hi everyone,

i just wanted to share an experience with you that i had with mike at pypes. this is going to be long as i'm going to try to be as descriptive of the situation as i can.

i purchased the violator cat-back system on special with the group buy they were offering. i received it in september and had it installed on 10-4. i wrecked the car, so i got the car back on 10-4. i took it to a pro-exhaust shop to have it installed. the employee there has had over 20yrs experience with instauling exhaust systems and has done many c-5's .when he was removing factory exhaust i told him it was ok to cut it as i read the they are not worth anything and that the pypes systems hadn't yet had any fitment issues. so then they went to install the pypes sytem and wolla, fitment problems. there were 2 workers there and myself and 2 other guys. none of us could figure a way to get it to fit without shortening the intake pipe on the muffler. pypes was closed as it was around 8pm e.t. and my old exhaust was cut up. the guy asked me what i wanted him to do. i told him to cut pipe as what were my options at that point. they finished installation and when i started the car i didn't notice any difference over stock. so i dorove the car a couple of times. as it's not my everydday driver it went beyond their 7 day return policy. i e-mailed them on 10-17, no response. then again on 10-21, again no response. i ended up calling them on 10-22 to speak with mike. i explained my dissatisfaction he said he'd call me back. he did debate the fitment issue with me as he is the one who designed the system. he called me back on 10-23 stating that he talked to chris at there is nothing they can do for me. he then bacame very defensive again telling me that there was no fitment issues so we made the decision to cut it so NO RETURNS. i asked him if i could talk to chris(the owner) and he told my chris does not take phone calls. he then compared this situation with buying a pair of jeans, cutting them, then trying to return then. i think that is a bad analogy.that is when i told him i was done with the conversation.so my question is was i being unreasonable for expecting them to do something for me? now, i'm stuck with an exhaust system i do not like( not loud enough) or i can purchase another system and be out of the $500.

thanks

 

Put it up for sale, explaining that it now fits fine,just not loud enough for you. Use the CF Parts for Sale section, keep it on the car for now , so if someone nearby wants to buy it they can see and hear it.Otherwise take some pic's preferably from underneath the car to show fitment is correct pull it off and buy something else

 

yea, that might be what i'll do. i just think chris lacked customer service skills. he wasn't even understanding to my situation. he just kept defending the fitment issue and policies. i've been in retail for about 12 yrs and i know what policies are. they are guidelines, not set in stone. i just think in this situation he could of handled it differentely.

 

I bought one of these systems as well and had great dealings with everyone, EXCEPT the "engineer" lol. I don't remember the guys name, but i remember talking to him and he said he was the engineer of the exhaust and designed it and it fits just fine. He was extremely defensive and not happy that i wanted to return it. It was like since he designed it i was wrong and my opinion meant nothing. I really wish i would have spoken with brandon again and not that guy!

Anyway, everyone else at that company was great and the service was excellent. In my opinion companies shouldn't have engineers answering phone calls anyway. They should leave the complaint taking to the customer service guys and let the engineers stick to designing.

Hope that helps...

 

Hi wtkns74 -

I agree with you.

I would not have cut up the exhaust to fit though - I would have had the originals put back on and welded if I thought there was a possibility that I would return them.

If they were not loud enough, and had fit perfectly, you would not be trying to return them, you would be selling them.

Since your guys modified them - for whatever reason, I would not have expected the vendor to take them back at that point.

Now - I think they could have handled the situation better - hearing only your side - but be that as it may, you have no damages at this point from them not originally fitting your car (unless you paid extra for the custom work to fit them).

Does that make sense?

best regards -

mqqn

 

chris is his name. he told me he was the one who designed the exhaust and the attitude fits.

 

hi, this makes alot of sense. yes i did have to pay more for labor as it took longer to install, but i'm fine with that. my compaint is a customer service issue. this situation could have been resolved without a return. sometimes it's about how you treat a customer and how understanding you are to their situation. not just NO RETURNS have a nice day. isuues can be resolved a lot of different ways and sometime just giving good customer service could rectify the situation.

 

Hi wtkns74 -

Good - I did not explain that well lol .....you seem to have handled it well.

So now you can sell your pypes (never heard of that system btw) or watch the c5 parts section and work out a trade for a nice setup.

The bullet type exhausts are much louder - and, if you still can get to the cut up stock C5 system that you had, I made a nice straight pipe exhaust for my wifes car bu cutting the "over the axle" pipes off of a stock C5 catback, and had a muffler shop weld on some sections of pipe to go straight out the back - and then bought some twin-outlet exhaust tips and welded them on the end.

What I wound up with was a nice, "throughty" muscle car sound. With the stock cats in place, it was not as loud as some would think.

You could do this setup for around $120 depending on the cost of the tips and the minimal labor at a muffler shop.

As you know, you can get a stock C5 catback for free almost anytime....

