BTW, I'm in Carlisle now, let me know who it is, if I get a chance, I'll mention something.

**Note** I'm sigining off soon, I may forget to log on tomorrow, but PM me anyway.

 

I know exactly what you meant. I tell you it took a lot for me not to go to Ecklers booth today and let them have a piece of what's left of my mind.

After reading this, I may speak my mind to them tomorrow.

 

I placed an order with them just a couple weeks ago, and it actually went ok... I have had more problems with Corvette Central than Ecklers...

 

PM sent Frank.

Well for one thing I really wanted to find out how you all feel about seeing post when things go south. We always see all the good post and hoot and holler about happy times.

I didn't want it to turn into a bash me or bash <name> vendor person thread. I'm willing to give them another week to see what happens. But I think after two weeks then it would reasonable to let the chips fall where they may.

However, I must say the overwhelming majority is saying we want to hear about stuff like this.

 

I agree, as long as facts are presented and attempts have been made on your part to try and resolve, it is OK to tell us your bad experience.

As you stated, a bash fest would not be in order, supporting vendor or not. Like I mentioned in my reply to you, I'm not sure if this company is a Supporting Vendor, but that doesn't matter. The bottom line is, this forum is here for you the people. The Supporting Vendors pay the bills to allow us to keep the site free, but if poor service results in us losing members because we don't do something about it, you can believe we will do something about it. However if the person isn't a Supporting Vendor, we have no leverage to help defend you.

Plenty of Vendors have been asked to leave for many various reasons.
Longtimers will know some of them, most of the new guys won't.

Not sure if I'll be able to check in tomorrow, but I trust you'll do what's right and like I said in my PM reply, I'll try and stop by their booth so I can see what you showed me in person.

 

Ok suspense is over spoke to Mojo.

The vendor is Al Knoch Interiors. The issue was new seats on new foam that I ordered. Total bill was $930. In the original set, one seat back looked like this (as you can see it looks like it has a bad case of cellulite and even worst the leather had a permanent double crease in in the center panel - usually found at the beginning or end of the bolt):





The replacement seat back, instead of using the standard beige thread in the logo they used goldish-orange thread. This image may be quite wide as I had to take two images and put them side by side. Obviously the passenger side seat (left) is the one in question.



But as Frank said the thread will stay open as long as this doesn't get out of control. It's not the intent to beat up on them. Just to witness what quality of work for premium price, and superb quality and workmanship - and not so good customer service.

I am hoping they will make this right.

 

I'd expect better quality than that for the price paid.

 

Jet Jock, I was at Carlisle today, when they told you "everyone of any authority is in Carlisle', they were probably telling you the truth. The Al Knoch vendor section looked like a factory with a store in front of it.

They have a good reputation in Corvette restoration. No company is perfect. I'm sure [I hope] they will make you whole.

 

Well guide them to this thread and see what happens. It shouldn't have to come to this though.

Companies need to stop trying to save money with call takers and hire some customer service representatives. They are the first contact in a problem, if they treat you with disregard you might not ever be happy. If they work with you, are courteous, professional and apologetic you might even be OK with a screw up twice.

I can't say much though because I'd probably never buy seat covers or whatever they are at that price. I'd just buy a stock well cared for set.

 

OK Mr. Mojo here's mine:
I emailed WCC twice to confirm that they sell & Install chrome exchange wheels at Carlisle, for my C6. Tuesday, I called them; the saleslady assured me they have plenty of wheels of all types on the truck. She said they have an installer on the grounds. She told me to go early Friday to make sure they are not sold out.

So, I get there this morning {Friday} at 8:30. They tell me the installer is only there on Sat & Sun.

They are lucky they only got a piece of my mind.

 

Regardless if they make it right,the next guy that gets reamed will have to jump through hoops to get a problem fixed.They just lost my business.

