Ordered coilover set May 1st directly from GC in California.

Writing this on May 23rd. Wondering where the set is. Well, according to the guy I called last week (after not getting an email response after several days, and getting hung up on once) they did not have the Koni rear adjustable shocks yet from Holland. He "thought he had zeroed everything out on the site". And that I "should've gotten an email". Nope and nope! So, he said, they would ship that Wed (May 18th) and he would bump it up to 2 day shipping for me for free.

So I called back a few minutes ago. After being hung up on again (getting used to it by now), I called back and taled to the BMW Tech, Dale. According to Dale he "has no parts" and the coilovers will be ready Thursday and ship the following day. Friday, Saturday, Sunday - doesn't count, no mail, and Monday I counted. So I asked if I can expect them for sure this time Monday or Tuesday. To which he replied "yeah...or a few days after you know."

Someone remind me why I haven't pulled my $1500 and gone elsewhere. Hanging up on your customers after putting them on hold already is bad enough. I can't believe when I get these it will be almost a month. I would not have ordered these coilovers (at least from GC - which I guessed would be the fastest and cheapest route) if I had known it would take this long.

Bad business, GC, and hopefully someone reads this and gets deferred. I realize being "out of parts" isn't an extremely common occurance - but buyer beware that you will have no idea what is going on with your order. And you'll have to wrestle with them to figure out what is happening.

And once you do that, you may have to wait some more. :)

Steve

When I talked to them on the phone they wee very ignorant, and treated me like I was an idiot because I was trying to learn about suspension. I had $2500 on a full suspension setup that I took elsewhere.

From what I've heard they are really busy guys. Understandable. But I agree with you in that they do not treat their customers with a very high level of respect.

I've always had great dealings with them. Getting a hold of them is hard at times, but I've spent plenty of time on the phone with them. They spent lots of time (and it's much appreciated) helping me decide on what I wanted and they have helped me with so many issue both suspension and possibly suspension related it's not even funny.

I've heard lots of great things too but I was just writing about my experience.

EDIT: Got a call at home from GC today. He was inquiring about my spring rates, asked what I wanted. Let me backtrack here.

When I first ordered online I saw no option for spring rates. After reading on bfc about how everyone customized theirs, I was a little suspicious. The next day or so I called them to ask about the spring rates and if I needed to specify those/if the track/school kit came with multiple rates. No, I was told, it came with "predetermined spring rates, which I don't know off the top of my head".

Back to today. The guy who called was really helpful and knowledgeable (didn't catch his name). We settled on a spring rate and he confirmed that the rear top adjustable Konis were in his hands right now. He went on to explain that the web site ordering thing for them was new and there were still kinks to work out. He said in addition to not having the rear top adjust Konis, my set was further put off because they did not know my spring rates that I wanted.

He said that he would ship them out before 5:00PM and I can expect them the day after tomorrow (Thursday the 26th). Which means he bumped it to 2 day shipping (I paid for ground) for me.

Cool, I'm not 100% satisfied with the long wait but I was called by someone over there who explained honestly what happened and gave me free 2 day shipping and was helpful when it came to decided spring rates.

So this is a so-so review of their customer service after todays events. Can't wait to get them on before the weekend. :evil2

Steve

I had to wait 2 months for my setup to arrive. Constantly being told it was in the mail but refusal to give a tracking number. I am happy with the product, happy with the company, happy with the customer service...I am just not happy with the empty promises of shipment for an extended period of time.

I've always had great dealings with them. Getting a hold of them is hard at times, but I've spent plenty of time on the phone with them. They spent lots of time (and it's much appreciated) helping me decide on what I wanted and they have helped me with so many issue both suspension and possibly suspension related it's not even funny.
i too have had great dealings with them. Dale's the man! They made me a discontinued kit, and shipped it to me 2 days later (had the DISCONTINUED kit installed 3 days after i placed the order)

GREAT service!!! Would shop from them again.

Every piece of my suspension is from GC and I have worked with them on many occasions. Never had a bad episode and I have spent thousands with them.

Good responses. I'm sure the good outweighs the bad here. In fact I called up Dale twice during my install to get a few tips. The coilovers are now on and they perform amazingly, well worth the cash.

That was my experience though, and I felt like it should've been shared.

Steve

I came across this thread after a search on GC because I am all set to buy the track/school set up and now i dont know what to do.

I have an AutoX event coming up I wanted these installed for, and I detuned my car last weekend to make room for the GC setup and stay within class.

bottom line is i dont want to be jerked around for 2 months while Auto X season drains away.

