[UrbanRedneck]

The part that pisses me off the most is that this totally fucks my plans. I promised myself that at the end of june I'd stop spending money on my car untill my student loans and my Snap-On credit loan for my new toolbox are paid off. So after the end of June I intend to pay 2 paychecks a month to loans so I can pay them off quick. SO I had it all planned out how I would get springs, shocks, struts, a grille and hoodpins this month (I do a lot of planning with my money) so that I'd have enough stuff to keep me busy for a while and to get my car to a point where I'll be happy for a long time while I'm being responsible. But now having to deal with this will fuck it all up. But I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll start selling parts that I have piled up from when I stopped working on my Dart.

[UrbanRedneck]

Well I've got another set on the way. I called AM and the man on the phone was very helpful, he talked to the "wheel department" and said that the "wheel manager" insists on personally checking the wheels for me and sending another set. SO I have 4 to send back to them now haha. I was surprised though, I thought I'd have to fight them for a resolution, I barely even said anything. He wrote down all of my complaints so that the other guy would know exactly what to look for. I am ok with this, I figure if they can get me a set that looks good like the rears, I'll be happy. Whoever normally looks at them is obviously incompetant, so maybe this "wheel manager" guy will get it right. If so, then hurray for me. If not, and this new set (which has apparantly shipped already) still looks like shit, I will insist on a refund.

I must say that I am pleased with their willingness to help. So now let's see how this goes...

*grabs pop-corn and a lawn chair*

[06RedfireGT]

Sucks about the wheels man, but one thing you do not have to worry about is getting hassled by AM over it.

They will bend over backwards to help you. Their customer service is some of the best out there.

[MamaStang]

+1 I've got some stuff to iron out with them. Will tackle all that next week though.

Glad you're getting it worked out man

[coolhandluke]

Originally Posted by MamaStang +1 I've got some stuff to iron out with them. Will tackle all that next week though. Glad you're getting it worked out man

I returned my radiator cover extensions on Tuesday Mama. Just call AM and the returns department will give you and RMA # and email you a pre-paid UPS label.

[AMNick]

Originally Posted by UrbanRedneck Well I've got another set on the way. I called AM and the man on the phone was very helpful, he talked to the "wheel department" and said that the "wheel manager" insists on personally checking the wheels for me and sending another set. SO I have 4 to send back to them now haha. I was surprised though, I thought I'd have to fight them for a resolution, I barely even said anything. He wrote down all of my complaints so that the other guy would know exactly what to look for. I am ok with this, I figure if they can get me a set that looks good like the rears, I'll be happy. Whoever normally looks at them is obviously incompetant, so maybe this "wheel manager" guy will get it right. If so, then hurray for me. If not, and this new set (which has apparantly shipped already) still looks like shit, I will insist on a refund. I must say that I am pleased with their willingness to help. So now let's see how this goes... *grabs pop-corn and a lawn chair*

I am sorry to hear you are having problems with the wheels. More then likely the first set of replacements slipped through and didn't get inspected as requested before they went out. But now that the issue was brought to the manager of the wheel/mounting & balancing department that shouldn't be an issue this time.

Unfortunately, no company is beyond having a defective product, human or technical error, etc. Its just a fact of life. But the difference is how a company deals with the problems when they do come up. And that is one thing you will never have to worry about with us.

Originally Posted by 06RedfireGT Sucks about the wheels man, but one thing you do not have to worry about is getting hassled by AM over it. They will bend over backwards to help you. Their customer service is some of the best out there.

Yup, when problems do come up we do our best to resolve them with as little inconvenience to the customer as possible.

[UrbanRedneck]

Originally Posted by AMNick I am sorry to hear you are having problems with the wheels. More then likely the first set of replacements slipped through and didn't get inspected as requested before they went out. But now that the issue was brought to the manager of the wheel/mounting & balancing department that shouldn't be an issue this time. Unfortunately, no company is beyond having a defective product, human or technical error, etc. Its just a fact of life. But the difference is how a company deals with the problems when they do come up. And that is one thing you will never have to worry about with us.

