Stomis
Professional Amateur
I would like to put this out there after my recent dealings with Strange Engineering. While they arent a 4x4 oriented company theres a lot of us on here that are into hot rods and other facets of our automotive obsession. Some may know the background from my 2wd GMT400 build thread but I'll recap the whole story and try to be as short as I can, not that Im great at that...
About 2 months ago I purchased a Strange Engineering street style Cclip eliminator for my street project. For anyone who doesnt know a cclip eliminator bolts on the brake flange of the axle and obviously eliminates the cclips for a press on bearing. So I unpack the box and read the instructions. Cut the bearing end off the axle tube to make room for the new piece. So I do this and hold the piece up to the flange. **** its the completely wrong pattern. At this point I chalk it up to a bad description on summits site and me not looking the parts over close enough.
So I decide to move on to calling strange and talking directly to them. Nice guy on the phone, gives me a run down that basically big cars and trucks came with a different flange for larger brakes. He apologizes for summits lack of description and advises I send it back to the for refund as they had nothing to do with the sale. He moves on to solve my issue which is getting my now chopped up axle back together... I wont get into it in technical depth but after about 3 days he tells me theres nothing they can do as a "street" version that I would have to run a race style ball bearing to get my housing back together. He then nonchalantly tells me that if I didnt want to run the kit that Moser (their main competitor and the biggest name in after market rear end stuff) sells the stock ends that I could weld back on. Basically I tell him if Im gonna buy a rear end alignment bar and start welding stuff Im just going to put Ford 9in ends on it. He basically agrees that would be the right move if I start welding things. At the end of the conversation I basically tell him I want to try and get it together w/o welding that I'll take the race kit. Then I specify that I have a 1994 truck and want to clarify it will fit my rear end. He says yes its a truck it has the large flange, I'll send you a kit.
About 4 days later the kit shows up at my house to the tune of $220 + shipping. About $60 more than the other kit I had bought, but I figure eh. what am I gonna do right? So that weekend I begin installing the kit. I take a look at the flange pattern on the kit and the axle and basically go yep that looks just like that... HUGE MISTAKE. I press the kit on my axles and the lock rings and begin trying to reinstall he setup in the housing. Everything is slathered in rtv as it can be a pain to get the things to seal up. I slide it in and the bolt pattern is wrong, everything is off by about 1/8 to 1/16th of an inch. Same damn pattern but the bolt spread is wrong...
If you've worked on a ford 9in you know theres a locking ring to hold the bearing on with a major interference fit. This is a throw away part that has to be cut off the axle shaft to remove the bearing. So I call Strange and talk to the same guy. He tells me he has no idea why that kit doesnt fit, that it should. He says send it back and they dont have anything else to try. I tell him Ive got to cut the locking ring off to send the bearings back and he tells me "O theyre going to charge you for those". This is where I start getting pissed off, but I think o what $10 and keep my cool.
So I press the stuff back off the axle after cutting the wedding rings off. One of the pieces gets some minor mars on it from the puller. I box it up and send it back on my own ****ing dime which again isnt right to me.
Fast forward and they get my stuff. He says to me we got your return and we're charging you 30% because we cant resell this one piece and the wedding rings are missing. So at this point I say to him on the phone "Ive had enough Im not being nice about this anymore". I go on about how he told me this kit would fit and it doesnt. He tries to rebuttle by saying "well you told me you had a large flange ten bolt, I dont know what your truck has". I then shut him down by telling him I told you what year my truck was to make sure it was correct and you told me it would fit. Then I proceed to school him on how he has no clue about how they changed the backing plate when they went to metric bolts and fixed style drums in 88, but his competitors at Moser knew exactly what I was talking about. He basically totally shut down and said he would have to talk with his supervisor and call me back.
That was more than 24hrs ago and I still havent heard anything. Looks like Im going to be denying the charges with my bank. Im not eating this. I already had to eat shipping with summit on the other kit. I specifically passed the responsibility to him when we had the conversation about what my truck was.
