Recent experience with Norvel?

Poor customer service is poor customer service. Nothing politically incorrect about that. Sounds like some pretty sketchy things are going on.

Mine was over two years ago, and was quickly and properly resolved. He (Dimetri) let me keep the parts he shipped incorrectly.  
Sorry to hear you are having problems.  
Maybe it was my sense of humor that made him friendly?

Marleysky wrote:Mine was over two years ago, and was quickly and properly resolved.

Two years is an eternity for internet commerce. Thinks can go south fairly quickly. Just saying. YMMV.

I bought a RC .15 carb from their site about a month ago and no issues, the part
showed up in about 8 days. About a year before that a turbo plug adapter for the
.074 Both times the parts came from Dimetri.

It is possible he is bias to Germans and their allies / a scorned man who lost family during the war.
His country has many many monuments honoring the dead, including statues of the old carrying
dead children / whole towns and cities wiped off the planet.  

With these kinds of numbers one could hold a grudge through many generations.
This does not include the Jews another big number.  

Per Goggle search WWII:
More Russians died then all nations combined around 7 million Russian children.  
------------------------Military-----------------------Civilians
Soviet Union -----10,700,000----- -------------24,000,000
United Kingdom------383,600----------------------450,700
United States-------- 416,800----------------------418,500
Yugoslavia------------446,000--------------------1,000,000

Hi Friends, I want to tell you that I have a good experience with Mr. Dmitry.
He has answered all the questions I have requested.
My last contact with him was in April 2018.
I am finishing a model that has a Norvel .061 engine and I expected to send you photos and results once I put the model into flight.
My reference on Mr. Dmitry is good.

Sounds like the last successful / positive experience to outside of the USA destinations was 1.5 years ago. Perhaps they only ship within the USA now but it would be helpful if they indicated this before one goes through checkout.

Since they charged $28 for an engine and a few parts, we figured this was the shipping cost to Germany but it may well be the cost to ship within the USA, dunno.

Anyhow, no dissing intended; just wanted hear what others are experiencing, as we find the unresponsiveness odd but perhaps they now only respond to buyers located within the USA.

They are a piece of work

Not only did they cancel the order but they actually deleted the account we created... not sure why. So, we created an account under different credentials and placed an order to be shipped within the USA.

Owner of the Paypal account is Dmitrii Kholmovoi and the email address used was mityaspb@hotmail.com in case anyone has trouble communication through the one on their website. Looking forward to see what turnaround time is.

Wow I think my theory is correct based on his actions.

This is why you always buy 2 or 3 of these imported engines and a ton of spares BEFORE they go out of business.
Norvells have been a great engine for me, but I bought about 6 of them and later on gave them all away.
Sad to hear you are having problems, but go hit e-Bay and buy up another NOS engine so you can  get your project moving. I bet a bunch of guys here can help you with parts as well.
Jay

Cox International wrote:Has anyone had a recent experience with Norvel (nvengines.com)?

Hi Bernie,

I've placed several orders with Dmitrii Kholmovoi this year, and have had no problems.

He is a man of few words for sure. I understand he agreed to take over the operation when the previous owner gave up.

The previous owner stiffed me when I returned a Norvel diesel conversion head that was defective. Look at any Cox glow head, and note that the threads end a tad over 1/16" from the bottom of the plug. The diesel head had threads all the way down, and prevented a good seal, because it stopped where the cylinder threads ended. Alex told me to dress it down with a file, but I declined, and returned it to them instead.

A few weeks went by with no response, so I called again and was told that the bubble wrap envelope was empty when they got it, and because the head was not packaged correctly they would not replace it with a new unit. I reminded him that it was packaged exactly like they sent the defective head to me originally, and requested they send me the empty envelope, so I could pursue a claim via the postal service. When I got the envelope back it was obvious that the head had been stripped mechanically out of the envelope. I gave up on "Norvel" at that time, and told Alex I would not do business with them again.

Strangely, a few weeks later I received another padded envelope from Norvel, but with no name, or paperwork included? Inside was another (or perhaps my own) defective head!

I've always suspected that it was Dmitrii who sent the head back, and not Alex, but decided it was not prudent to contact them again, as they obviously had no idea what customer service means.

More recently, I bought a Norvel 15 that needed some parts, and had to eat crow and deal with NV again. Dmitrii took my order, and promptly shipped the parts he had. One part they did not have in stock (spinner) Dmitrii had to order from Russia. He emailed me when the spinner arrived to tell me the price, and shortly after he sent me a Pay Pal request for payment. The spinner arrived in the mail a few days later.

I believe that Dmitrii is honest, and can be trusted, but don't expect any conversation other than brief email responses.

Bill

smooth_bill wrote:
The previous owner stiffed me when I returned a Norvel diesel conversion head that was defective. Look at any Cox glow head, and note that the threads end a tad over 1/16" from the bottom of the plug. The diesel head had threads all the way down, and prevented a good seal, because it stopped where the cylinder threads ended. Alex told me to dress it down with a file, but I declined, and returned it to them instead.