I know that there is always a possibility of defects from any company, and I know that you don't make the wheels. I would just expect the guy that mounts/balances them to look at them before putting tires on and shipping them. There should be some sort of quality control from the distributer as well as the manufacturer. But, I can imagine that if there are a lot of wheels going out it is easy to overlook some things. I just have a tendancy to inspect stuff closely before using it, and I think there is nothing wrong with that.

I must say though that despite my problems with the PRODUCT, I am very happy with the customer service liasons at AM. The first one that I spoke with for the fisrt set (Bill Paffas) and the man I spoke to yesterday (I forgot his name) were both very nice and never at any point seemed unwilling to help, so I would say that their customer service is great. I just hope that the next set of wheels is acceptible, and if it is, then despite these issues I will come out of this with a positive opinion towards AM.

[AMNick]

Originally Posted by UrbanRedneck I know that there is always a possibility of defects from any company, and I know that you don't make the wheels. I would just expect the guy that mounts/balances them to look at them before putting tires on and shipping them. There should be some sort of quality control from the distributer as well as the manufacturer. But, I can imagine that if there are a lot of wheels going out it is easy to overlook some things. I just have a tendancy to inspect stuff closely before using it, and I think there is nothing wrong with that. I must say though that despite my problems with the PRODUCT, I am very happy with the customer service liasons at AM. The first one that I spoke with for the fisrt set (Bill Paffas) and the man I spoke to yesterday (I forgot his name) were both very nice and never at any point seemed unwilling to help, so I would say that their customer service is great. I just hope that the next set of wheels is acceptible, and if it is, then despite these issues I will come out of this with a positive opinion towards AM.

There definitely is quality control at both the manufacturer's level and also our level. I've personally seen them pull and flag wheels that were not acceptable and send them off to the eBay department to be sold as "scratch n' dents."

Most of our wheel techs have had so much experience mounting and balancing tires on wheels that were already on a car before they worked here, on a very busy day it is not surprising that they might go on auto pilot missing blemishes they were used to seeing at their previous work with used wheels with their primary concern being safely mounting and balancing the tire. On slower days I am sure they inspect the wheels very carefully before they go out. But with the amount of wheels that are mounted and balanced here some days, combined with warehouse lighting (not the best lighting to catch a cosmetic blemish), I could easily see them missing catching certain types of cosmetic blemishes in the wheel.

There is definitely nothing wrong with inspecting parts closely before using them...in fact I would encourage it for anything you purchase for your car no matter where you get it from. No matter what level of customer service quality a company or manufacturer provides, it is always easier to exchange or return an item that has not been installed or used at all. It takes any doubt of whether the issue was caused by a defect or the customer out of the equation. Which is something some companies could give you a hard time about.

I am sure if the Manager of the Wheel & Tire Mounting & Balancing Department was going to personally inspect this set there will not be a problem with the new set. In the rare chance there is, don't bother calling customer service, send me a PM with your full name and/or order number directly and I will make some noise here and get to the bottom of it.

[UrbanRedneck]

Well.... I am not happy with the quality of these wheels at all. I recieved the second replacement set, and they are deffinetely a LOT better than the others. They are still not perfect though. That's the part I don't get, the rears are perfect, why is it so hard to get a set of fronts that look as good? Most of my problems with the previous ones are gone on this set. There are, however, still some areas where the paint is rough, and where the aluminum itself is rough. But on this set those areas are all towards the very outer or back edges of the spokes, to the extent that I can probably live with it and not know that they are there, because like I said they are way better than the others. The problem is, that I feel that I shouldn't HAVE to "live with" something. Correct me if I am wrong, but I feel that for $1500 I should get something that I will be happy with, not something that I will feel "meaahh I guess it's ok" about.

