I purchased a set of the predator V2 halos from umnitza and installed them about 3 months ago. All worked well until 2 weeks ago. On my passenger side halo, sometimes the whole halo will work and sometimes only half of the halo will light up. There's at least one other .Org member that I know of that's had this issue. I contacted Umnitza an they told me its probably due to the connector box....not the actual ring. But apparently umnitza has admitted in the past about producing faulty halos. How many other of us has had/or are currently having this issue?

 

I currently have 2 that have an issue where the halo goes half dim and flickers. after some research and testing in their labs, Umnitza was able to reproduce the issue and confirmed it is a defect cause of a weak solder joint inside the ring and offered to cover it under warranty.

their customer service has been kind in that they have inspected several recent shipments of halos and asked if i mind waiting for replacements so they can ensure a quality product is released. i appreciate their attention to detail and not wanting to release more products without being 100% sure they stand up to the same quality Umnitza is known for across the BMW-world

 

I too have the same exact issue. One half of the halo goes out, sometimes it works and sometimes it flickers. Both seem significantly dimmer as well. When I contacted them they were extremely nasty and implied that it could be the installers fault and that I would have to givethem a deposit at which time i would send back the lights and they would determine if it was a manufacturer issue or my fault. I think its unfair to ask me to come out of pocket for more money when its obvious that this is a manufacturers issue since there are so many identical problems. Not to mention I know have to pay to have the new ones reinstalled which is going to cost me more money. So how do we fix it?

 

Well this thread got my hopes down this year. I wanted Kmoney to install halos on my headlights this summer. I might as well go 2 tone and call it a day . I'll just get legit LED's near the fog lights like Ghozt has instead.

 

Just for the record I am disputing my credit card if they dont rectify this fast. I suggest others do the same

 

Kmoney is using the Oracle Halos now and we are hearing good things about them.

 

I have the same problem. I have been waiting patiently but umnitza hasn't replied to me lately. Two weeks ago they said that they would reply in one week as they were waiting on a new shipment to come in. I emailed them two days ago (1 week after the shipment was to come in) and I haven't heard a reply yet...

 

Can that be done? It has been one month since I bought it?

 

Absolutely

 

LOL My boy who has a TL told me to stay away from Oracle Halos cause his is flickering as well and make sure to go with the halo brand that you got. I'm so confused....

 

Yeah to be honest I haven't heard the best things about Oracle either, especially since they're bare circuit boards directly open to heat. Umnitza was recommended to me by everyone who has LED halos. Just looks like we unfortunately fell into some defects. I spoke with Umnitza via email a couple days ago and they assured me that the replacements were coming in this upcoming week and that their #1 goal was to get everyone a working product. I had no idea the issue was this wide-spread, but I don't see why Umnitza wouldn't replace your defects as well.

 

Your probably right about Umnitza replacing them. But what I'm worried about is if Kmoney installs them and then they flicker in the long run, I'll need to send them off to Kmoney again to be replaced. It's kind of a hassle IMO. Plus I'm no headlight expert so replacing them myself is out of the question. Now I'm sad... Well at least I'll have Kmoney paint them in the summer time and get those LED lighting that you have near the fog lights. Are they 6K? Can you post pics of it during the night/day if you don't mind please? (Sorry for the off topic OP )

 

Ghozt, that's great that they replied to you a couple of days ago, I guess we have to be patient a bit longer...

 

I'm very sorry for the trouble you guys are having. It's not good. We've worked with the factory on improving the testing for just these smaller rings. It really doesn't make a lot of sense why the smallest rings would have the problems while ALL our other rings don't have ANY issues. Not underwater, not hit with a hammer, nothing.

So, we're continuing to investigate what the process is. We don't know exactly where the solder breaks down between the circuits to cause half a ring to fail, ALL our other rings except the 11X rings have only a 2 wire connection (those ring have a 4 wire connection), so that's not the issue.

On Monday we should receive new rings for those of you having issues that have a higher strength solder joint.

I'd like to reiterate this very carefully, we are not going to stop working on improving this situation for you.

Now, onto blasting the competition.

Oracle rings are made from the absolute cheapest possible materials and components. They use cheap, narrow band LED, soldered in China on cheaper Chinese circuit boards (not in and of itself a bad thing but...), and manufactured to the LOWEST specs. You could never take one of their rings and dunk it underwater without frying the circuits.

Furthermore, their supplier contacted us in the hopes we'd sell their rings. The price they offered us was $4 per ring, yes, that's ring. The whole 2 ring kit would have been under $10 with controller. Their multi-color ring setup is only $30 in total cost from the same factory. Unbelievably negligent consumer mark-up.

By contrast, our rings require that a new acrylic/plastics mold be made for every size. They are assembled using LED supplied from a company here in the US (very high quality and brightness) and they use a higher end circuit board from Taiwan (yes, still asia, but then so is Acer, Asus, and many other PC manufacturing). That doesn't even take into account the hand assembly AND the testing we undertake to ensure they are perfect. I don't want to say just how expensive our rings are, but they are no less than 20 times the cost to make and we have to make them in magnitudes of 5000 per size just to break even on the molds.

