I have thousands of dollars worth of parts I am no longer willing to sell. Either from having to replace it on a customer cars for free, or listen to people complain to me about it. I called and spoke to their sales manager who told I couldn't return the stuff because "they aren't a Walmart." I waited a bit because I got busy and then asked that Scott call me himself. Spoke to him this morning and he asked what I needed, he had the whole team their listening. Explained to him I wanted to return my inventory because of the lack of quality. I constantly lose money from selling/installing their parts. Told nope. He then actually told me he's never heard anyone that's had problems with his products. I told him he needed to ask around. I know even locally, I'm not the only one that complains about their parts. The straw that broke the back for me was ANOTHER sending unit that went bad. It was a whopping 6 months old when it went out. I replaced that for free. Now I know they have to know this. This quote here below is no more than 2 days old from another board member here PM'ing me.
This was the gas gap on the exact same car. This is what it should look like.


This is what it looked like after 1 year. Shouldn't it be black ? Yep, that's now an orange ring. this is not the only one I have seen like this unfortunately.


This is where the wire should be to hold it to the car. Broke after 4 months.


This is the last straw. There are MANY MANY stories like this.
My own car got a new regulator. Worked all of 10 ten times.

AC units with leaking hoses. This we found out after we were able to actually get it filled. Bad valve wouldn't let the charge in. 40 bucks, plus the R+R WE had to pay. We are left paying the bill. They washed their hands of it. Car was charged 3 times. It leaked again 4 months later and the customer gave up. Another bad crimp. Lost over double what was made off the kit. And lost a customer even though he didn't have to pay anything.

Idler arm that lasted 1500 miles before it's bad.

Chrome lasts about a year.

Replacement ball joints about 4 months if you actually drive the car.]

When they used to ship stuff on there own truck, with their own employees, we got 4 cracked R valances. We were told "this is the last one." Like we had something to do with it getting cracked BEFORE it got here. They FINALLY looked in the box before shipping, and we got a good one.

I have a rear qrtr here mis-boxed. It's a 67 when we ordered a 68. Guess what, they told me it was my responsibility to ship it back. It's not a small box.

Make sure when you order KYB shocks, you don't want their off shore brand. They'll call and ask after you put the order in online. Tops are made too short and will slip right past the tower cap and into your hood.

The conversion boosters for the 4 spd. Those don't come with aluminum bowls anymore. They come chromed. The chrome flakes in the bottom of the bowl are free. Same setup MP sells. I returned SD's stuff and talked to MP about it, told them the story and theirs were "different." Got their "different" one. Same part, along with chrome chips. No one does QC anymore I guess. A shame considering that master cyl's hold other peoples lives in the balance.

They used to have good speedo cables years ago. New stuff bounces more the the 40 year one that came out.

Ever try to stick a repop inner grill molding on a 65-66 ? If you get it in without destroying the thin metal, you will see the passenger side lip sticks forward a good 3/16-1/4 out too far. But "it fits our jigs" they say. the driver side fits fine. Showed the customer once he got back from deployment and he obviously didn't like it. Uh, too late. It's been longer than 30 days. Can't send it back. I ate that and the labor,too.

I can go on and on and on and on....literally, all day. But I'm sick and tired parts and being blamed for someone elses inferior over seas parts. The absolute kicker is to play so coy as to act like you've never heard someone say your quality is lacking ? Give me a break. I can give 5 numbers off the top of my head of people who won't touch it.

So hopefully you guys will have better luck, and have it break within 30 days so you can send it back with less hassle. Otherwise you'll be told to sell the parts to someone else for a loss.

 

Thanks for the info... I will keep that in mind.

 

The PO put a number of SD parts on the car, they all went to the trash. I wasn't impressed with the quality even before I knew much about mustangs.

 

Sounds pretty bad how in the world did that gas cap lose all its blackness....?

 

Man, I don't know how it got like that. I'm guessing the sunlight. Based on the guy I don't believe has a garage for the car. But mainly because on the first car I saw it happen on was a consignment car at the mustang shop I worked for before starting this one. We put it on the car on the lot, and a few months later, same thing. Best part, is the green 69 owner just bought the "GT" version from them. Same black anodizing also. Can't wait.

Mr_V, it's not just this car. This was just two parts on one car, this time. This has been going on for four years.

 

I'm on my third SD gas cap. The first 2 cracked, now keep in mind this plastic cracked on a car that had been driven 350 miles and had spent a total of 5 days outside of a garage.

The chrome is garbage and shows petina after a period of months.

It's really sad that they feel its appropriate to put the "company story" on the back of each package and sell such junk with zero service to back it up.

 

Strange. I've always found Drake to be very responsive to problems.

 

I have had one guy tell me he's never had a problem with their stuff. But I guarantee he had brown eyes from being full of..... Believe me, it's not that strange. It's more strange that someone feels differently. Every local vendor I have spoke to feels the same way. But as I would expect, current SD dealers will have to act like that to protect their bottom line.

How did SD respond you telling them their sending units were no better than pepboys ? Are the pepboys at least somewhat accurate ?

 

CPR

Any idea on a replacement vendor? How do you plan to reduce failures in the future?

I have only about 3 SD items on my car so far they have been okay none of them are electrical items...valve covers, gas cap and a door lock piece simple stuff with the gas cap being the most complex.

Thanks for the heads up!

-Gun

 

Heres the deal, its repo; its gonna be crap. Just try to get your hands on as many original parts as possible.