actual vanos install with my friend helping me, plus the 2 issues of both of the solenoids needing to be removed, cleaned out and reinstalled I doubled the install time on this project at just about 12 hours total (which doesn't count the time I had to take researching things or making multiple trips to the hardware and auto parts stores over and over). The problem is that the extra 6 hours (under the hood of the car) was to no fault of my own, but rather on Dr. Vanos's end for not properly cleaning/refurbing the vanos units as your claim states you do to each piece you sell. Had I gone the other Beisan Systems route with my original vanos unit, the extra time spent replacing the seals would have still made out to be much less than the total time I spent on the project using yours. Also, since my solenoids operated properly I wouldn't have run into these extra unforeseen issues. Additionally, I wouldn't have spent an extra $100 on a code reader and $50 in extra tools needed to remove the solenoids and pistons. I won't even try to put a price tag on the frustration of the daunting task of the trial and errors needed to actually get it done but I'm sure you can imagine.
I realize that sometimes these little things happen, and that is understandable. However, since it was clearly explained to me (by both you and Chris via phone) that it is a common occurrence that these chambers have built up grit and gunk from not being fully cleaned out properly, I believe the liability rests with Dr. Vanos in the failure to sell a quality product to me (its customer) as it promised to do.
So this is where I ask you, what can be done here to compensate me for this hassle? My time is valuable (as I'm sure yours is too) and I put a several of my friends out, irritated the hell out of my wife and most importantly rearranged my life and schedule having to deal with this issue over the last 3 days. Because of these reasons, I feel that some kind of compensation for the trouble is appropriate in this case.
I await your response with great anticipation.
Sincerely,
Seth August