 

1. Whoa, $930 is serious cake for those seats! I'd be ticked at the results, too.
2. I'm very impressed with Mr Mojo's response. I don't think anyone could have asked for anything more.
3. Probably a bad week to have a problem as I'm sure this is a busy time for any corvette vendor.
4. I think I once went home with a girl who had the same problem with her seat back.....alcohol was involved

 

That kind of "quality" belonged in a 1968 Lincoln, maybe, but certainly is totally unacceptable for ANY vehicle, let alone a Corvette, now. Good luck! And I thought I had problems with my various Corbin motorcycle saddles! DFO

 

I COMPLETELY AGREE, LANI, and I'm glad you went public with it. I was at their booth at about 3p on Friday and it did look like a factory.

You, or Mr. Mojo, need to tell them of this thread. This is very "bad press" for a company with their reputation.

I trust you will get it resolved very soon and in your favor.

 

I am just flabbergasted and like many others would expect nothing but the highest quality from AK. If I wanted new foam and leather to look like that I would do it myself .

I hope they make this right as when I am ready to purchase seats, I planned on going through them, now I am not so sure. I may now just get covers and foam and have a local upholsterer do the job.

Hopefully they get this resolved post haste.

^^^

 

I hope you get this resolved very soon. I to was planning on buying from them in the upcoming week's, but after this I'm going to put my money in wheels & tires. Thank for the heads up. If they do right by you I may still buy from them. I hope they read this.

 

I feel for Lani in this matter $900+ dollars is alot of money to be out of and then having to deal with something like this..
If I ever have to redo my seats I will try and do it local so I can complain face to face if I am not happy....
Things like this happen from time to time with every vendor none are perfect..But its the way they go about trying to correct it with the customer that counts and will get my hard earned money again....

 

This is absolutely not up to their usual C4 quality...

 

I have another post about the seats, it was titled "Leather got me excited...". I posted it because I had finally worked through a lot of problems that had a much higher priority then replacing the aged and ripped leather seats that were the originals. I was excited about finally getting them ordered and from what I thought from all the recommendations, the best vendor for this. Even after I received them and I knew this problem was there, I did not say anything about it. I choose a couple pictures to post which I took that didn't show the problem. And I only said good things about them and the product.

I figured they were the best and they would take care of the problem. But that didn't go so well. I even thought well maybe after it spends a day in the sun and heat of the day maybe this would disappear but it did not. Even after almost a full week they still looked the same.

As I mentioned to Frank, it's not my place to tell them how to run their business. But I got to say I don't think it works well if you have your salespeople change hats and become your customer service people. I'm suspicious of a couple of things that happened, one is you call in with a problem and there is confusion on the phone with the receptionist asking you what to do. I was dumbfounded at first and said well I guess I need to talk to someone in customer service. So she transfers me to sales. So you sit on hold for extended periods of time listening over and over to their commercials boasting how great they are. As I said my suspicions, they have a couple calls holding all for sales but one who got defective product. The sales calls are taken and the person with the problem is left on hold. I don't blame them, if I were a salesperson I'd much rather make more sales (how I earn my money) rather than deal with someone else's problem.

I'm sure she feels and will say she did every thing she could. But as I mentioned in the first post here, it took a lot of back and forth to convince them they needed to step up to the plate and take care of this.

And as one post mentioned most of the entire company is in Carlisle. Well if you have a business like that, I'm sure it is vitally important to be present at these shows for more business. But someone with some authority should have been minding the shop. In this day of instant communication and cell phones, if they could not handle the situation, put me on hold or call me back. but pick up the phone and call whomever is needed to make the decision in Carlisle. But at this point they've been paid, you are no longer a priority to them. I think this became obvious because when I spoke to her that morning I should have had a call back within 30 minutes, not wait the whole day for them to bother to get around to it. Then it was not the solution you expected from them or read about in other post about them. I'm not the only one who has ever had a problem with their product. Do a search, people who have make claims that when they called Al got on the phone and took care of it immediately. Not in this case, first it was you have to send it back first, then we're going to charge your credit card again, and finally then they agreed they would take care of it and send it in advance. Then instead of waiting until I did receive the replacement product, she issues a call tag right away so for three days UPS came to my door for a pickup. I didn't have the replacement yet to send back the defective product.