But, I would probably have thrown them on the car if that was the only issue, because they are so much better. But one of the wheels has just nder 9 ounces of weight on it. That is extremely excessive. I am an ASE certified automobile technician and have a college degree in automotive repair. I have been taught that the book accepted limit for weights is 5 ounces per wheel, with no more than 3 on one side of the wheel. THrough my experience in the field, I have come to find even 5 ounces excessive. 9 is just plain rediculous. When the balancer asks for that much weight you are supposed to break the beads again and rotate the tire on the rim to try and oppose the heavy spots, to improve balance. Now, I am not comfortable putting a wheel on my car that took that much weight to balance, especially a front wheel. I could just say fuck it and go have someone try and rebalance it correctly (the machine I have at work won't work so well for these wheels), but for all I know it could just be the quality of the wheel, and maybe the guy at AM already tried and this was as best he could get it. I don't want to go pay to have it rebalanced only to find it cannot be improved. I could just go ahead and run it, but there is a very high chance of having problems down the road from that, expecially on a car that is driven aggressively.

So now I don't know what I want to do. This whole situation is aggravating and extremely dissapointing. I really don't want to deal with it anymore. I am going to have to wheel one of them outside in the sun so that I can see how it looks in natural light, if it looks fine and the small blemeshes are invisible, then I won't worry about that. But I don't know what I want to do about the balance, I'll have to think about that. Either way, I'm not calling them or anything yet, like I said I've got to think about it. But at this point I pretty much wish I had never bought them, it shouldn't take this much aggravation to get a set of 4 wheels.

Nick, what do you think that I should do?

[BWAL]

he said to PM him your name and/or order number so he can work on it

[UrbanRedneck]

I'm aware of that. I said I have to think about it before I contact AM.

[Mustangshar]

Don't accept them.

[michaelpeterson]

That's a true bummer, I feel for you.

[AMNick]

UrbanRedneck, PM me your full name and/or order number. I need to look up your order and see exactly who you talked to here and is going on. Also, can you send me pictures of the finish defects. I want to take a look at some of the wheels we have here and see if I can see anything similar. Just to clarify, these defects are on the outside face of the wheel and not on the non-finished inner wheel?

As far as the wheel weights go, I just talked to the manager of the M&B department and 6oz is the maximum that is allowed out of here but they are usually balanced with under 5oz. He is not sure how you would have gotten 9oz worth of weights on your wheel. With your order number we can see who balanced your wheels.

I will probably end up having a call tag issued that directs the wheels to come back to my attention. I want to take a look at these and see exactly what is going on with them.

[2006GTARPD3]

I would like to know how this turns out. I am interested in some DD and I was gonna purchased from AM. Hopefully this gets corrected.

[1FUN4RD]

Me to..

Wanting the Ford GT replica's GT-S I think.

I am hoping I can get them in black chrome!

[UrbanRedneck]

Originally Posted by AMNick UrbanRedneck, PM me your full name and/or order number. I need to look up your order and see exactly who you talked to here and is going on. Also, can you send me pictures of the finish defects. I want to take a look at some of the wheels we have here and see if I can see anything similar. Just to clarify, these defects are on the outside face of the wheel and not on the non-finished inner wheel? As far as the wheel weights go, I just talked to the manager of the M&B department and 6oz is the maximum that is allowed out of here but they are usually balanced with under 5oz. He is not sure how you would have gotten 9oz worth of weights on your wheel. With your order number we can see who balanced your wheels. I will probably end up having a call tag issued that directs the wheels to come back to my attention. I want to take a look at these and see exactly what is going on with them.