This year, I'll provide you photos of our factory (co-developed) so you will feel more confident purchasing from us.

This has been a public service announcement

 

Thank you for taking the time to reply regarding the issue some of us are having. It's great to know you are listening and care about your customers. Please contact us when you get the new rings..Thx!

 

Yes thank you umnitza.

 

I just noticed my Umnitza Halo's started having this issue this morning. I wiggled the wires a bit and that fixed it, I don't really want to be having to do this all the time.

 

Umnitza was good enough to send me two sets of halos to replace the ones that I had.. Over the past few days I noticed another ring was doing the same thing from my original set.. Hope the new ones fix this issue as I will have to pay to get them replaced..

 

Problem has been permanently isolated and removed.
It's a bad solder joint at the bottom of the ring. Seems the rings are so small, they are putting too much flex on that joint. All the new rings have additional solder points.

 

I've been running my replacement set of halos with the re-inforced solder joints for over a month and a half now (they are visibly coated with more solder compared to the previous halos) and they are running great. When I had my last set on this long one of them was flickering already, so I have a good feeling about these new halos.

 

Wait til you see our expose on Oracle lighting...we have a car next to us in the shop, this is typically indicative of their workmanship and product quality.

 

What would be helpful is if you can post a picture of the backing on the new (reinforced) halos so customers can look at the back of their rings and determine if they have good ones or not. It's obviously in your best interest to exchange any potential defective halos with good ones, otherwise you'd end up with more peeved customers who have to spend money to replace their halos (since most people can't do this mod themselves).

 

It's basically reinforced solder points.
And we're exchanging any and all faulty ones.

 

Like Ghozt said can you show a picture of what the reinforced joints look like.. Would be helpful..
Thx!

 

I understand, but the replacement ones you sent me were visibly reinforced on the back. The LED halo is made up of two semi-circle circuit boards that are soldered together. On the original ones only one side of these is soldered together (the other side was not) and on the replacement both places where the circuit boards met were soldered together (with visibly wider bands of solder).

For the people who have to pay to have the halos replaced it would obviously be much easier to send back any known "older halos" for the newer reinforced ones before they are installed. It's not like they won't come back after a few months and ask for replacements anyway, and be extremely irritated on top of it. Just trying to look out for both the Maxima community and your reputation, Umnitza. I know a few of the Maxima people aren't the happiest right now with the halos.

 

i just emailed you guys please get back asap thanks

 

Oh no... another problem?

 

He's got the some halos from the old defective batch, trying to exchange for the new ones with re-inforced solder joints. sound familiar?

 

Oh man! Why are they still sending those out? Would have thought after all this time they wouldn't have any more of those :s

 

i think its just old ones still floating around that other members didnt install and sold to others because they didnt want to deal with the potential of them burning out. i dont really blame them, ive had at least half a dozen people message me privately who bought them initially and they ended up with half burnt out halos.

for whatever reason, Umnitza never posted up what the official replacements look like so people can identify the defective ones before install. its Umnitza's loss ultimately, they could have instilled some market confidence by posting those pics up but chose to leave everyone paranoid about it so a bunch of people abandoned the product and went to other manufacturers (customretrofit has Morimoto LED halos, Oracle has LED halos, other vendors as well carry them)

ive seen both the defective and replacement Umnitza halos and i can tell you with integrity they are visibly different on the back where the solder connects the two halves of their circle LED board and they are very easy to tell apart.

 

There are also defective batches from a knock off product that uses inferior LED but the same board and assembly techniques. So we always need a receipt of purchase.

BTW - not all of those failed. Only a handful, about 20-30, so it's not a guarantee that if you have an older batch from last year that you'll have issues.

New units have a 1/4" Solder strip at the bottom of the rings, older ones have spot solder.

 

How do you except me to keep an order number 7 months ago...if you sell something that is defective and the costumer bought it now knowing that 20-30 of them r bad, shouldn't umnitza take full responsibility? You guys are selling halos that DO NOT WORK.. Please have the decency to please take these garage halos you have sold me and just send me ones that work.
Thanks,
Justin Goon

 

This is a general comment not specifically aimed at Justin, but addressing Justin's case entirely.

When you are a customer of ours, you get benefits that non-customers, and secondary (bought from a friend of a friend of a friend etc.) buyers do not get. When you purchase items from us directly, you get a receipt of purchase, you get full support, and you get warranty assistance when required..

If you cannot provide us with a receipt, we cannot assist you. Not only is this unfair for paying customers with receipts, it takes time out of an already overloaded schedule of built headlights (take a look at our facebook page - www.facebook.com/umnitza to see how many projects we do in a week and only about 1/10th make it to Facebook). We have other ways to look you up but if your name, email, and even your address don't match, then you need to provide a receipt.

