blue_bomber697

Hey everyone. Just want to make a post to describe the experience I had ordering and dealing with Race Tech Forged for a set of their wheels.

This all started back on January 30th when I saw his wheels on the forum here and really liked them. I inquired through PM and started emailing with Raz. He quotes me a sale price due to a certain special they were running at the time. He then pressures me after a few emails to at least put $1000 down for a deposit as the sale was ending and they would be back to full price. I wasn't fully prepared to put a deposit on them for at least another week, but I end up doing it anyways to get the sale price. I realize later, I don't think these wheels have ever been sold not on their sale price as they are constantly on "special". Also ordered some center caps which were quite expensive!

I end up putting the 50% deposit down on February 10th and am told they have an average lead time of 21 says. So about a month until my wheels are done, not bad. Most places took about 6 weeks that I had contacted.



Up until this point, emails have been great, always responsive, always picks up the phone when I call, info is always provided. No issues.

Oh boy did that change. On March 3rd, I requested pics of the wheels as they should be close to done by that point. He sends me a picture of a single wheel not painted at all. Could be my wheel, could be anyone else's as they did not have much variety of designs at that point. I ask him how much longer until they are ready to ship and he tells me they are still engineering the front wheels as the 9.5" that I had requested was not made by them yet. I was not informed of this at all and would have liked to know. I am then informed that these wheels would require suspension or other modification to make it fit properly. Again, was not told this at all and was a huge No-no. I adjusted the order to a 9" front wheel and told them to continue with that.

March 10th rolls around, I again ask Raz if the wheels are complete as he sent me an invoice for the remaining balance (did not pay this yet). I was told they did not meet the finish day and weren't quite ready yet. I say that's fine and ask if he knows when they can be expected to ship. No answer. 10 days later, after a couple more emails and phone calls he replies back saying they are in the final stages and will be sent to the finisher this week. Says he will send pictures asap.

April 1st (2 weeks after last communication and several not returned voicemails) I ask again what is going on with my wheels as it has been far longer than he said to complete these wheels. Spring was approaching quickly and I was itching to have the new wheels for the start of the season. April 6th, he finally replies back with a picture of black wheels without the red lettering I had paid for. Says it has to get sent back to the finisher again.

April 12th, I finally get a picture of one complete wheel with the red lettering. I give him the green light to charge me for the remaining 50% and get those wheels shipped asap! I request a tracking number as soon as they ship.

....And I wait a week. Called the shop several times, emailed, PM'd, took forever to get a response. He finally sends me a tracking number and all was well with the rest of the order. Hah! Yeah right. UPS has nothing on file for the tracking number he gave me and the label that he sent a picture of has a shipping date of April 25th (the following Monday) and a wrong phone number for me.

At this point, it has been 50 business days since I placed my order and I was quoted 21. I express my displeasure and say it is not acceptable to keep me waiting because they get a discount on Mondays. Order should have shipped the previous Monday regardless but he claims the truck never arrived.

April 22nd I am told by Raz the wheels had left and been shipped and I would have a tracking number as soon as the "Warehouse manager" gets in. By April 28th, I have still received no info and am pissed off. I email and call several times and nothing. He intentionally screens my calls so I have to resort to calling him on random numbers. He finally says the tracking numbers should have remained the same and to use them. May 3rd is the next time I hear from him, he says there was an error with the shipment and I would be receiving them Thursday (May 5th).

It was on this point, May 3rd, that my entire city was engulfed in flames in the Fort McMurray Wildfire and we were all evacuated that afternoon. I finally got ahold of him and informed him delivery would be impossible to my city and gave him a new address to ship the wheels to.

I believe I finally got the wheels around May 10th at the new address. Finally, the nightmare was over! Except not. Not even close. After all this, he never shipped my center caps which I paid a ridiculous amount of money for. Was pretty upset to find that out and realize I now had to go through this nightmare of dealing with them again.

May 16th, I was told over the phone the center caps would be shipped that day and I would receive a tracking number. Next day I followed up as I had still not received a tracking number. Would not hear about the caps again until June 13th when he said the caps were at the finisher and should be shipped soon. (I thought they were already made?!?!)

May 31st however, I ran into another problem. One of the rear wheels wobbled. My tire installer put the wheel and tire on their rotation machine, and the wheel was not spinning straight and had a bad wobble. This is not acceptable for a fairly premium wheel and I immediately got to work on contacting Raz again. Under his instruction through email, I was able to put the wheel and tire on my car for the time being, and he would ship me a replacement wheel and I would ship the old one back once I receive the replacement.

After requesting info several times publicly on the forums in his thread, I had multiple people private messaging me telling me of their similar problems with their orders. Many of them were exactly as he told me as well for excuses. Two people even cancelled their orders after speaking with me on my experiences.

At some point I finally did receive my center caps. It wasn't until August 24th that I finally received my replacement wheel. I got the new wheel and tire swapped onto the car, boxed up the old one at the performance shop my car was at and as of this day, it is still sitting there waiting to be scheduled and picked up by UPS as Raz said he would arrange. I am in a different city than my car for the last 2.5 months and it is quite the hassle for me to get anything done with it but I got it that far for him.

Now, after all this, I will stand by the product. The wheels were nice, I like them, and very lightweight as promised. The one having the manufacturing defect was a pain, but it is fixed now. My engine blew up this summer and as such I haven't been able to get good pictures at all, but I will post what I have. The company however, is the worst company I have ever dealt with in my entire life and I cannot recommend enough to not buy from them. Its just not worth the nightmare of a headache I and several others have had. They are welcome to speak up, but I will not name names if they do not want to come forward. The reason this was not posted earlier was I was worried I may not get my products if I had spoken out. The minute he had my money, he basically cut contact except for the rare time after many attempts were made by myself. It's been 8 months now and I am still not done dealing with this company over 1 simple transaction.

