# ECS Lightweight Crank Pulley -- DEFECT



## 637395 (Sep 15, 2011)

So, for quite some bit, I have been running the ECS lightweight crank pulley. Hadn't had issues for quite sometime until two weeks ago when my serpentine belt snapped clean in half on a local highway (422) here in Southeastern PA. To my surprise, I lost power steering but was able to maintain control and get to a safe spot. Inevitably, I ended up being towed to a local dealership where the fault was assumed to be the belt. They sent me off and on my way. (This all happened on a Wednesday).

The following week on my way to work from my class, I was making a turn by our local mall and I heard a snap again -- I had a feeling it was another bad serpentine belt and pulled over. Once again -- clean split in half and it was torn up. Picture below. I knew something worse had to be going on as two bad belts in a row is just madness.

Surely enough, the dealership found the following to be the fault...










Turns out the lightweight crank pulley isn't aligned correctly, thus the belt was running on an angle and 'hopped' up on the edge, thus spinning to the point it cut clean down the center of the belt, and *SNAP* -- bye bye belt.

Now, after having gotten a hold with ECS Tuning, I was told they would RMA the pulley and credit me (mind you, 'store credit') for the cost of the lightweight crank pulley, but *not* the cost of the reapir -- let alone even the cost of me having to send back *their* defective crank pulley. Thus, I am stuck with what will likely just be $80 of store credit... (crank pulley refund - shipping cost = credit).

A big :thumbdown::thumbdown::thumbdown::thumbdown: on ECS for this one. Even with documented proof of the belt being defective, they aren't bothering to acknowledge the risk I was put at by having lost power steering on the highway or the fact I had to be towed *twice* and even missed 3 hours of work having to take the time to deal with *their* problems.

As of now, there is no lightweight crank pulley for sale from ECS, likely thanks to me having been a tragic guinea pig.

For the record, I did follow up with them and message them in regards to their refusal to compensate me for being their R&D guinea pig -- they did 'See' the message on Facebook.


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## crispy21 (Mar 26, 2012)

damn ****ty deal man. :thumbdown: on ECS for this.


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## HelloMyNameIs (Aug 2, 2011)

Damn, that is a sh*t deal :S


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## HD9280 (Jul 26, 2012)

WoW...

ECS, is there anything you'd like to respond with?


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## timmiller05 (Mar 26, 2010)

That sucks! Also.... Sucks your dealer hosed you on that belt! List price is $31.00. Sorry I'm a parts guy and could't help but notice...


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## 637395 (Sep 15, 2011)

Pix. That black crap is the rubber fron the belt.

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## 637395 (Sep 15, 2011)

Now, an update from their Customer Service Manager, Mr. Tilly. Followed up by my response...





















I still don't understand how they still refuse to accept responsibility for the problem and issue the pulley ended up causing whatsoever. Sure, replace the pulley itself -- but only for store credit -- and no, no, no -- it still is not our faults 100% as you bought it through USRT, even though in reality all USRT does is order it through you and it ends up at my lap.

Now, from experience in the professional world and from my father who is in fact a CEO of a decent sized company (700~ employees with an A++ Rating (best in the industry)), one must take full responsibility for a mistake or a problem caused by oneself. For example, say one of our product retailers (reseller, in this case USRT) sells our product -- it is still our product, still our name, and still our reputation written on that product, correct? So, say the customer that bought through the retailer experiences an issue, of which conclusively resulted in our product being at fault. Do you run to USRT, kicking and screaming about an ECS product sucking, thus forcing them to be a middleman in the issue, or do you directly contact the manufacturer and owner of said product/design/piece of spinning metal?

I just don't understand the logic. We have had issues where customers have expressed the same problem, and we don't in anyway bring our retailer into the equation as they just happened to be our reseller. In fact, we are grateful for our reseller, and in no way-shape-form would we ever dare tarnish said relationship.

Sorry USRT and Mr. Tilly, but you just keep digging yourselves a hole in my book.


