I have recently found myself in need of certain intake parts for my (soon to be sold) '92 Miata. I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed, so I enlisted the help of a Miata modders message board, where people were quite friendly and helpful. In fact, one guy was so nice that he offered to send me the parts for free (a lot of the people on the board had stock parts because they’d replaced them with more powerful aftermarket products).
He said that he couldn’t ship the parts until the weekend because of his work schedule, but that was fine. So I gave him my address and waited. And waited. A week went by and I emailed him on the Monday after the 2nd weekend to see what might be taking so long. He said that he hadn’t found time to ship them yet. He would do that this weekend. I told him ok, and thanks, and please let me know if you get them out this weekend, so I know to expect them. I emailed him on Saturday night to see if he had shipped them, and again on Monday. No response either time.
Seriously, dude, what the fuck?! You were under no obligation to give the parts to me for free. I thought that was really cool and generous. But saying you’ll give them to me for free and then not ever shipping anything just wasted three weeks of my time.
Ooh, tough Pit. On one hand, you will be (theoretically) getting something for nothing, and shouldn’t look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.
On the other hand, by relying on the gift, you haven’t been able to move forward, and you’ve been hampered by the dropped promises.
This could go either way. That said, if you know what parts you need, you’re probably better off buying them outright at this point. You could get them tomorrow, or you could never get them. If you do that, I’d email the guy after placing the order and politely tell him you made alternate arrangements (high road and all that).
I have done exactly that, including the polite email that I have gotten the parts elsewhere. It’s not like the parts are particularly expensive. It was less than $40, shipped. It just pissed me off that I kept waiting (not wanting to be demanding of someone doing me a favor), and now he won’t even bother to return my emails.
Yeah, I hate it when someone says they’re going to do something for you, so you don’t do it yourself, then they never do it. You feel bad nagging them about it, but they are puting your plans on hold.