Oh do I feel your pain. I've had many projects needlessly delayed over the past couple years. There’s an old saying in the service….”If two things are required to make something work, they will never be shipped together.” In one instance I received a defective product; I’ve been sent mismatched parts (of only a pair); another vendor forgot to send part of my order and then I found out other parts they sent weren’t even for a C6; and I've had parts missing from an order. Meanwhile, the car sat torn-up waiting for the correct or forgotten parts...delay after delay.

I’m not overly demanding and I generally have good things to say about vendors I deal with (some are truly great). I realize mistakes happen but increasingly these aren’t isolated incidents.

To vendors I suggest you value the customer. Quite often a vendor can make thousands of dollars for a few minutes work. Actually take a few minutes to insure the order is filled promptly and correctly. If possible, inspect the parts before you ship them. Communicate with the customer. If you screw-up and forget something or send a wrong part offer to send the correct part at least by 2nd day air. Your mistake is costing the customer time, effort and possibly money. How well you remedy the problem may directly affect your future business.

I hope the vendor steps-up and resolves your problem quickly. Good luck!

 

Sure does...

 

I undertsand your point but it would have worked regardless and it would have saved you a ton of time. You could also have yanked it (20 minutes) and ran to your local machine shop and have it machined (1hr) and then send the vendor the $50 bill from the machine shop. Either way, you won't be the last guy to get a quality control mistake when these parts are made at such a large quantity in general.

My Kooks were works of art, fwiw. Once it's handled, you will be a happy man.

 

well I love my kooks no problems at all. And as for this being unacceptable I think as long as they get him a new one it should be ok. we are all human and all make mistakes. as for quality control when I was in the civilan world doing manufacturing thing Quality assurance only inspected a certain number of peices to make sure they are with in tolerances. but the way you guys bash a company for a mistake is stupid guessing most of you guys have never worked in a place that manufactured things the way you bash a company.

 

most guys here won't spend 1700.00 and get a part that needs to go to a machine shop before installing.... i got a set of ARH with x-pipe used for 900.00 ....works great..

 

I don't really see a lot of "bashing" here. Just a discussion about expectations when spending $1700. I think we should all have high expectations when spending that kind of money on parts. The OP is just sharing his frustration with his parts. He certainly did not do any vendor bashing.

 

Concerning quality issue I do not believe that the Header Co. puts out so many headers that each on can not be checked. I can see nuts and bolts but a Headers system noway.

 

Well he has not said who's they were but his mod list does say Kook. I have seen others chime in with other vendor headers. Mistakes are something that happens to everyone, with that being said I just had to repair a car that all the electrical plugs were burnt up because of a coated header, they were not kooks and this set of headers had already been replaced once because of a warped flange. I have seen others with cracks, I do sell the Kooks and I guess I am somewhat biased, but it is only because of what I have seen come from them and what I have seen from others. I stock all of there headers, I could sell anyone else but choose to only sell Kooks.
Motorhead I do feel your frustration, if you would like me to help and this is a set of Kooks, call me Monday.
Justin A.
Zip Products

 

I think you handled this just fine. you have every right to get on here and rant. I also would demand quality when spending 1600-1700 for a set of headers that the same make on an older LS1 TA or Camaro cost less than half that price. Sounds like the vendor is trying to take care of you but if the headers never went through their hands they where just a surprised as the OP. I bought headers for my 2001 TA and had them jet coated. they like yours went from the manufaturer to jet hot then to me the vendor never saw them. It sucks when you pay for something, make plans and get them railroaded by poor quality. Made in America does not mean much to me the last 20 years. I do buy only American cars but I am surprised when I have no issues. I expect flaws with American Made. There is no pride in what people do anymore.

 

They are Kooks he bought from us. We are rushing him a replacement..since it is a Jet Hot coated header (and he wants a coated replacement). Coating takes 3 days to a week to do correctly becuase it cleaned and baked before being coated. The coating does not warp, damage, or grind anything. Many manufactuers sell coated headers themselves (including Kooks), and some like SLP ONLY sell their headers coated.

As for the defect..I really don't think it is fair to characterize it as a a poor reflection about the quality of things "Made in America", or a lack of pride the employees take in their jobs. I have sold probaly over 1000 headers since I have been in business from Kooks to SW to Pacesetter and beyond, and have never had to replace a header because of a messed up flange..nor seen one with that kind of variance. It is not the norn, should never have went out, and I am very certain someone at Kooks will get in a load of trouble for it. The flip side here is..I am sure everyone on this board has made a mistake at their job that affected either a customer or coworker negatively in the past. Yet I am sure most of you also feel you care about the quality of the work you do, and take pride in it. I am willing to bet someone working on Kook's manufactuering line is no different.