If you are asked to provide a receipt and you cannot do it on the first reply, please do not reply stating the same thing stated from the first email. We assist all our customers and have time allocated for that assistance. We're patient, provide a receipt and we're good and off and running to help you. that's our job!

Don't run around blasting/flaming us on the forums if you're not happy with a resolution. We're amicable, we're willing to reasonably work things out with you. Don't use profanity in your emails. Don't yell and scream at our team members on the phone. Don't threaten us with violence or defamation. Don't write insulting emails, no one wants to help people that are insulting or take them seriously. These are things we all learned in Kindgarten on how to work with other mature adults/kids. Please stay grounded, level headed, and most importantly, reasonable.

Finally, don't assume that because other people have had a problem, you will as well. Don't assume that because you have the product it will fail, even if you haven't even installed it. DO take the time to read our terms and conditions, they are unfortunately more strict than they used to be due to some customers abusing a more lenient system (only takes a few to ruin it for many). Also, don't assume that because someone on a message board with no affiliation to Umnitza or our retailers tells you something that it's true. You'd be surprised how many vendors use the web as their own private competition playground by registering fake accounts to destroy the credibility of their competing vendors.

 

When you sell a product with a "lifetime warranty", you should stand behind your product regardless of you feel your customer is rude or not.

I'm not a vendor using a fake account defaming Umnitza, that comment is laughable guy. Everyone already knows who I am and that I'm the one who did the research to figure out which halos fit our car (from the Acura 08 TL remember?) and had you add it to the website? Then a bunch of people ordered them and ended up with burnt out halos, remember that?

Your email explanation to me was that the solder was weak (you re-produced this in your lab with multiple batches of halos, remember?) and sent me a very different unit from the first ones mailed to me. I could tell your team had added some solder to the joints (and you also left my LED halo housings cracked/open - remember I had to email you asking if I can seal it with silicone?) so knew these newer ones wouldn't have the same faulty issue.

The laughable part is how you play hardball with all your clients. Several people emailed me about their faulty halos when they saw them failing and told me your team was pretending you'd never heard of it before, despite talking with me for several weeks about it via email. My guess is you're just trying to mitigate your losses, which is understandable, but I don't see why anyone would risk buying your products when you respond like this to defective products.

You then threatened to not honor the lifetime warranty on your product for me if I posted about my experience online with your company. With all due respect I'm tired of your company and ridiculous lack of customer service. Don't worry, if my replacement halos have any issues and you try to deny warranty claims, I'll just file a lawsuit with your company and report you to the BBB. I'm done. Have a nice day.

 

I think you - as usual - completely misconstrued this post as if it was direct at you. It wasn't in any way. In fact, the post was not at all directed at your past assistance.

I think you have mistaken the intention of the post entirely and you should check your PMs to clarify it.

 

I think you - as usual - are being a condescending *** trying to skirt the issue.

 

"LIFE TIME WARRANTY" thats all i got to say to you guys. its so disappointing that your company cant grant those 3 simple words. when hard earned money is purchased to get crappy halos. thanks alot umnitza with all the "kind" responses to my email. LOL. you guys really need to be reported to the BBB because your company is such a ript off. FALSE ADVERTISING!

 

All you have ever had to do is provide a purchase receipt. If you cannot we cannot help you. Even if you had purchased it from someone that purchased it from us directly. It's really very simple.

This response is directed at you Justin, just provide a receipt. Anthony in our tech reply team will continue to reply to every customer requesting a receipt. he handles over 300 emails a day, so a receipt helps him isolate what issues he can handle.

The fact is you've never installed the product, you don't know if it is working or not working. So end result, find your receipt or who you bought from. Simple.

 

I am just reading through this, but I do not own any of these lights, but I have to ask...is it listed anywhere on your site that the warranty is "non-transferrable"? If not then how can you deny people that have your product whether they are straight from you or from someone else? That is like I have a craftsman tool from my dad that is 10 years old....obviously you do not expect me to keep a receipt for that long, and then you say I can't return it if it breaks...

 

It actually does say it's non-transferable, but we're not hiding behind that either. We are actively replacing failed product as long as you have a receipt of purchase.

You just need a receipt of purchase, it could/should be a receipt from a previous owner, but it should be a valid receipt. If you found these off the "back of a truck", obviously, we won't warranty it. Otherwise, it's not difficult to find/provide a receipt.

And we're not dealing with 10 years. We're dealing supposedly with 7 months as stated above. We keep customer information for over 9+ years since we launched our new back end database in 2003. We have receipts for everyone that has purchased through the site, but some people buy using paypal, and those aren't kept past 3 years, so you have to have a receipt.

BTW - not all Craftsman tools are lifetime warranty, not a lot of them are.http://www.craftsman.com/cswarranty/...cal=CSwarranty