I ordered a bunch of stuff from SWA back in late Oct/ early Nov. Consisted of brake pads, Tein's, Illumina's and something else if I remember correctly. Great price and they (Alex and Steve) did me a solid by following up and making sure the struts arrived in time for the weekend install. So far so good.

Once I got everything installed in Nov., during the last part of the installation (the installation of the passenger side strut/spring assembly) we noticed that they sent me two LF (front driver's side) struts. Having done the entire install except this side, we decided that since the struts are all the same we'd install it, zip tie the brake lines (the only difference btw. LF and RF is the clips for mounting the brake lines) and get this taken care of later.

I emailed Steve @ SWA on Nov21, no response.
I emailed Steve and copied Alex on Dec 1, no response.
Sent ANOTHER email to Steve on Dec11, again, no response.

While I appreciate everything they did pre-sale, post-sale has been a nightmare. This is not a HUGE deal as the brake line is safely zip tied off, but I am concerned over the lack of responses.

SWA: I don't know what happened or where the ball was dropped. I'm just now getting around to taking care of this utter BS and I expect you guys to rectify this situation by advancing me a RF Illumina and once I get it installed I will ship back my LF strut. Installation is probably going to cost me and I'd like to hit you guys up for that, but frankly the strut mess isn't your fault ... the boxes were labeled correctly ... Tokico must have messed up in packaging. It's your lousy/lack of follow up that's my problem.

I have pics of everything and I have all the sent emails. I have pics of the boxes pre-install, I have pics of doing the install and I have pics of the boxes the night I did the install. I will be happy to send you all the pics if you want, but I just expect a response.

Signed,
Disappointed.

 

I would just give them a call.

 

i guess i will be buying my suspension from custommaxima now. that sucks they are ignoring you.

 

well..if you guys ever read my wonderfull thread with custom maxima...i think this story isnt THAT bad yet...

I would still give em a chance, never ordered from them..but i bet you they will do something soon...maybe not? either way sorry to here that...

 

987650

 

did u ever call them??? i dont think you should complain if you have never called them. give them a call and im sure Alex or Steve will help you out.

 

I understand why you say this geo ... and this would be a 100% legitimate response if it weren't for 2 things:

1. It's 2004. Electronic communication is just as important as telephone communication (if not more important). I work for one of the Big Four accounting firms and you HAVE to monitor your email much more closely than voicemail. Most people prefer email communication and if I missed an email like this from one of my customers, my **** would be on the chopping block. No business will ever be successful in the 21st century ignoring emails.

2. I had plenty of email communication/responses from Steve pre-sale. There is no reason to believe that they wouldn't see multiple emails.

Aside from all this, I tend to agree with you and a phone call could have helped, but I can't barely find time in my day to replace my broken toilet seat downstairs, or plant all my new vegetation for the spring, or wash my car, etc. etc.

I always will admit responsibility where it is mine. I accept partial fault for not calling them, however 3 emails on 3 separate dates to 2 separate people should have been sufficient ... don't you think?

Anyway ... as someone pointed out, this is not that bad yet. They could very easily post here saying "I'm sorry, our email system was down for those few weeks you tried to contact us ... we'll take care of it." I'm not slamming SWA ... all I did was put the truth out there, unweighted.

 

I can't endorse custommaxima.com. Even with this issue with SWA ... I'd still buy from them again before Custommaxima.com. That guy has WAY TOO MANY empty promises.

Where is that "Project Maxima" of his anyway?

 

I wonder if actually installing the parts affects the ability to return them? ie.. used now

 

You are not allowed to return used parts unless it is defective. They will not be able to return the part to the manufacturer for a refund unless it is defective. Even though they might have sent you the wrong part, it would be hard to take that kind of loss.

I am not sure what to tell you then, but I respect SWA if they take that stance.

EDIT: That is still no excuse for not communicating that to you though.

 

My response to that is that Tokico messed up. The box was labeled as FR, but the strut inside was FL. Again ... not SWA's fault, Tokico's fault. They should be able to get a refund since I took pics before, during and after. Am I expected to leave one strut/spring assembly different because Tokico mis-labeled their box?

If this wasn't the case, I would also respect SWA for taking a "no return" stance. However I think we have a case with Tokico.

 

Whoa....Big_Ham....if I knew your name, I would have no problem e-mailing you back....I was NOT aware of any problems like this....I am sorry that I nor Steve have had any e-mails, but we don't ignore our customers... Please e-mail me at
alex@Southwestautoworks.com ASAP, and I will be happy to resolve whatever the issue may be.

Thanks
Alex


PS Steve has not received any e-mails he is aware of???? And he LIVES on the .org....

 

P.P.S. We are one (toll-free) phone call away. If you hadn't received a response, I truly would've encouraged a phone call, but that's just me. Either way, I want to make sure you are happy. Call me/e-mail me.

 

If you get some free time, please give me a call and I will get things taken care of for you.

Steve

 

I have no idea what the problem was guys, but I'm glad you're here now. Steve was so good pre-sale that I was very surprised. To be honest, again, I rarely have time to dedicate to headaches like this (this being the strut mix-up, not you guys) so I like to deal with them in email whenever I can. With you guys having this great .org presence, I figured electronic was as good as anything.

Anyway ... I'm going to email both of you in about 5 seconds here. I'm going to put some pics up and link to them so you can actually see the problem.

 

You have E-mail.

 

Got it. Thanks for the quick reply. For anyone reading/keeping up with this post, please know that this post was made with intentions of getting everything cleared up. Not to slam SWA at all, as you can see we never really had a chance to sort through anything because of the missed emails.

Stuff happens (especially in this new-ish electronic world) and it's nice to see people pick up the ball and run with it as SWA has done. I would certainly buy from them again and I think you should too.

 

Steve ... sent you an email on 4/27 and I'm going to re-send today with additional info .. this would be a good opportunity to check if you guys have spam software that is possibly blocking my emails or something to that effect ... look for my email in a few minutes.

 

Replied. The software was at highest security while we moved, but now everything is normal again.