Explore Overland NE pickup

Wow, that's pretty insane honestly! These kind of actions sort of communicate that they no longer need your business after you've placed your order and paid up front! I know a guy locally who has a very similar story to yours, but took place about one year prior.

I do wish E.O. and every business the best, but this type of attitude can lead to a company's downfall once supply is restored and people can shop where they want without restriction. There are a hundred overlanding companies and once the trend settles down, they're not all going to survive.

Sorry to hear about your horrible experience

Kind of related to your experience...What was really annoying for me personally was that the owner would take days to reply to me on Facebook messenger, but I could clearly see he was on Facebook making multiple posts in overlanding groups. There's no excuse for that, except that you aren't focused on your existing customers.

 

Mainline has a short lead time? They make some great stuff and on the East Coast as well!

 

Oof. I'm so sorry to hear about these delays. Again PM me and I'll go direct with everyone in the shop to get you as much info as possible. No excuse for double lead times. EO has for sure blown up especially with the Lexus and T4R armor. I know they build in waves so one day it's slider fab all day another day bumpers.

 

Yeah maybe I lucked out. But happy they have them. Todd is whom I spoke with.

 

Thanks, Matt. I have a GX470 too and have seen their growth in the Lexus arena.

It almost sounds like maybe Derrick did not appreciate my feedback very much lol

More seriously, I don't personally feel like I deserve an apology for my bad experience and don't expect one, but I did not see anything in the reaction about "owning" the issues and having a strong motivation to improve and make right.

The explanations are fine. We, as customers, generally understand the current market conditions/limitations (supply) and know that IS OUT of E.O.'s control (and similar companies, not to pick on E.O.). Sure, there will always be some customers who complain no matter what.

However, what IS UNDER their control is the amount of additional orders they take (when they are well beyond capacity), the transparency about lead times, and communication frequency with current customers. The reaction you described seemed to focus more on reacting to complaints rather than proactively managing the process (transparency, etc. as noted above), although I do see there are some small steps being put in place. I hope these things will be emphasized and seriously addressed in the future, for E.O.'s sake.

 

All of this is NOT inspiring confidence in my purchase...

I will give it some time, and be proactive on the lead times.

I get it, I really do, and this comment isn't in relation to the lead times itself....

 

So I have spent roughly $18,000 with Derrick and EO since January. 0 parts installed on my truck however I'm dropping off my brand new 2022 Saturday to their shop and letting them install everything when they have time. My personal opinion of the company is that they are amazing dudes, with amazing products, and honestly can't handle the shear volume of orders they get in. When you make a good product, people want it.

These guys do a LOT for the community up here in the Hudson Valley area and the NE as a whole. I personally don't really care about lead times, because I've talked with Derrick and Travis multiple times and their biggest issue right now is getting steel. That was communicated to me up front back in January, so I was expecting to not have anything made until mid April/May/June. Which is fine because I really just want the crap on my truck by Ouray Overland Festival in July.

I do understand some of the frustration with getting ahold of them, for me, when I couldn't get them by phone, I hopped on their website and e-mailed them. That got me a response the same day via phone.

 

I got my sliders a year ago from EO and went to a couple events with them. They are good dudes, but I think the business got waay bigger, waay faster than they expected. Add to that, they tried to launch the company in the middle of the pandemic when the price and availability of steel went bananas. I work for a $7b company that sells steel for construction and there were MANY times in the last 18 months that even a gigantic company simply could not get steel. I feel for them and I hope they learn and excel. I was very excited to see a legit offroad fab shop open up in the Northeast. But they need to get the communication stuff fixed.

 

100000% agree. I have been in communication about my new build and trying to wait until everything was in to get it assembled. Problem for me now is I just dropped off my 2022 DCSB TRD OR on Sunday to begin installation, and its been a comms blackout from them. Frustrating since they have $18,000 of my money for this new build and I have nothing to show for it. I've been FB messaging, texting their phones, IG messages, e-mails directly from their website and nothing.

I'm only asking for an estimate on a timeline. I've had a rental for over a month and a half paying $500 a week that insurance isn't covering. I'm bleeding money waiting for a build to get done, but I don't even know when to expect them to be done with my truck.

I purchased the truck with 4 miles, drove it straight to their shop and it's been sitting in their parking lot since Sunday. Getting pretty frustrated at this point.

 

I called today, to check my status. No hold time, got someone on the phone no problem, got my update.

We shall see....

 

Today is 6 months since my order.

 

Damn they could’ve at least told you to not drop it off until they are ready

 

@johnmichael125
Are you saying that they had really good/immediate communication with you when you were setting up your order + before you dropped your truck off?

And then basically no communication in the days since dropping your truck off (to get the purchased parts installed)?

 

You seem to understand business pretty well.

Speaking of communication stuff...Would you say that it's a bad business practice to spend so much time on social media and so little time communicating with customers?

For example, one of the owners made 10 Facebook posts in a span of about a week--very visible. That's fine...but sometimes I had to wait a week to hear back about my order...on Facebook! Priorities, I guess

 

Yeah, that’s what’s happened. However Derrick did hit me back last night and I did forget they’re all down in Tennessee for a trip this weekend.

So I’m also understanding of the fact that Travis and at least Derrick are out of the office leading that run right now.

I’ll check back Monday I suppose, no sense in losing sleep over it.

 

I will add, I’m not sure if this is normal but there’s definitely some gaps in the powder coating that have started to rust and I’ve had it for like two months? Not a huge deal to paint over but kind of odd

 

I feel like you are asking a question that you know the answer to.

 

I tried calling today…no answer, left a message though. Just hoping to get an update.

 

Not to pile on, but I ordered my sliders with bedliner coating (not an option any more) and it looks really thin, like it was only done with one coat instead of two. Not the biggest deal, but def looked rushed. I'll just spray it and touch it up myself.

 

Figured I’d update to keep it and maintain as much of an unbiased review as possible.

I called yesterday and left a message, later in the morning Derrick called me from their run in Tennessee. He clarified there was a Tundra build in front of my Tacoma and it set them back a couple days. He went as far as to video conference call Andrew back up here in NY to explain to him what needed to happen with my truck.

He apologized for the lack of communication and ensured that once they got back to NY he would make sure everything was taken care of. He even offered to pick up my roof rack, bed rack and RTT from the collision center in PA for me. Additionally he is sending his guys to come pick up my new SCS GEN5s from my house.

I will admit I was frustrated earlier throughout the week, but they are making it right and going above and beyond what I personally feel they need to.

Hopefully this gives everyone some faith and reinstates some trust in these guys.