Z06NJ

wow...

CFHay

Thanks for coming out and saying something.

pkincy

Deleted by pkincy

pkincy

I may owe the mods an apology. Did you post your post in 2 different places? Because if it did my post may have been fine. You did respond to it in that other thread. Yet, in this thread it does not appear. So unless I am in an alternate universe maybe you have put your original and identical post in 2 places.

Edit: I officially and publicly apologize to the mods. Nobody removed my post. The OP posted it in the Z06 Section as well as C7 Tech/Performance. I answered in C7 Tech/Performance and then came to the thread in the Z06 Section and made the erroneous assumption that that post of mine had been removed. It had not.

blue_bomber697

Yes I posted it in 2 different sections because these two are where they post most frequently and people are seeing their company. Sorry for the confusion!

pkincy

No problem. Glad you have your good looking wheels.

Sent you a pm.

gymdoc

OMG... Just what I didn't need to see.. I placed a $7k order with them two weeks ago.... So far the communication has been good minus the promise of sending me the CAD drawing of my rim that was supposed to arrive over a week ago..

I hope your experience was a learning lesson in customer service and they will learn from it and step it up...

Will post my experience as it unfolds.. current promise date for the wheels and tires is 10/31.

MindBend

I escaped by a narrow margin. Inquired about a set that I really liked/wanted for track wheels and was ready to purchase. Got the same, "You gotta place the money down now..." emails and calls. So, did a BBB search and found a similar story to yours. Thus, I opted out to avoid the pain.

It's a shame, because their designs, etc. are pretty cool. Hopefully you and gymdoc get it worked out. He's close enough to make an in-person visit if needed!

pkincy

Keep us informed. A good, well designed, well made wheel vendor is always welcome and needed. Hopefully they weather any storm they are facing right now and can become a long term source of good wheels.

I am looking at having them refinish a set of monoblocks I have but will wait til we learn more before giving them my wheels.

blue_bomber697

I wish you luck gymdoc. If you start having problems, I know one member filed a claim with his Credit card company to have his order cancelled and refunded. Just be aware of that option. Like I said, I did eventually get my wheels and I really like them, just the transaction process was a nightmare and took about 4 times as long as expected.

AORoads

"Now, after all this, I will stand by the product." You ARE kidding, right? You will stand by the product, but the service, non-responsiveness, interminable delays, difficulty fitting your car AFTER ordering them, having to change size of wheel to make it fit YOUR car, etc.---and you will stand by the product?

All I can say is, you are one, very unusual, person.

I would not want this total experience which includes both product and people, aka service, what is written about the product, phone call/emails not returned. And thus, based on your account, I would not buy from this company. Period.

5thGear

I wouldn't bother. Not worth the headache. I would go with Forgeline or Finspeed

blue_bomber697

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I absolutely do not recommend buying from this company. Stay far away. What I meant by standing by the product is that the wheel is of great quality, perfect offset, incredibly light weight.

I am quite satisfied with the physical wheel itself. But the company was a nightmare and I would've absolutely gone with a different company had I known. Just saying that after all the headaches, I wasn't scammed with some sub-par wheel at least.

Hopefully that clears that statement up.

AORoads

Yes, it does clear it up. And, on re-reading your first post, that is one conclusion that I could have come to -- that the wheel was ok, but the service was definitely subpar in your opinion. It just seemed to me that, despite your documented problems with them, you might be giving them a pass on their behavior based on the fact that the wheels were fine. I'm glad you clarified---thank you!

docwyle

No input from Race tech. That says a lot. to bad you can tag people like on facebook

Race Tech Forged

Mark,

There was an issue with the shipping of your wheels as well as 3 other members wheels during the same time. Unfortunately there also was a lack of communications between you and Raz during the process which is unacceptable.

We would like to let all the members know that we've operated out of the same location for over 48 years our facility has been working with the DOD, US Air Force, US Navy and Boeing for over 30 years we specialize in aerospace engineering and machining.

We might be a new wheel manufacturer as far as wheel world goes but our engineers combined have over 60 years of knowledge in aerospace machining and engineering which is all applied to our wheel program.

We have some of the tights tolerance levels in the wheel industry compared to many wheel companies and you can admit the final product is well manufactured. The fitment isn't an issue at all the wheels fit perfect on your car without you having to modify a single thing.

We did change the one wheel which somehow ended up damaged from shipping and we did that without hesitation.

We would like to say sorry that the order did take longer than expected and that the communication wasn't as open and transparent between you and Raz

We can wait to see the final pictures once the cars on the road again.

docwyle

razs lack of communication is a problem with many people who have also paid for rims not just mark. Also y'all seem to have a bunch of shipping problems. On a another forum y'all had shipping problems as well.

http://rennlist.com/forums/parts-mar...wheels-12.html

Race Tech Forged

Yes there was 3 issues all which were resolved.

Raz was away for a period of time and unfortunately there was a total cluster of disasters which accord all in the same time frame as you can see.

When its all said and done all the members received the product which was ordered and once the wheels were installed, inspected and driven on all member are happy with the product.

Again there was an issue with the timing and communications which has been addressed and shouldn't happen again.

TEAM RTF

docwyle

Well the communication problem is still happening. I have to send raz 3-4 emails before I get a reply. That's been this month. So it's really not fixed.