There just was no follow-up to let you know what they were going to do, I would wait a day then call be put on extended hold, have my call hung up, call back wait more on hold. Each time the recepitionist would answer I would say "Hi may I speak with xxxx, this is xxxx. She would go who?, and I would repeat it again. Like she has only spoken with my half a dozen times already. Then the one girl took off to Carlisle and said another person would handle it. Well then it gets worst. One thing that irked me is this second girl would just beat up on my name, after I repeatly corrected her she would repeat it correctly then change on the next instance and call me something else. My suspicion there is she was doing it on purpose. Then repeating over and over, there is nothing I can do for you I cannot help you I don't know what to do. And the conversation would repeat itself. Even after I requested someone from management step in, make the call to their cellphone, nothing. Then the receptionist would say after coming back to me while I was on hold extended periods of time and say oh I heard your order shipped already. I would ask could you tell me what was being shipped and she would say oh that's what I heard. But then after being put back on hold again finally the other girl would answer and tell me nothing is being done. Finally as I mention in my previous thead when I called late yesterday afternoon and the receptionist said this girl would no longer take my call she said she would call the plant manager and have him call me back. (I thought well that is something and probably what should have happened a week ago.)

Obviously is some respects this is the nature of their business and the quality of their products. This not coming from me, read the "Testimonial" on their website it's a story about someone ordering white seats and getting an off white seat. And then how it had to be elevated to Al to get it resolved. This part I'm not making up. It is there in black and white. Of course after all that the guy is now all happy and mentions how Al is such a great person.

If quality is their main stay of the business then they failed miserably, if customer service is as they say "a stickler for perfection" they failed miserably.

In my opinion, when you ship an obviously defective product to a customer and they send you a picture of the defect, it should have been a situation where they apologize and rush a replacement shipment no questions asked. And for gawd sakes inspect the replacement to ensure it is correct, not send a second defective product. But when they screw up a second time it should have been an immediate response from them with an immediate resolution. But as it is now it's been three days now since that second repeat and it will be another week or so before they get around to dealing with the problem. And now it is going to be another second trip to UPS to ship back another defective product to them. Unlike Al Knoch, I have to drive 15 miles, stand in line for sometimes a hour to return it. Al does nothing, UPS comes to his door. But this is the way business is done in the 21st century. They seem to have trouble understanding the most people work normal business hours. We cannot be home to wait for UPS for something like this.

I'm not suggesting to anyone to not patronize his business because of the way he is treating me. But as you all wanted to know, they are not the perfect company they claim to be and quality and quality of customer service is not their top priority. Maybe it is for those who have their top flight cars being judged at Bloomington Gold (whatever that is) so he get's his recognition. But for average joe who buys their products, such is not the case.

At this point I don't have any good feelings about the situation. Yes I'm well aware that after posting this it will make matters worst, and I'm prepared to handle that. But I'm not going to tell you not to buy their products, those are each of your own decisions to make and please don't rely on this as your litmus case. I'm sure there are thousands of great stories to my one.

Thanks for listening folks.

 

My opinion, after reading your entire post is, this is a well-reasoned, well thought out analysis of your situation, to this moment. I am embarrassed to say that I am one of those who have, in the past, recommended Al Knoch seat products.

Considering the matierials that they use, and the people that they have, this should not happen. But it has. And, to me, already, too much time and too many opportunities have been missed by the seller, Al Knoch company representatives.

This is not good on the part of the seller, Al Knoch company, at all. I will wait to see what develops in the very near future.

There really ARE alternatives to Al Knoch interiors. By no means are they the only company in the country. And, as one poster said, it is always nice to have someone within walk-in, face-to-face, distance. But the reputation of Knoch has been better than the performance you have received so far, to date.