Either way, I always tell people..don't judge a company because a mistake occured (because any company with human employees will make them). Instead, judge them on how they handle the issue, and take care of you. Some of my best, repeat customers are people who had some kind of mistake with an initial order, but were won back over by how well we corrected the issue. I always tell all the employee's who work here that while mistakes and defect should be avoided at all costs..when they do happen..it needs to be used as an opportunity to really show the customer what great service really is.

If I saw multiple headers come out of Kooks with defects I would sing a different tune..however I think it is fair to chalk this up as a freak. We have sold several headers from that same run, and not had an issue. I can run any header on my cars..yet they all have Kooks. I think that speaks the confidence I have in their product.

I am glad the customer was able to get his car back togethor..and is able to drive it. Trust me...MarylandSpeed and Kooks will take 100% care of him.

 

To be completely fair to Maryland Speed/Branden, I take no issue with anything in his post above. He did call me late Friday evening (after business hours) literally within minutes of my message being sent to Maryland Speed identifying the problem. After a very short conversation to clarify the issue was with the product and not the installer (myself) Branden promised to work this issue to resolution. I have no doubt he will and he spent some time laying out the order process and clearly gave me realistic expectations on when I'd see replacements.

My original post was not to hammer the vendor (Maryland Speed) because both Branden and Ashley have been great to deal with but to simply point out that if you as a header manufacturer intend to sell a premium priced product and have expectations customers will continue to buy your product, you absolutely must deliver that quality product every time. This is especially critical now as the overseas guys are chomping at the bit to get a piece of this market.

I still feel strongly these should never have left the plant. I can not believe it would take any more than a simple 1 minute QC job with a straight edge fixture of some sort to verify the trueness of EVERY set of headers coming down the assembly line.

Branden, thanks for the help on this issue and no doubt I'll continue to do business with you in the future.

 

I've been following this thread since the OP, and I'm happy for the OP that a top notch vendor has stepped-up to the plate to set the record straight. That is to say, it was NO fault of the vendor or the purchaser, or the "Made in America" label which helped to sell the product to begin with. I do take exception to the intended slur on products made in America, however. Most people buy from the overseas vendors (read China) NOT because of quality issue, but because they're CHEAP. Over the years, I've purchased an number of things "made overseas by the vendors there who are 'chomping at the bit' " to sell their products on the American market and without exception, ended up with nothing but a handful of crudely manufactured, inferiorly fashioned, substandard materials which were no more than a pile of useless trash. In the instance of these headers as case in point, it is CLEARLY an issue with QUALITY CONTROL responsibility which falls squarely onto the manufacturer. I feel your frustration also because I've had things like this happen to me (surprise!), but our problems had NOTHING to do with the "made in America" pretense, but rather the human element which is ever present in any manufacturing process. That said, if I'm reading the subsequent posts correctly, this same flaw has surfaced several times, in which case, KOOK's needs to take a serious look at the QC factor on their assembly lines. I hope your problem gets resolved in as timely manner as possible.

 

Remembering the threads awhile back about those great inexpensive Chinese headers I wonder if the outcome would have been the same if he had purchased a set of those and they had a problem.

Complaints that made in USA headers should have never left the plant like that may have some validity but at least they were made here and are being replaced ASAP.

If the OP had purchased the Chinese copies on E-bay would his customer service results have been the same?

The fact that something is made in USA doesn't always guarantee perfect quality but a replacement is generally only a phone call away.

 

I just finished reading all the post's in this thread and we the manufacture appreciate everybody's input on the situation. Whether the post where positive or negative without either one we can not grow as a company. Motorhead we are sorry for the inconvenience we may have caused you. I have already addressed the situation on our part here in house. As for us rectifying it with you we will do what ever deemed necessary to correct the situation to make you the client comfortable with there purchasing decision. I will call Maryland speed first thing this morning and follow up with a rep from them and we will get this taken care of ASAP.
Now onto the quality control issue we take pride in our manufacture process. But sometimes thing can slip through the inspection process. We have an average of 80 to 120 sets of headers leave our facility a day. The guys in our shipping department try to do there best to inspect every piece of product that leaves our facility. But with the move of the company and the hire of over 25 new employees there is going to be a learning curve to say the least. We had a following of about 70% of the employees that were employed by us in NY so they are training and trying to produce product at the same time. We are not trying to make up excuses for your situation at all, just trying to show all the facts on the situation. Can I say this will never happen again no because if I did I would be a liar. Accidents happen it is human nature. But I will say we will do everything we can to prevent this from happening again.

 

Well said and a good point about the complaints about our revered Vettes! Unless there is an indication that a large number of products are defective, poorly designed, etc or the vendor/manufacturer is not being responsive, chill. There will always be mistakes and errors that have to be dealt with.

 

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