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## lessthanalex (Oct 12, 2009)

You make a very valid point. It would be like buying an appliance at Lowe's. Lowe's didn't make the appliance and they are not the ones who are responsible when your appliance breaks, unless you have a warranty with them. The manufacturer of a product is the one that should deal with an issue, not the retailer. 

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2


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## 637395 (Sep 15, 2011)

Time for some typical brash SimpleStapleness to better simplify this...

So, I go out and buy an XBOX 360 from Best Buy... Suddenly, the XBOX eats my Black Ops II and catches on fire then molests my cat. Would it really make sense for me to go banging on Best Buy's door, when in reality all the did was do Microsoft a favor and sell the product? That would be an inhibited defect with the XBOX 360, of which they would replace the game and system directly, along with all costs incurred, right? MY cat's PTSD and stuff? Why punish Best Buy for selling your [email protected] product when all they did was do you a favor? Was it Best Buy's fault that my cat got sexually exploited? I dear think not.

Come on, ECS.... THINK OF THE CATS.

As my friend just said, "ECS is the Walmart of the car world, just without the return policy."

:facepalm:
:thumbdown:


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## ECS Tuning (Oct 2, 2006)

Hi Brendan,

I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. We take our ECS products very seriously and hold ourselves to high expectations with strict quality control procedures. This issue is not being taken lightly; we have committed our R&D staff to analyze your pulley once we receive it as well as our on hand inventory to ensure they all meet specification.

We strive on producing and offering the best products to the Volkswagen community, if anyone else has any issues please PM me and I will see that it gets taken care of right away!

Thanks, Andy


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## Pat @ Pitt Soundworks (Nov 14, 2008)

If ECS has done the install or repair, sure, they should cover it. But the fact is you're dealing with an aftermarket product that is end-user installed. 

Take that refrigerator you bought at best buy, but say you bought just the evaporator. If its DOA, they are obligated to replace the defective part.

Take that Xbox. You didn't buy a self-installed performance CPU for it. You bought the whole package. 

You didn't buy a complete package. They didn't trade you a car with the pulley installed on it for your car.

There is never any implied warranty for labor coverage for any end-user installed parts unless specified. Never. Ever. I'm all for being treated right buy the seller, but never assume they owe you the world.

If the pulley exploded due to a manufacturing defect, it would be a different story. I bet if you did contact usrt first, they would send you a new pulley and a belt, but still not cover the labor.


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## ECS Tuning (Oct 2, 2006)

Please check your inbox - Thomas Lilly (Customer Service Manager) has sent you an email, waiting for your response!

Andy


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## ECS Tuning (Oct 2, 2006)

The R&D team at ECS tuning takes great pride in the design and quality of our products. We we carefully match all OEM critical dimensions such as belt groove offsets, timing marks, belt groove profile, hole diameters, while optimizing performance. Our pulleys are designed in-house utilizing the state of the art CMM, laser scanning, CAD and simulation techniques and are then made in the USA. All of our products are subject to meticulous in-house quality inspection with our Faro Edge CMM, test fitment, dyno testing, and road testing before they are release for sale to the public. 

With any pulley, the overall outer width of the pulley is not critical to pulley fitment. In this case, stacking the OEM and ECS pulley on a table is not a relevant comparison as the crank mounting flange is concave and cannot be referenced without careful measurement. The technician made a good effort to do a comparison to the stock pulley, but did not have the proper equipment to measure the belt groove offset.

To ensure the quality of this product, we have carefully reviewed a pulley from the same production batch as the customer's pulley to the OEM pulley via laser scanning with our Faro edge arm. We have also compared our CAD model file to the OEM pulley (as a double check of our design) and CAD model file to current production sample (as a double check of the manufacturing quality). We have confirmed that our pulley meets factory specification for critical dimensions: belt groove profile, diameter, and offset.