TC Kline maybe, or trust these guys?

oh and BTW what spring rates did you guys get? i was thinking 550F/650R

I am running 500/550
I would call them, check to see if they are in stock. If they are tell them you will buy but you want a tracking number within a couple days. (reasonable)
If you don't get the tracking number, cancel your order and get TC Kline.

Bubba- Try ordering from MPact Motorsports. Rob over there went out of his way to help me out and didnt mind sitting on the phone with me 3 different times to give his advice on which options to pick.

Agreed, wether your getting GC or not, Rob at Mpact is great to work with. He has accomodated me very well.

Jimmy

Thanks for the info guys, i will look into it.

GC guy are nice to me, i have no problems and we've made many orders with them. :)

Dale and Jay have always taken care of me. They are a busy group though.

Edge Motorworks and MPact also carry GC and can hook you up :)

well i ordered the track school setup and plunked down my $1500 on the advice of some here and now i should have listened to steve because its been 2 weeks, after i was promised a week build time in an email from Jay before i ordered, and i just tried twice to get details on my order and was disconnected once and put on indefinite hold the other.


wow. i dont have any problem being told the order will take a month or two, at least i can plan my autoX season around that, but to be given the indefinite on hold treatment really chaps my hide.

guess i'm screwed.

time to call AMEX and protest the charge.

I have spent a couple of dollars with GC aswell and unfortunately due to the customer service issues I will never spend a cent in their direction. The thought alone of the issues I've had with them alone makes me want to blow up my mind.

It seems that their customer service varies. Good coilover kits though. Probably best to order from a dealer as someone here mentioned previously.

Steve

This is Dale from GC, can I get your name to see what is going on with your kit? I built about 4 kits today with the remaining parts I had. I can let you know if it shipped. We don't put you on hold on purpose and just leave you. We were probably on another call when you called. We don't hang up on you either. We have 2 people answering phones, and sometimes we have to sacrifice the phone to get orders out. Matter of fact you probably got put on hold by me because I am a BMW tech but also have to build your kit and get them out.
It is really hard to do both. All your kits are hand built, all the bushings for your rear shocks drilled by hand, shocks tightened by hand, and packed up by the same person. All struts are welded up in house. Bumpstops modified according to customers spring rates, so we get the travel correct. We also build custom valved race shocks in house also.
This person also has to take care of a number of World Challenge teams on a daily basis. We provide for all 3 Bimmerworld cars, 2 SRT4 Neons plus day to day customers at the same time. That is just for World Challenge. Don't forget we do suspension for literally every car legal in SCCA, GRAND AM, SPEC MIATA, PRO SOLO and the local walk ins that we get every day. I build some of those kits also. Sorry about the inconvenience, but we don't do it on purpose. In the future you or any potential customers can e-mail me
ddizzy21@hotmail.com I will be able to give you info about your order. We can't sit on the phone and talk because we have to make parts. Again I am sorry if we have inconvenienced you. We work hard every day to service your needs, sometimes we fall short. The bottom line is our product is one of the best and we take our time making it. We get it right and customers don't complain about the handling, and performance of our packages. That is my real job, to get race cars and street cars to handle and win
Dale@ Ground Control

well i ordered the track school setup and plunked down my $1500 on the advice of some here and now i should have listened to steve because its been 2 weeks, after i was promised a week build time in an email from Jay before i ordered, and i just tried twice to get details on my order and was disconnected once and put on indefinite hold the other.


wow. i dont have any problem being told the order will take a month or two, at least i can plan my autoX season around that, but to be given the indefinite on hold treatment really chaps my hide.

guess i'm screwed.

time to call AMEX and protest the charge.

The credit card was approved on this suspension kit on Wed the 29th. GC emailed him to clarify that the car was a 2 door, and received the answer at 10:05 pm, Friday the 31st.

The kit shipped out on the 11th of July. The custom built kit, with spring rates as requested, geometry as requested for AutoX, custom-valved Koni struts, correct bumpstop lengths, ASSEMBLED, and rolled up with bubble wrap................

took .................

..........4 working days to assemble, pack, and ship out.

There is NOBODY in the suspension biz who works as hard as us, I'm not kidding, but the 4th of July is very important to me, and I took the day off.

Thanks for listening, Jay

PS check the calendar, its the truth

sorry for the slow reply, ive been busy with work myself, first chance i've had since yesterday to check messages.

First off, thanks Jay and Dale for straightening all this out, and I am very appreciative of your efforts. I know you guys make the best suspension setups, and based on all the good reports on customer service on these boards, and in fact in this thread, are the reasons why I decided to buy from you guys in the first place. You guys getting my order out last night in time for me to install them for my next event proves that the Rep is well founded and my worries unfounded.

