Aren't support and SB the same animal?

All car player support is all forwarded to the team in England. SonicBlue's main HQ, ordering, shipping, and customer service departments are in the US.

I really thought that they were all the same thing now not seperate still.

Yes, the team in England are part of the SonicBlue corporation. But as you know, in many big corporations, different departments can often have completely different ways of doing things. Your problems with the ordering and shipping part of things is handled by the US side of things. Repairs are handled by the team in England.

I think your reluctance to even call support with a problem says something about the way SonicBlue has been handling its first-level cusomer service.