There is a possibility that there is a quality defect with the customer's pulley. As soon as we receive this pulley and carefully measure and compare to the stock pulley, we will be able to determine if there is a manufacturing defect, or if the cause for belt failure is due to something else (installation error, or a worn or damaged accessory or idler pulley, or accessory misalignment).

Note that any pulley axis angle or offset misalignment greater than ¼ degree or 1.59mm per 12" of drive center distance (distance from shaft to shaft) will result in premature belt failure. Also be sure to inspect all accessories and tensioner for smooth, drag free operation and alignment. The link below may direct you toward possible solutions if you continue to have premature belt failure:

http://www.gates.com/brochure.cfm?brochure=2837&location_id=3373


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## Pass18t (Oct 18, 2003)

timmiller05 said:


> That sucks! Also.... Sucks your dealer hosed you on that belt! List price is $31.00. Sorry I'm a parts guy and could't help but notice...


They covered the cost of both belts they installed for him and still made a few bucks.

If you bought set of wheels and didn't torque your lug bolts, damaged the tire/wheel and skidded off the road, would you go back to the wheel manufacturer?


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## disphunktion (May 18, 2002)

hope for you that this will get resolved for both side (ECS and you).

But this really sound like a manufacturing defect. I have been running the same pulley on my old Jetta (gf car now) for almost 40000 km now and I am running it my Rabbit since 16000 km.


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## Pass18t (Oct 18, 2003)

disphunktion said:


> hope for you that this will get resolved for both side (ECS and you).
> 
> But this really sound like a manufacturing defect. I have been running the same pulley on my old Jetta (gf car now) for almost 40000 km now and I am running it my Rabbit since 16000 km.


On a CNC produced part, why would one (presumably), or any at all, be different than the rest of the batch(es). Having the wrong part would always be possible, but I think the part # has already been confirmed.


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## A1an (Mar 22, 2007)

****ty situation but you can't just go blame ECS right out of the gate. It is common knowledge dealers are notorious for quickly pointing the finger at aftermarket parts instead of actually diagnosing the issue. 

Blasting a company on the Internet before they even get a chance to verify the issue is bad form. It isn't hard to understand why ECS has some reservations about even considering any sort of compensation for the repairs until they can get their hands on the pulley for an inspection to determine if it is an issue with the part. The fact that they are willing to offer any sort of refund (whether it be in currency or store credit) before they even get to take a look at this pulley says a lot about their customer service in the first place.


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## Cherb32 (Jun 18, 2006)

Sorry this has happened. So far I havnt had any issues with the pulley @ 20,000 miles. Hope it all gets sorted out for you:thumbup:


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## ECS Tuning (Oct 2, 2006)

We have received the customer's pulley and performed a careful CMM quality inspection to verify the pulley matches both our design and OEM pulley specifications. The offset of the returned pulley is within an acceptable tolerance compared to the OEM pulley. We have also carefully measured for any parallelity deviation between the crank mounting flange and belt groove profile to check for any damage that could have caused the customer's problem, and we found that our pulley belt groove profile on our used pulley still has a tighter parallelity measurement than the OEM pulley. 

The rubber deposits on the pulley indicates that the belt was slipping, possibly due to a worn tensioner or due to excessive drag from another component in the serpentine system. Even if the belt grooves were misaligned, we would not expect to see the amount of debris that is present on this pulley.

Based on our analysis, we are confident that the returned pulley is fully functional and meets our design specification. 

Regards,


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## Earlskey (Apr 3, 2007)

Not to swipe your thread, but did you notice if the belt is loose? I just replaced my belt since it was getting frayed and ECS sent me a replacement. As I installed it, the mechanic was asking why it feels loose. Is it supposed to be like that?


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## Cherb32 (Jun 18, 2006)

Earlskey said:


> Not to swipe your thread, but did you notice if the belt is loose? I just replaced my belt since it was getting frayed and ECS sent me a replacement. As I installed it, the mechanic was asking why it feels loose. Is it supposed to be like that?


 .... like what was mentioned previously, you may want to replace the tensioner. At least get that checked out.


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