When a man of reason meets a brute with a club , the club usually wins. Reason is what separates man from the beast.

The quailty of those seats at least from the photo is below standrad.
Being resaonable may not be the answer to this problem

I agree $930.00 is a lot of money and when you pay for the "best" you expect the "best".

I fit was me and I had this happen with a DSLR order I got my credit card company to correct the problem. Word of mouth is important for a companies pr, but the ablilty to do buisness with a credit card is even more important.

Your credit company can put the problem right.
You can rent a car and put the charges on the vendor. He wont pay it up front but then theres always small claims court.

The judge will rule in your favor and you can get a judgement against the vendor.
Nice doesn't always work, play hardball. Its a bummer Dude.

 

I've seen companies in bankruptcy pull this kind of stuff a hundred times.

Lani, remember the days of post-deregulation in GenAv when companies were going under, vendors had them on C.O.D., paychecks were bouncing, and management was always dodging phone calls?

Boy, this sounds real familiar.

I wonder if there's someone else out there who's licensed to do the Corvette stitching. I'm getting real close to having my seats done and was planning on having AK do it, until this.

Lani, don't take a guilt trip, just because a few of us have now decided to hestitate.

For a non-confrontational guy like yourself, it took a lot of courage.

Once again, my hat's off to you.

 

Lani, if I may be so honest, you're on the verge of sounding like a doormat. You don't have to qualify everything you say against AK. Your diplomacy is overdone.



It's very simple. You paid a high price for substandard work. You are last on their list, plausibly because they think there's no money in it for them. But it is quite obvious that they IS money in it for them, and they're losing it by the thousands on this thread. You need to make that very clear to them, and get back on top of their list. That is unless, you don't mind being put off further.


The rest is basically drivel.

 

Good lord! There seems to be an awful lot of drama here for some Corvette seats, esp at the price you guys are paying! For $900+ they better be perfect on be delivered on time!

I have to commend Lani on his patience with the whole situation. I would have called my cradit card company after the third phone call!!! Unfortunately, some businesses (not limited to the Corvette world wither) see common courtesy as a sign of weakness and will walk all over their customers.

I am glad that this issue was discussed on the forum. When I need seats, I will not consider AK because I don't see the need to pay someone good money and do their follow up for them. Like other have said, there are other alternatives.

 

Just wanted to make something clear as I was running over this thread in my mind...

In my last post to this thread, I did not mean to imply that Al Knoch Interiors IS bankrupt.

I was simply comparing their described behavior to the many firms that I watched go under in the 80's and 90's. Very similar, indeed.

I sincerely hope that Mr. Knoch gets to read this thread and takes corrective action, both for our sakes as prospective customers, and for the sake of his good reputation.

We'll see what happens, huh?

 

Well I was just looking on Google Earth to get an idea of where Canutilla Tx is, which previously sounded familiar to me. I lived in Las Cruces NM for a number of years and Canutilla is not quite half way between El Paso Tx and Las Cruces along I-10 (on N Desert Blvd). Google Earth reminded what that area looked like, that is a pretty neat program.

Oh my first defective seat is probably close to them now. Tracked it on UPS and at 4 this morning it was in Mesquite which is eastside of DFW.

In case you wondered, no I did not hear from anyone today. Probably shouldn't be surprised, they have a lot to do getting back from the show and getting things all back in order.

 

Yes, I've passed by the "town" many times on the way to and through EP. Talk about junk on the I-10!!! Blowing sand, sand and police in Camaros. What a bad scene.....

No call yet, eh??/........................................ curtain coming down..........

 

Not everyone is as blunt as you are, CC... and sometimes, when dealing with a problem of this nature, diplomacy gets the job done.

I am very impressed with this thread. It has maintained a level of decorum that blows me away. No name calling, no ignorance, a genuine concern for the problem and a hope for a positive result.

I am pleased at what I see.

 

As I read more and more of this thread and since I was just at the Al Knoch booth at Carlisle and turned away for a small job, I had a feeling it was them all the way up to you breaking my suspense. Sunday morning they told me that they would not touch a set of sun visors, but I could buy a set for $250. I had placed my original order with Dale, who at the time seemed very concientious, but he ws very abrupt with me at the show on Sunday. I guess the crowds, the overnight rain and everything else must have been bugging him. This is not the service I got four years ago when I had my seats done by them, and your leather is definitely not the way it should be. I hope they are reading this thread and care enough to fix your order.

