D'prived

As many of you know already there is another thread about the hood struts that are sold by American Muscle for the 2005-2009 Mustand and how the bottom bracket doesn't fit right because of poor design. Like myself, many of us were told that there is a "new and improved" redesigned bottom bracket for the 2005-2009 Mustang. I talked to one of AM's associates and he assured me that he would get the "new and improved" designed bracket right out to me. I received it a few days later and low and behold it was the same old crappy ill fitting lower bracket that I had before. I called AM the next day and talked to a different AM associate. He informed me that there was no such thing as a redesigned lower bracket for the 2005-2009 Mustang. There was, however, a newly designed lower bracket for the 2010-2012 Mustang. He suggested that he send me the bracket for the 2010-2012 and give it a try. I said fine but if they didn't work I wanted to send everything back and get a refund.

I got the new and improved lower brackets for the 2010-2012's today, got them installed and as promised, here are the results...







Anyone from American Muscle care to jump in and answer my question? Is it you're just hoping to send the bad brackets out and instead of customers complaining about them they'll just install them upside-down? Great marketing technique!

surfbum7190

just found out american muscle is only an hour away from my house. i know this is unrelated but i was kind of excited

MadStang40

Hot damn, why wasn't this confronted in the design process? I mean hell, it's a frikin bracket? I mean, it looks like a really easy fix. Extend each side a couple more millimeters to ensure a better fit.

Sounds like the engineer was sleeping on the job

D'prived

Yeah... this issue has turned into something alot more complicated than it needs to be. AM has the bracket but they claim it's for the 2010-2012 Mustang. It obviously works on the 2005-2009 Mustangs so why not include the brackets with any order on a 2005-2012Mustang?

ironh19

I have installed 2 strut kits with the old brackets I had to do some modifying to the brackets.

AMDanBailer

Hey, Frank! Thanks for posting.

I'm really sorry for all this confusion. I'll find out if there is in fact plans to update the 05-09 brackets, but as far as I'm aware we haven't released an update for those years yet.

With that said, it looks like the 05-09 brackets are still having troubles just like the 10+ were initially. The 2010 versions we sent you appear to work just fine, so maybe we can just switch the bracket in the 05-09 kits to the 2010+. You didn't have to modify them at all to work on your 09, correct?

I assure you that we didn't do this as a "marketing technique" or that we continued to do this intentionally. Our product updates are made based upon returns/complaints and if everyone simply installed them without reporting it to our Customer Service Team, then we have no idea that the troubles are as significant as they are. However, I will let our New Parts Team know that the 05-09 are still flawed and that the 2010+ bracket may be the solution.

Furthermore, If you currently have an 05-09 kit and would like to exchange it for the new 2010+ bracket, please feel free to PM me with your order number and I can get that swapped out for you.

Sorry for any troubles, everybody and thank you for your patience and understanding. Have a great afternoon!

gmoran1469

First off, thank you D'Prived for taking the time to figure this out, I know I certainly didn't have the patience you did, after my third set of bottom brackets got sent to me and they were still the same as the first I gave up.

Secondly, this could have been fixed a LONG time ago if AM had put any effort into thoroughly communicating with the customers who had the problems and gathering information to solve it from them. Not once was I asked specifically what was wrong with the bottom bracket but rather was just told a new bracket would be sent out. I even let the customer service rep know that they were continuing to send me the wrong bracket and that it probably wasn't a manufacturing error but a design one. I also reached out here on the forums and IIRC in a PM willing to provide accurate measurements to help you guys (easy enough since I work in the fabrication field and I am not only familiar with high precision measuring tools but I have immediate access to them).

I'll be PMing you with my order # for a hopefully working set Chris.

AMDanBailer

Hey guys,

Sorry about the confusion, here. The original problem was that we were having fitment issues with the 2010+ Mustangs. We decided to re-design the bracket so that it fit better for those cars, and split out the kit into two different part numbers (one for 05-09, one for 10-12). The 05-09's had little to no complaints, so we didn't have any intentions on retooling those brackets. We still have had maybe 5 complaints on fitment with thousands of them sold for 05-09.

After re-designing the bracket for the 10-12 Mustang, we realized that it also fit a little bit better for 05-09, even though we didn't have more than a small handful of complaints, like I said. So we're going to implement the same re-designed bracket for 10-12 into the 05-09 kits and package them up together as 05-12 again!

I already sent out a replacement set or two, but PM me at AMChrisYoung and I'll take care of it for you.

For anyone looking to pick up this kit for your 10-12, it fits perfectly fine right now. If you want it for an 05-09, for the next few days, pick up the 10-12 kit. We'll be switching out the brackets really soon. Even if you order for an 05-09, fitment issues are extremely rare, so I wouldn't worry too much and we've never given anyone trouble about sending out a replacement right away.

This should end the saga, and everyone should be taken care of. We're really sorry about the mixup, and make sure to shoot me your T-Shirt size, too and I'll hook you up!

Note: I'm letting our whole team know about this, but if you want to be 100% sure that it's taken care of, COME TO ME DIRECTLY! We have 150 employees, and I'm going to get the message out there, but I don't want any confusion for you guys, in case someone is out when I send the note out, etc.

Chris

gmoran1469

If I were you Chris, I would try my best to get some kind of newsletter or something out that had this information in it, you're bound to have plenty on your e-mailing list that bought this kit. I bet there are a ton of people with the brackets on upside down and they are pooching their hoods if they are using them like that.

Also, I have read plenty of times that the original 05-09 bracket fits just fine for some so maybe it's only a problem on some mustangs so maybe put both bottom brackets in the kit to make sure it's a true 05-12 kit.

D'prived

Yes, just to clarify... the brackets that were redesigned for the 2010-2012 Mustangs are the ones I installed on my 2009 GT. So if you ship those brackets with all orders for any 2005 thru 2012 Mustang then they should fit just fine without any modifications.