Stay away from these people. They are lacking knowledge about what they specialize in and are unwilling to accept responsibility when something is their fault...
About 2 months ago I purchased a Strange Engineering street style Cclip eliminator for my street project. For anyone who doesnt know a cclip eliminator bolts on the brake flange of the axle and obviously eliminates the cclips for a press on bearing. So I unpack the box and read the instructions. Cut the bearing end off the axle tube to make room for the new piece. So I do this and hold the piece up to the flange. **** its the completely wrong pattern. At this point I chalk it up to a bad description on summits site and me not looking the parts over close enough.
So I decide to move on to calling strange and talking directly to them. Nice guy on the phone, gives me a run down that basically big cars and trucks came with a different flange for larger brakes. He apologizes for summits lack of description and advises I send it back to the for refund as they had nothing to do with the sale. He moves on to solve my issue which is getting my now chopped up axle back together... I wont get into it in technical depth but after about 3 days he tells me theres nothing they can do as a "street" version that I would have to run a race style ball bearing to get my housing back together. He then nonchalantly tells me that if I didnt want to run the kit that Moser (their main competitor and the biggest name in after market rear end stuff) sells the stock ends that I could weld back on. Basically I tell him if Im gonna buy a rear end alignment bar and start welding stuff Im just going to put Ford 9in ends on it. He basically agrees that would be the right move if I start welding things. At the end of the conversation I basically tell him I want to try and get it together w/o welding that I'll take the race kit. Then I specify that I have a 1994 truck and want to clarify it will fit my rear end. He says yes its a truck it has the large flange, I'll send you a kit.
About 4 days later the kit shows up at my house to the tune of $220 + shipping. About $60 more than the other kit I had bought, but I figure eh. what am I gonna do right? So that weekend I begin installing the kit. I take a look at the flange pattern on the kit and the axle and basically go yep that looks just like that... HUGE MISTAKE. I press the kit on my axles and the lock rings and begin trying to reinstall he setup in the housing. Everything is slathered in rtv as it can be a pain to get the things to seal up. I slide it in and the bolt pattern is wrong, everything is off by about 1/8 to 1/16th of an inch. Same damn pattern but the bolt spread is wrong...
If you've worked on a ford 9in you know theres a locking ring to hold the bearing on with a major interference fit. This is a throw away part that has to be cut off the axle shaft to remove the bearing. So I call Strange and talk to the same guy. He tells me he has no idea why that kit doesnt fit, that it should. He says send it back and they dont have anything else to try. I tell him Ive got to cut the locking ring off to send the bearings back and he tells me "O theyre going to charge you for those". This is where I start getting pissed off, but I think o what $10 and keep my cool.
So I press the stuff back off the axle after cutting the wedding rings off. One of the pieces gets some minor mars on it from the puller. I box it up and send it back on my own ****ing dime which again isnt right to me.
Fast forward and they get my stuff. He says to me we got your return and we're charging you 30% because we cant resell this one piece and the wedding rings are missing. So at this point I say to him on the phone "Ive had enough Im not being nice about this anymore". I go on about how he told me this kit would fit and it doesnt. He tries to rebuttle by saying "well you told me you had a large flange ten bolt, I dont know what your truck has". I then shut him down by telling him I told you what year my truck was to make sure it was correct and you told me it would fit. Then I proceed to school him on how he has no clue about how they changed the backing plate when they went to metric bolts and fixed style drums in 88, but his competitors at Moser knew exactly what I was talking about. He basically totally shut down and said he would have to talk with his supervisor and call me back.
That was more than 24hrs ago and I still havent heard anything. Looks like Im going to be denying the charges with my bank. Im not eating this. I already had to eat shipping with summit on the other kit. I specifically passed the responsibility to him when we had the conversation about what my truck was.
Stay away from these people. They are lacking knowledge about what they specialize in and are unwilling to accept responsibility when something is their fault...