Here is a link to a video to demonstrate the sound of the "billy-bobbed" exhaust I made -

http://www.iammoon.com/vids/billy_bob_exhaust.wmv

I have since installed a Zo6 Ti catback on the wifes car and sold the custom system I made.

best regards -

mqqn

 

First of all, I never even talked to you. So I don't understand how you are disapointed in my customer service skills. I am very understanding to every customer's situation. However, we can't ALWAYS honor customer's requests if we feel they are unreasonable. In this case;

There is a very large BRIGHT ORANGE page included in the system that says NOT to modify the system without first contacting Pypes. There is another paper that again outlines the terms of the warranty. Finally the instructions clearly state the same. It is my understanding that the system doesn't just have one small cut pipe. You CHOSE to modify the muffler neck and weld the pipe in a manner that would make pretty much impossible to determine if it was defective. The whole reason why we (and all exhaust companies) don't allow you to modify systems is because by doing so, you prevent us from being able to determine whether the product was in fact defective in the first place.

Every company has to have limits to how far they can go to satisfy the customer. I think you would agree Mike was very patient with you the first time you called. Ed was patient with you when you called again later that day to explain everything over again. Stacey was patient when you explained your story yet again and then when you called the 4th time, Mike probably started to get frustrated but still was not unprofessional in any way. With another C5 owner, as promised, we accepted his return for system that was installed on the car and tested for sound within 7 days. How many other exhaust companies take back an exhaust system because the owners don't like the sound? This customer did not modify his system. I'm sorry you could only see this situation from one side. You are not taking any responsibility for your choice and I think it is time that you do.

I would ask that everyone that reads this trys to keep an open mind here. It is tradition for forums members to gang up on suppliers that don't satisfy forums members. We are the new kid on the block and we're trying to give Corvette owners a quality product in a completely different price range that gives you a much better value. You can bad mouth us and probably successfully hurt our reputation in this market. Maybe even bury us in this market. However, I would ask you to strongly consider that our success in this market will create more industry competition. It might just bring down the price of all Corvette exhaust systems. We believe that Corvette owners have been overpaying for their exhaust systems for a very long time. We're trying to change that. Don't be so quick to bury us.

Chris Casperson
President

 

btw, Because of feedback from customers who purchased one of our 30 pre-production systems, we're adjusting the design of both the RacePro and Violator mufflers to increase the sound by about 25%.

 

I'm interested in seeing where you had to cut the pipes and why. If no one could figure out how to get the exhaust on the car without cutting it then I would say either the pipes were faulty from the start or there wasn't a competent mechanic there to figure it out. But then again I wouldn't offer to refund someones money just because they dont like the way it sounds on their car. It sounds like a mess I hope you two can work it out.

 

Is there a photo of this type of exhaust, uninstalled???

 

PM sent. Thanks, David

 

edited - fitment problems continue with no resolution.

 

i helped jeff with his , and really no problems installing but final alignment is not very good , and it does look as the bend of the tips is not very consistant . as far as sound goes they are a little tame and you do not have to cut up the old exhaust to remove them , jeff had problems even finding someone that could lift his car , and i have lifted noumans car several times and it is way lowered
but the rule is always if you modiy it , it is yours . how long did it take them to swap yours out . it took me about 15 min. to long and i did it in about 45 min. we spent the remainder of the time trying to align the tips .

oak

 

chris you are correct, i spoke with mike. i did ask to speak with you but was told by mike that you are unavailable for customers. he told me the company was too big and you (owner of company) did not have time to speak to customers.

let me clarify that i started this thread because of the way i was treated, not because i could not return the system.

you made it sound like i kept calling their which is not true. called 3 times. 1st talked to mike, 2nd because he did not call me back, and third returning mike's phone call to me the next day that i missed.
also, i never spoke to stacey. although i did speak to ed, very nice guy. i think as stated in this thread that you shouldn't have the engineers answering phone calls, it sounds like everyone else there has good customer service skills, except for mike. again, the situation could have been resolved without a return. i understand policies but i do expect good customer service as i just spent $400 with you guys. i put this thread out there becuase of the way i was treated.

 

we had to cut the intake pipe on the mufflers back. i offered to take pics and send to them(pypes) but they i guess that would of wasted more of their time. i asked to talk to chris but mike told me he doesn't accept phone calls from customers. if i was able to this situation most likely could have been resolved.

 

i read in this forum that the few people who first had there's installed did not have fitment issues, and that they were not worth anything.that is why i told the shop to cut mine. it took them about 1 1/2 hrs to complete because of the mod.

 

That was your interpretation. What he said was that 'I don't want to bother Chris on an issue like this because he will tell you the same thing.' If I was too important to talk to customers, then I wouldn't be on this forum actively participating, would I.

I have received about 10 PM's asking if we had any more systems available at the special price. Since we don't, I think if the system is not ruined, another member would probably take it off your hands. Get me some pictures of the installation and the modifications and post them here in this thread. Maybe we can still work something out. I would volunteer to pay to have the system shipped to another Forums C5 owner and you could probably end up even.

 

that is a nice jesture on your part Ccass . if you could figure out away to have the tips permantly mounted maybe that would help to be consistant with the fit .

oak