Let me just say though that its not in my nature to complain, and in fact as I posted, I was well prepared to be told it would take a month or what not, as I know you guys are very in demand, but what upset me was being put on hold and then getting disconnected a couple of times in light of Steves initial post, so I didnt know what to think.

Jay, I must also say you did warn me when I first talked to you, that your phone system has a habit of disconnecting, so as far as I am concerned, it was a phone glitch and I appreciate your return call yesterday, I'm just sorry I couldnt get a chance sooner to post of you letting me know of the resolution.

I feel stupid for getting a stick up my rear over this and not having the patience to wait for your call, but I look forward to running your product on my car and I have no doubt you will have another bimmerforum/bmwcca member to refer others to your products and service.

Thanks again for you professionality, and effort.

jeff

This is Dale from GC, can I get your name to see what is going on with your kit? I built about 4 kits today with the remaining parts I had. I can let you know if it shipped. We don't put you on hold on purpose and just leave you. We were probably on another call when you called. We don't hang up on you either. We have 2 people answering phones, and sometimes we have to sacrifice the phone to get orders out. Matter of fact you probably got put on hold by me because I am a BMW tech but also have to build your kit and get them out.
It is really hard to do both. All your kits are hand built, all the bushings for your rear shocks drilled by hand, shocks tightened by hand, and packed up by the same person. All struts are welded up in house. Bumpstops modified according to customers spring rates, so we get the travel correct. We also build custom valved race shocks in house also.
This person also has to take care of a number of World Challenge teams on a daily basis. We provide for all 3 Bimmerworld cars, 2 SRT4 Neons plus day to day customers at the same time. That is just for World Challenge. Don't forget we do suspension for literally every car legal in SCCA, GRAND AM, SPEC MIATA, PRO SOLO and the local walk ins that we get every day. I build some of those kits also. Sorry about the inconvenience, but we don't do it on purpose. In the future you or any potential customers can e-mail me
ddizzy21@hotmail.com I will be able to give you info about your order. We can't sit on the phone and talk because we have to make parts. Again I am sorry if we have inconvenienced you. We work hard every day to service your needs, sometimes we fall short. The bottom line is our product is one of the best and we take our time making it. We get it right and customers don't complain about the handling, and performance of our packages. That is my real job, to get race cars and street cars to handle and win
Dale@ Ground Control


I understand that you are busy. You have a lot of race and street customers. But when you don't have enough people to take care of all your customers' needs, you get help, hire whatever. I've called to ask some basic questions about suspension products because I'm not all that familiar with them. I was ready to buy, but got "well we have a website" or "yeah the spring rate is determined by us, but I forgot which one." If i am going to be expected to determine what setup I should run, I might a well build it myself. And if I am going to drop 1-2k for coil overs, I shouldn't be told "we decide, but we don't know what" regarding spring rates, or that I can check a lame website with little information to find out the differences and actual benefits of the different kits. It sounds like you do manufacture great kits, but you do a terrible job marketing them and helping customers choose them. I am sure you guys all work very hard, but you have more on your plate than you can eat. You're trying to make a whole bunch of money selling a million kits and servicing a million customers with two employees. :nono If I do go with ground control, it will be because of MPact.

Call GC and ask for Dale. My answers to your questions will be far from vague. I won't refer to any website, because it is all in my head. I will answer all your questions. Whoever told you that we have set spring rates was wrong, we take pride in the fact that we can choose any spring rate we want to service your needs. Just call me at 10 AM PST tomorrow. We have more than 2 employees, just 2 know about BMW's. They try and help when we are on the phone, sorry
530-677-8600 Ask for Dale
916-690-2101 My cell if the phones are tied up.

I think the GC guys are great. Yeah it took a little longer to receive my coilovers, but it was worth the wait.

One thing I wanted to note was that I had a broken plastic cup that the spring attaches to. Broken b/c of a negligent independent BMW Tech putting down my car from a lift w/o aligning the cups correctly onto the car. I called GC the following day and they sent a cup over to me FREE of charge (except for shipping). I forgot who I spoke with but he knew exactly what I was talking about and didn't ask me any questions. He just sent them over.

GC will take care of you given the chance.

When I talked to them on the phone they wee very ignorant, and treated me like I was an idiot because I was trying to learn about suspension. I had $2500 on a full suspension setup that I took elsewhere.

GC is a suspension supplier, not a trade school. Taking the time to educate every noob who wants to window shop over the phone is a losing proposition for any business, especially one that is as asses-and-elbows busy as GC.

FWIW, your incorrect use of the word ignorant while impuning the intelligence of others gave me a good chuckle. :D

I've heard lots of great things too but I was just writing about my experience.


