About a year and half ago, I purchased a new Summit 600 carburetor. For me, when I purchased this carburetor, I expected to have it for untold years. I knew that when it got dirty, grit got inside, I would have to take it apart and rebuild it. I accept that. That's what it means to have a carburetor, right?

At least I thought so. Imagine how shocked and surprised I was when I took apart my Summit carburetor only to find a semi hard substance had been shoved into several holes in the base plate. I can scratch the substance with my thumb nail. I can see that whatever filler they used had pulled away from the sides of the holes, and that it had not even been milled flat to ensure a good seal at the gasket. Never, NEVER! have I seen such shoddy workmanship, such cheap crap shoved into a hole in a carburetor. NEVER! It is no wonder that my carburetor was suddenly running way lean.

But how could this happen? I had gone out of my way to purchase this carburetor from a company I trusted. I could have gone to one of their competitors, but I went out of my way to choose Summit, because I have done business with them so many times in the past. I thought they were a quality company, not one who would shove semi soft epoxy into holes that were going to see untold heat cycles and be exposed to vacuum and gasoline with ethinol in it.

So now I have a trash carburetor. $400, and all I can do is throw away. Of course the warranty is long expired. Surprise! Who would do that? Do I want to dig out that questionable filler and refill it? Heck no. Quality carburetors are not made like that. This is a case of take the money and run.

What I find most surprising is that summit (no longer will I capitalize their name) could care less. It is the first time that I have called where the person on the phone was flippant and dismissive.

All in all, I guess $400 isn't bad for a disposable carb. I did get 1 1/2 years out of it. Never again will I have that trusted feeling for Summit. What do you all think? Let me know, please.

Attachment 277495

Attachment 277496

 

Sadly all of Summits brand name stuff is cheap and made in China. Sorry to hear about your carb.

 

Phone call didn't help huh? Sad to hear .... I mean "read" it.

An edit .... If mine, I might pull the junk out and using a can of carb spray with tube, find where they go, then if not needed, fill with real JB Weld, the old original stuff, let cure 24 hours (in the warmth of my home), then shave it flush and run it for a trial since I already have it and the kit? It did OK for awhile. With the original slow cure 24 hr version, about 4 -6hours in, you can take a thin razor and skim any excess off even with the tops. A 'sawing" motion as you skim it might help.

 

Their customer service is very poor. At least you got to talk to someone. I tried calling them about receiving the wrong part and finally hung up after 4 1/2 HRS. on hold.

 

Do you not have a local or semi local auto performance shop that can rebuild or overhaul it? As around auto parts stores or hot rod shops to see if there is a local hot rod carb guy, see if he can fix it. I have seen some carburetor rebuild places on line, but they all have mixed reviews.

 

One of the reasons I only looked briefly at their branded carbs. Cheap price comes from somewhere.
Summit was good to me the one time I had a problem.
$80.00 kit and needed a $1.00 component of. Told them I don't know if I damaged it or if came that way but I want to buy one.
They said component not sold separately so they would send a whole new kit no charge and keep the other one if I paid the $12.00 shipping. I thought that was fair and reasonable.

 

I used Summit a lot when building my race car. Had a few returns, never any issues but that was a while ago maybe things have changed for the worse.
Never tried any Summit branded parts either, figured they were cheap for a reason.
‘Did you put a review on their website?

 

Summit, Jegs, et. al. are primarily resellers. The house branded stuff is simply a re-labeled item from nondescript firms who compete primarily or exclusively on price. Typically the product is the same as its more expensive competitors but the materials and the labor to assemble them are much cheaper. Quality control is not done due to cost. Your example is particularly egregious. They didn't even bother to machine the parts that would have made cleaning and repair possible.
Buyers at Summit may not be fully aware of how bad this particular item is. How to let them know about it can be a problem. Many resellers insulate or buffer themselves with low paid personnel such as the one you spoke to or, worse, some AI chatbot with an IQ of 15. Finding ways to escalate your issue can be a challenge but they should want to know whenever a customer feels misled or mistreated. The irony is that you are doing them a favor by revealing defects such as this but "there are none so deaf as those who will not hear."

 

I know I should not take this personally, but I can't help it. I trusted summit. I went out of my way to buy their product b/c I knew (ha!) that I could trust them. Only to find that the carb I thought would last for decades had had its channels filled with some sort of goop that softened with age, heat, or exposure to gas, or all of those.
In all of my years of working on carbs, I have only seen epoxy used on Quadrajets around the well plugs.

Come to think of it, Summit tells you that these carbs are made by Holley.
To anyone reading this, the Summit M2008 series carbs are disposable carbs. Use them for uh, maybe two years and throw them away. Very sad.

 

I wouldn't throw it away, I'd save it. I'd even use it after I fix it. Fine to choose to not buy another, but no reason to toss one you already have paid for.

 

I bought one of those Summit carbs this past summer, after reading rave reviews of them on another car forum. The guy has two of them, can't praise them enough. So, I figured I was good to buy one. Big mistake! First, it was a horrible fit on my engine, the same engine the huge fan of them has. Everything was wrong trying to make it fit, but I eventually got it installed. Definitely not a bolt on. Primed it with a little gas, fired right up & idled OK. Then I started to set the idle mixture, idle speed, & choke. That's where the problems started. The carb had a horrible sticking to it, the car was just about undrivable. I wasted many many hours trying to get the junk Summit carb throttle to not stick, & could never solve it. A week or so before Summit's 90 day "handshake warranty" was up I called Summit & asked for my $$ back. On hold for less than 10 minutes. They emailed me a return label, no charge to me to ship it back. I had a credit on my card in about 5 days. I really regret ever buying a Summit carb.

I rebuilt a 30 year old Edelbrock I had on the shelf with a $30 kit. It runs so much better than the Summit it is hard to believe. Runs smoother, better throttle response, smoother idle, the exhaust tone is even quieter. And no more sticking throttle, with the same linkage that was used with the Summit.

The ONLY thing I liked about the Summit carb is that it has massive float bowls. It could sit for a couple of weeks & there would still be enough fuel in the bowls to fire it right up with no cranking.

 

Social Media is a great customer service option if you're not feeling heard. Post your story on their Instagram and/or Twitter accounts. They can't ignore it.

 

I dont mean to be rude, but what do you expect? You went out and bought the "cheap" chinese garbage brand carb from Summit and you got the cheap garbage brand carb. I would just rebuild it and learn that classic lesson of you get what you pay for. Or if you are too perturbed by the Summit carb, buy a used Holley and rebuild it. Sadly people have avoided paying for decent US made quality for so long I dont believe you can even buy a real made in US carb anymore. The best you can get is "assembled in the US with global parts" These issues are only going to get worse unless we change our mentalities on buying aftermaket parts.
Just my .02$

 

That price point puts you in the same field as a good Holley or Edelbrock. I suggest the latter. Cheaper isn’t always cheaper.

 

You could always go to the top & complain. The president of Summit says he is really interested in how you feel about Summit Racing.

Summit Racing
Attn: president
PO box 909
Akron Oh 44309-0909

email:
President@SummitRacing.com