I too got "stiffed" on a diesel head, and I haven't bought anything after that...
I think Alex, or someone else, had already used a file on the diesel head that I got (see picture below). That certainly was not the way to fix it. I was told to return the head to an adress in Russia, but instead of doing that I asked him to contact me when/if they had a head that was properly made. Needless to say, I still haven't heard from him....

For those that have a faulty head, the fix is quite easy to do in a lathe. Here are some images before and after fix:

It was certainly an interesting journey

We purchased the parts on behalf of a customer in Germany, as he was receiving no replies to his inquiries. We went through checkout and used his address for shipping. NV cancelled the order with the one-liner "we don't ship to Germany", even though Germany was included in the long list of countries in the pull-down menu. Wonder how many non-USA buyers go through checkout; only to have their orders cancelled. Here, we disable the countries that we no longer ship to in order to prevent orders from being created in the first place.

We responded to the cancellation by asking "do you ship to Canada and / or the USA?". Never got a reply but saw that they had actually deleted our account.

So we created a new account and re-ordered the items, to be shipped to Matt at Ex Model Engines. The next day we received a partial refund because an item was not in stock (IMO something out-of-stock should not be able to be added to cart).

There was no shipping notification and, as of today, the order still shows as "pending" under our account, although the package was delivered to Matt last week.

Hopefully, the customer will confirm that everything is in order so that we can close the chapter on this odyssey ...

The previous owner stiffed me when I returned a Norvel diesel conversion head that was defective. Look at any Cox glow head, and note that the threads end a tad over 1/16" from the bottom of the plug. The diesel head had threads all the way down, and prevented a good seal, because it stopped where the cylinder threads ended. Alex told me to dress it down with a file, but I declined, and returned it to them instead.

Kris,

Sorry to hear that you were also Stiffed by Alex.

Unfortunately, I had to replace the cylinder/piston in my Norvel .061 as a result of several test runs with that head. I found that it would start with my electric starter, but never came up to proper break-in temperature. Running cold will ruin a ceramic piston/liner very quickly. That was partly my fault as the previous owner of that Big Mig sold it to me as a used engine, when in fact it was new!

Warning to anyone who thinks the Norvel/NV instructions to oil a new engine with a few drops of Castor, and attempt to break it in with a drill press! Sure, it may work, if but only if you can get your drill press to turn well over 10 thousand rpm!!!

Even at that higher rpm, it still my not come up to break-in temperature without combustion heat.

Bill

Cox International wrote:It was certainly an interesting journey

Bernie,

The more I think about this lack of communication with NV, the more I wonder if Dmitrii is a shop person who was kind enough to stay, and help sell the remainder of the stock for the current owner? That might explain his near silence, and very brief emails.

Bill

That could possibly be Bill but, from a consumer standpoint, what can I say?

And the saga continues ….

Engine and parts got to Germany but the engine is missing the drive-plate, muffler gasket and muffler screws; despite being depicted in the listing pic and the engine parts list. Doing our customer a favour is tuning out to be quite the chore

Cox International wrote:And the saga continues ….

Engine and parts got to Germany but the engine is missing the drive-plate, muffler gasket and muffler screws; despite being depicted in the listing pic and the engine parts list. Doing our customer a favour is tuning out to be quite the chore

Bernie,

Which engine did your customer order?

Scotty Kuhn has a large inventory of Norvel parts. He may be able to help.

skuhn68@live.com

Bill

Product = NV GX-40 RC BB Revlite;
Quantity = 1
SKU = GX40
Price = $159.99

But the point is that the parts should have been included. We emailed the vendor but need to give them time to respond.

Cox International wrote:But the point is that the parts should have been included. We emailed the vendor but need to give them time to respond.

Understand, but if Dmitrii does not reply, you might try the other source.

Could be another short wait if Dmitrii sends the missing parts without notice, as he is prone to do.

Good luck,

Bill

It would be a bit challenging to have to pay again for what was already paid for but perhaps the items are low cost.

Thanks for the referral and shall see how it goes first with Norvel. The customer has the option of waiting, buying the missing parts somewhere else or hitting the "dispute" button in Paypal.

4-5 emails later, still no response. Opened a Paypal claim last week, no response so far.

Would someone in the USA who is having good Norvel experiences be able to purchase three small parts on our behalf?

Update:

He responded to the Paypal claim, saying he had shipped the missing parts (we never did get a response from him). Seems they were delivered to a USA address whilst the homeowner was on holidays and not yet having had time to open all his mail.

Seller COMMUNICATION

Bernie,

Happy to hear that the parts finally appeared.

As I said, Dmitrii is a man of very few words!

Dmitrii ordered a spinner (from Russia) for my NV .015, and it arrived here much sooner than I expected, but with no prior notice!

Bill