The following is a letter from Gary Heidt concerning the problems one person had with his product. The orgional “warning” post can be accessed here. <a href="http://www.hotrodders.com/cgibin/ubb/18/000592" target="_blank">http://www.hotrodders.com/cgibin/ubb/18/000592</A> In all my dealings with Gary, I've found him to be an honest guy and it's extreemly unfair when one guy (out of thousands of customers) has a problem and the company's reputation gets trashed so easily. Gary wrote this letter to another web site hoping his side of the story will get out as fast as the "problem" did.
Letter follows:
Here is our response to the situation and the actions that we are taking to resolve the problem, and I hope that it spreads as fast as the first one. Thank you very much, Gary Heidt.
I thought that I should keep you up to date on the situation with Jeff Fennema (Cosmo) and his 46 Ford. We have sent replacement parts to The Roadster Shop to repair his car, at no cost to him. I felt that we can certainly afford to help him out, especially since he is in a delicate situation with some personal problems. I would be lying, however, if I said that I thought that there was a problem with our parts. This crossmember and control arm design has stood the test of time. An estimate of all the manufacturers in entire street rod industry would show that there were probably a total of 30,000 sets of control arms and 40,000 crossmembers sold in the last 10 years combined. Of all these products out there from all these companies, don't you think that if there was a genuine problem with this type of design that there would be hundreds and hundreds of failures, not just a hand full? Perhaps Jeff thought that he did a correct job when he built his car but I feel that this was just an isolated case of an improper installation of the product.
I personally know an NSRA rep that has one of our suspension systems on his car which he installed about 12 years ago and he now has over 100,000 miles on it. Yes, that is a 1 with five zeros behind it! How many pot holes do you think he has hit in 100,000 miles. Going to the shows and listening to people tell us about how much they enjoy driving their cars with our suspension kits on them and how they have driven 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 miles makes me feel very confident about our products. Then one incident like this comes along, where after 15,000 miles there is a major problem with a particular car. After all the kits we and all the other street rod companies have sold through the years I just cannot believe that there is a design problem with the product. Then I am held responsible, even though I had absolutely no control over the installation or the way the car was maintained or driven. It is just as if you were to install a new set of American Racing aluminum wheels with the conical taper lug nuts. Everyone knows that they must be retightened a couple of times until the lugs seat into the aluminum or they will come lose. If the wheel falls off because they were not retorqued after they were installed, American Racing is now held responsible for the damage? They did not install the wheels, nor did they have the opportunity to maintain them, just as I did not. It is very disappointing that all this happened, but it is just as disappointing to be accused of creating faulty products, just as American Racing did not create faulty wheels. I did offer an explanation to Jeff about how I thought his car failed, even though he said that I did not and it is very disappointing when you are misquoted. I have given my life to this company and this industry, and the products we sell have stood the test of time. I don’t believe we would have won all the awards from the NSRA if were selling faulty products. As far as testing our products, we introduced our Superide Independent Rear Suspension kits recently. I installed the first one in my `57 Chevy pick-up. It was a great opportunity to test a new product, as we left the box off the truck for two weeks so we could do torque and force measurements easily. I pounded on it as much as I could for those two weeks, literally driving through every pot hole and railroad track I could find. This kind of testing was great, as it showed that the design was sound. So yes, we do test our products. Also, if you notice the little fish in our logo, you will know that I answer to a higher authority than the people who buy our products. It is for that reason if no other that we are working with Jeff on his car. I will keep you posted as to the progress of the car.
Yours truly, Gary Heidt
Centerline
<a href="http://www.hotrodsandhemis.com" target="_blank">http://www.hotrodsandhemis.com</A>
Letter follows:
Here is our response to the situation and the actions that we are taking to resolve the problem, and I hope that it spreads as fast as the first one. Thank you very much, Gary Heidt.
I thought that I should keep you up to date on the situation with Jeff Fennema (Cosmo) and his 46 Ford. We have sent replacement parts to The Roadster Shop to repair his car, at no cost to him. I felt that we can certainly afford to help him out, especially since he is in a delicate situation with some personal problems. I would be lying, however, if I said that I thought that there was a problem with our parts. This crossmember and control arm design has stood the test of time. An estimate of all the manufacturers in entire street rod industry would show that there were probably a total of 30,000 sets of control arms and 40,000 crossmembers sold in the last 10 years combined. Of all these products out there from all these companies, don't you think that if there was a genuine problem with this type of design that there would be hundreds and hundreds of failures, not just a hand full? Perhaps Jeff thought that he did a correct job when he built his car but I feel that this was just an isolated case of an improper installation of the product.
I personally know an NSRA rep that has one of our suspension systems on his car which he installed about 12 years ago and he now has over 100,000 miles on it. Yes, that is a 1 with five zeros behind it! How many pot holes do you think he has hit in 100,000 miles. Going to the shows and listening to people tell us about how much they enjoy driving their cars with our suspension kits on them and how they have driven 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 miles makes me feel very confident about our products. Then one incident like this comes along, where after 15,000 miles there is a major problem with a particular car. After all the kits we and all the other street rod companies have sold through the years I just cannot believe that there is a design problem with the product. Then I am held responsible, even though I had absolutely no control over the installation or the way the car was maintained or driven. It is just as if you were to install a new set of American Racing aluminum wheels with the conical taper lug nuts. Everyone knows that they must be retightened a couple of times until the lugs seat into the aluminum or they will come lose. If the wheel falls off because they were not retorqued after they were installed, American Racing is now held responsible for the damage? They did not install the wheels, nor did they have the opportunity to maintain them, just as I did not. It is very disappointing that all this happened, but it is just as disappointing to be accused of creating faulty products, just as American Racing did not create faulty wheels. I did offer an explanation to Jeff about how I thought his car failed, even though he said that I did not and it is very disappointing when you are misquoted. I have given my life to this company and this industry, and the products we sell have stood the test of time. I don’t believe we would have won all the awards from the NSRA if were selling faulty products. As far as testing our products, we introduced our Superide Independent Rear Suspension kits recently. I installed the first one in my `57 Chevy pick-up. It was a great opportunity to test a new product, as we left the box off the truck for two weeks so we could do torque and force measurements easily. I pounded on it as much as I could for those two weeks, literally driving through every pot hole and railroad track I could find. This kind of testing was great, as it showed that the design was sound. So yes, we do test our products. Also, if you notice the little fish in our logo, you will know that I answer to a higher authority than the people who buy our products. It is for that reason if no other that we are working with Jeff on his car. I will keep you posted as to the progress of the car.
Yours truly, Gary Heidt
Centerline
<a href="http://www.hotrodsandhemis.com" target="_blank">http://www.hotrodsandhemis.com</A>