About your experience? Then perhaps you should go back and edit out the gigantic generalization you made, to wit:


I agree with you in that they do not treat their customers with a very high level of respect.

What a load of horse manure.

It seems that their customer service varies. Good coilover kits though. Probably best to order from a dealer as someone here mentioned previously.

Steve

Another brilliant deduction. Please name for me the manufacturer of ANYTHING on the planet that doesnt have an unhappy customer or two? You can't market toothpicks without pissing somebody off. There are simply people out there who want to be pissed...no stopping them.

I wish I was you, Steve. Next spring I could go out on my grass and start talking. 2 weeks later the grass would be nice and green...well fertilized.

If i am going to be expected to determine what setup I should run, I might a well build it myself.

Go right ahead. I've got a clean sheet of paper for you. Start designing. Please be a good sport and don't rip off patented parts.

It's more than just a bit pathetic that you feel unable to help determine a spring rate. It really doesn't take much effort to ask for a bit of advice. You've done the hard part; you've found an enthusiast website to ask for help on. Just how much hand holding does a grown man need? You sound like the perfect candidate for a "one size fits all" suspension from which you'll never extract the level of performance a custom built setup will yield.

Go right ahead. I've got a clean sheet of paper for you. Start designing. Please be a good sport and don't rip off patented parts.

It's more than just a bit pathetic that you feel unable to help determine a spring rate. It really doesn't take much effort to ask for a bit of advice. You've done the hard part; you've found an enthusiast website to ask for help on. Just how much hand holding does a grown man need? You sound like the perfect candidate for a "one size fits all" suspension from which you'll never extract the level of performance a custom built setup will yield.

I'm an Engineer, in Aerospace controls and I could very well design/build my own, ass. Do you want to pay for the tooling associated with a production run of one? I should determine my own spring rates? Okay . . . let me go run over to the shock dyno in my garage. Or better yet, how about you and all the members on the forum go bust out your calculators and linear algebra knowledge and figure it out. I'll take slightly overdamped, please.

Do you know the damping constant of Koni SA's? DA's AD's? Do you know what spring rates they'll take for a perfectly damped system? If you don't, then I guess you're "more than a bit pathetic," just like me I suppose? Even though you're the one tossing ad hominem insults at people for evaluating a third parties' customer service . . .

The whole point is that I want the performance of a custom built setup, and my whole attempt at contacting GC was to figure out which of their kits will do what I need, and whether their street kit allows flexibility in spring rates or not. I called to ask a very simple question - does the street kit allow for choice of spring rate, and if not, what is the default rate. That's a really, really simple question, that requires very little effort to answer. It was not answered. That is poor customer service. Essentially, I just wanted to know which of their kits will allow for the most custom tuning. Get your head out of their ass and realize that doing that can be difficult as the people I've reached are far less than willing to help, and easy to point out to a one-size-fits almost all website.

All this talking, still waiting for your call. All the kits can come with custom rates. Obviously within reason of course. We stock most Eibach ERS springs and also have some of our own. So just call me like I asked and your questions will be answered. We also don't have a default set up. The set up is determined by where you live, your driving style, and how much harshness you can tolerate. For example a customer in Bronx, NY, has a different base rate than a customer in Danville, CA. Shoulkd I even waste my time and leave my number again? The person you talked to was simply misinformed. So call so we can clarify.

I'm an Engineer, in Aerospace controls and I could very well design/build my own, ass. Do you want to pay for the tooling associated with a production run of one? I should determine my own spring rates? Okay . . . let me go run over to the shock dyno in my garage. Or better yet, how about you and all the members on the forum go bust out your calculators and linear algebra knowledge and figure it out. I'll take slightly overdamped, please.

Do you know the damping constant of Koni SA's? DA's AD's? Do you know what spring rates they'll take for a perfectly damped system? If you don't, then I guess you're "more than a bit pathetic," just like me I suppose? Even though you're the one tossing ad hominem insults at people for evaluating a third parties' customer service . . .

The whole point is that I want the performance of a custom built setup, and my whole attempt at contacting GC was to figure out which of their kits will do what I need, and whether their street kit allows flexibility in spring rates or not. I called to ask a very simple question - does the street kit allow for choice of spring rate, and if not, what is the default rate. That's a really, really simple question, that requires very little effort to answer. It was not answered. That is poor customer service. Essentially, I just wanted to know which of their kits will allow for the most custom tuning. Get your head out of their ass and realize that doing that can be difficult as the people I've reached are far less than willing to help, and easy to point out to a one-size-fits almost all website.



Fook it...go buy Bilstein.

Edit....I actually like some of the Bilstein vendors.....go buy Tien.

Have a nice day Sweet Cheeks