I will PM you that information as soon as I finish typing this. Yes, the defects are on the outside face of the wheel, not the inside that is supposed to be unfinished. I have recieved a total of 8 wheels. The original 4, in which the rear wheels are perfectly fine, then two replacements for the fronts, then another two replacements. I will be sending back the first two sets tomorrow or the next day (I was told to send them back together to save myself a trip to UPS), so I will still have the rears and the last set of replacements. I have pictures of the original wheels, but I doubt that really is relevant at this point. One of them had casting flash on the edges of the spokes, and spots where the paint (the visible, front of the spokes) was textured. The other one had the same paint defect, but also "dips" in the aluminum in some spots on the sides of the spokes. The second set (first replacements) was free of casting flash, and significantly better, but there was one spoke on each wheel with the same paint defect, and no paint at all in the lug nut holes. On these it was really obvious which spokes had the defect as well. Now, the final set of wheels (the most recent ones) are a LOT better. They have no casting flash, the lugnut holes are painted. But one of them still has a few small areas with the metal imperfection (the dips or wavyness in the metal, it's almostlike an issue with the mold), and they both have some areas where the paint is rough. Now, on this set these areas are all towards the outer edge of the spokes (where they meet the polished lip) or on the edges of the spokes, so they are a lot less visible. But if you lay one next to one of the rear wheels, the rears are obviously a lot shinier, and the paint looks deeper and smoother. You can see the imperfection as well as feel it. It is minor enough that I probably could live with it, if not for the weight issue, but honestly, I'd rather not. Now, at first I thought maybe I'm just being anal or something about the finish, but my dad and brother both looked at them and agree that they don't look right, and neither of them are very particular when it comes to their cars. I think that on the car, in bright light, there would be a visible difference from front to rear. I can try and take more pictures if you like, but I'm really not sure if I can capture a maint texture in a photograph. I will try though.

I'm not quite sure why the rears are so much better. I examined them with a fine toothed comb, and the ONLY problem I could find was a small area on the non-visible area where the paint was rubbed through, which I will just put some touch up paint on to make sure it is sealed and never look back. Other than that, they are perfect. They are very shiney, the paint looks thick and smooth, you can run your hand over every spoke and find NOTHING wrong. One of them has maybe 5 ounces of weight, which I felt is ok considering the width of the rear tires and size of the rim. My best guess is that maybe they had a bad run of the 18x9s or something.

As for the weights, I counted wrong. I meant to say just under 8 ounces. It is either 7.5 or 7.75 ounces on that wheel, which is still above both your 6 ounce limit and my 5 ounce limit.

Now I am sure that I am probably being a total pain in the ass to you guys now, and I appologize for making half of your staff hate the world, but I just feel that I should get what I paid for, which as far as I knew was 4 nice wheels. I can't imagine that this is the quality that you guys are trying to sell, seeing as the rears are fine. If I could just wind up with a pair of front wheels that look as good as the rears, I'll be happier than a pig in shit. I may be more particular about these things than some, but I am sure plenty of people here expect their new products to be perfect, and honestly, if you had a brand new car that was otherwise perfect (you probably do, for all I know), wouldn't you be particular about what you put on it?

Nick, thank you for all of your help in trying to sort this matter out.

[AMNick]

I got your PM and looked up your order. I talked to the Assistant CSR Manager that you spoke too and he said that he did inspect the second set of replacements and didn't see any obvious problems with them. But it sounds like what you are saying is the imperfections, while not immediately obvious just looking at the front wheels, become obvious when compared next to the perfect rear wheels. So what I am doing now is having several sets of front wheels pulled and I am going to compare them directly to a set of rear wheels. That should give me a good idea of if there is a problem with the batch or if you just have really bad luck. I will get back to you later today with what I find out.

[UrbanRedneck]

just so noone that may be reading this thinks that it's not going anywhere, Nick is working on a solution for me at the moment, it's just somewhat involved and I'll update as soon as it gets figured out.

[97S281]

Man, this does suck. I had a problem with a set of convo pro's I ordered from summit back in the day. They were for my 87 gt and it took three trips to ups to get the right set. First ones had the wrong bolt pattern, second ones had the wrong bolt pattern and the third ones had the wrong backspacing. I ended up having to call Centerline directly and call them back with the right part number. They were always eager to correct the problem but I can sympathize with you for the fact that you think your about to bolt up some bad ass looks on your ride only to be constantly disappointed.

On the bright side, your getting some attention now and I'm sure that they will get it right or give you a refund. I just got a set of slotted rotors for my wife's car only to find that the R/F rotor was not slotted on the face and the Ebay store i bought them from isn't wanting to reimburse me for the return shipping to replace the defective rotor. It ain't right that I have to eat an extra $25 in shipping for their poor quality control. At least they are working hard to satisfy you.

Hope this works out well for you.