Good Luck
Don Haller
Severn, Maryland

 

Sorry, no pics this time. What happens in Carlisle, stays in Carlisle

 

WHAT!!! I'm calling foul... alright over to the Roast post

Of course the granny superimposed avatar must tell the whole story

 

Well, after 20 minutes of reading, and sitting here looking at the order i was going to place tomorrow for complete set on foam ----- bingo, i'd rather pay more then go to Al K'sssssss my as* company.

That is way too much bull for someone to go thru, and the customer service sounds like a put off...

I comment you on your attitude, me i would have used multi-4 letter words more times..... bah...
good luck, and they lost another customer...

 

"curtain coming down.........."

 

Last post on this subject, just wanted to give everyone the final outcome. I didn't receive a call back on Monday like promised (little surprise there). I called them and spent over 20 minutes on hold. I eventually spoke to 3 different people, none of them Dale and never got a straight answer. I then called back on Tuesday and was finally told the reason my seats had not been made was because they didn't have the leather! Dale told me on 8/11 that he had checked inventory and that he had plenty of leather. I then ask when will she receive the leather and when could she have my seats ready. She said that she could have the seats ready to ship on 9/13. I then tell her to please read the original order back to me so that I could be sure that everything was correct. As she's reading, I realize that she has nevr mentioned the logo on the headrest; this is something that I made certain to discuss IN DETAIL with Dale. She then says "Oh, if they're going to be embroidered it will be 9/20 before they ship it will take about 6 DAYS to get to you. As you would expect, I cancelled this order for the final time. Based on responses on another thread, I contacted Willcox, they had them mounted, embroidered and in the right color sitting on the shelf. Their price was identical to Al Knoch. They will ship out today and will have them by next Friday.

 

nice one

 

curtain's reached the floor. no more to say on this one.

 

http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip...s/thatsall.wav

 

Good one!!!!!

 

Well I just got off the phone with the plant manager (Arthur) and they have my replacement completed and it will ship over night to arrive Sat. So that was nice. He also indicated that they have also already made another set that if for any reason I'm not happy they will replace the entire set with a complete new set.

From what he described, I feel pretty good this replacement will be good. He indicated that several people looked the new one over including Al, so the odds are in favor of a good replacement.

Of all the folks I've spoken too there, Arthur has been good to his word about taking care of this. I didn't bug them this week as I only called once to ensure we were still on course, once to informed them that I had followed up with UPS (they stopped scanning for tracking once it went to the wrong place - Mesquite TX and got re-routed to El Paso) on delivery of the returning original (they needed that one to match the thread in the logo) and then this evening just to check the status. The receptionist did put me through each time I called and Arthur answered my call within a minute each time.

I'll post a final update tomorrow when the replacement is in, it's checked over and I get the seat back installed.

BTW, not sure if any one reading this has ever installed a seat back but for me it takes darn near everything I have to get those wire bales slipped into the slot-tab in the seat back frame. That part I'm not looking forward to again!

Again it is not the intent of this post to discourage any one from patronizing their business. Although I would encourage them to improve on their customer service and be more prepared to deal with customers while they are at shows or whatever. In summary this has been an example of how terribly wrong things can go when a lapse in QA exists and the follow-up customer service is not indicative of their reputation.

So for now things look better. I'll keep my hopes up that by tomorrow this situation will be resolved and I'll have the quality product installed that I purchased.

 

Jet-J, I appreciate your even-handed descriptions and temperament. But it has been weeks, not days to resolve this issue. Some might say, better late than never. Maybe so.

Not everyone likes to "jump on a bandwagon" of criticism, and I've seen none on this thread. What I have seen are real-world examples of what is wrong, and I've heard nothing about them being addressed.

It is said by people wise in the ways of retail that it takes only one customer to spread the bad news/word about a business. And there are dozens and dozens of satisfied customers who know nothing about it. Yet. This is a large and "talkative" community, however.

The real problem becomes, as we've seen in this one thread, when people decide to go elsewhere, or "sit it out" with the Al Knoch company. Once they do, a pattern has been established (no pun intended).