Southern Style Offroad Bumper Delay

Just a little background will keep this short and sweet but I feel like people should know the story fully, I ordered a bumper April12th from Southern Style Offroad, lead time was 10-14 weeks. Okay no issue July 19th would have been the date for delivery.Until I personally reached out to the company in Mid June I never received an order confirmation or anything saying the bumper was in production, just saw the card charge go through. But here we are August 14th with the last update being another process was still needed before it could begin powdercoat... so warning to anyone thinking 14 weeks sounds fine it will be 18+ and they will fail to update unless you ask on what is even going on with the order. I understand lead times can be long for companies but just update the site so we know what is actually going on!

 

Whew. Hope you feel better now

 

SSO is not the only group guilty of this. It's become par for the course. Vendors are happy to take your money up front and you're expected to hold tight silently, waiting for your product.

Personally, I'm done playing this game. I haven't been burned yet, but I've seen plenty of people put their "hard earned money" on the table and then get jerked around by the vendor until they finally do or don't get their product. In my "brief time" of TW, I've seen it with KTJO, Mobtown Offroad, Pelfrey, Demello, and others. All have left the buyers in a tight spot, with no accountability...

For me... If it's not in stock, and the lead time exceeds the timeline for making a CC charge back, I'm out.

Good luck! I love my SSO slimline bumper (they make a nice product) and I'm sure you'll like yours too.

 

Better if at least one person doesn't have to miss a trip due to this bs

 

You can what!?

 

Custom metalwork is a tough racket. Materials are expensive and carrying inventory hurts. Good labor is usually hard to find and as hard to keep. I waited it out while a fabricator I wanted to buy from struggled to meet delivery timelines. He was responsive to communication, and I was sympathetic to his plight. In the end, he delivered what we had designed and I'm happy I stuck it out. He offered a few times to refund my payment, but I declined.

There are a few out there that I've bought from that have been honest, despite being behind schedules. If they're upfront with me, I usually stick it out. The past few years have been hard on the indies in off road equipment. Some haven't handled the demise of their business well either.

At some point, I hope to replace my front bumper too and I'll have to go back into the fray as you did and order something from someone, and hope the delivery timelines aren't terrible.

BTW, these were totally worth the wait.

 

Planning on doing a Moab trip that had to be pushed back. Want solid recovery points for being out that far. Agreed you can, just not a risk I want to deal with.

 

See would have no issue if there was a constant line of communication from the company, actually offers a solution due to the longer wait time. Appreciate the insight.

 

Rather be be prepared then get stuck on trail and beg for help on a forum... no Wifi where I go

 

I was being sarcastic with WhatsTCP.

I have a winch/plate bumper, my front recovery point is custom though.

 

I ordered a bed cap from ARE in February. They told me it would be delivered in approximately 3 months. 3 months passed and the cap didn’t arrive. Whenever I called to check on the status they would just tell me there was “no estimated ship date” and that’s all they would say.

6 months after I ordered, it finally arrived. My point is that your experience isn’t that unusual, sounds like we had similar experiences from 2 different somewhat big name companies. Oh and ARE’s customer service is dog shit lol

 

i hesitate to respond but since my name was brought up I'll give you 2 cents from a vendor stand point. I'm not making excuses, I'm sure all vendors Appriciate all the business we get and even the feedback. I've met the guys from souther style and they are good people and they make good products. The offroad armor business isn't an easy one. But every new company starts off thinking it is. There is always a new guy who is trying to get in, making his products cheaper than the other guy. Sometimes they figure this out and they raise their prices, so they can afford to stay in business, sometimes it doesn't and they rob and ruin the community for the rest of us.

Most of us are good people, none of us want to have negative feed back but we all get it. These issues keep most of us up at night trying to think of solutions. I see from post like this that we all struggle from communication. I wish I had a magic answer to this. Margins are small especially right now with steel and wages so high. We started offering customers smaller deposit amounts or even zero for some items after the pelfry fall. For the most part this has seem to been a better situation for all. On the other side of this, I have talked to other vendors as well. We get a fair amount of people who order is complete and we get ghosted. Or they change their mind, leaving us with product that sometimes may sit on the shelf.

My best advice from a vendor is if you need something by a certain date, be flexible on your choice, call around. There are tons of us making good toyota products. Some of us have it on the shelf some of us don't. If you called today and asked for a FJC bumper, I'm going to tell you 10-14 weeks minum. If you called today and asked for a tacoma bumper, there is a good chance i have it on the shelf, I may even have some options powder coated. BUT if there is a particular style you want, get it and prepare to wait. Ask if they can update you through out the process. Be open and honest with your expectations with them. Often times we don't know someones mad till it's too late.

I'd like to learn from this as well. I've personally been updating customers recently at key intervals. "material came in (still working on this one)" "bumper is being built" "bumper is having hoops added" "bumper has left for powder coating" and "bumper is back and lined up for shipping" "tracking information" But before all that there can be weeks or even months before anything really is done. Would you as a customer like to hear from us in that dead space? I guess we could say, everything looks to be ontime.

Anyone that is reading this and has a current order feel free to DM me so I can make sure you are getting our updates! I just started doing this a couple weeks back and there may be some that have slipped through the cracks. before this though you should have still gotten updates just not as many.

Thanks for the input.

 

Very nice to see a vendor on here reading and responding. I would be more than happy to give my business to those who do this.

 

You can always log into your account on SSO's website and it will show what stage your order is in.

 

I’ll just say I called and order a scratch and dent SSO Versa bumper recently.

My complete transaction was pleasant from calling and speaking directly with their shop to receiving the product in less than a week. No complaints whatsoever!

 

So, when you placed your order, you didn't get an email confirmation number?

I've ordered 2 bumpers, front and rear and always got a confirmation. Only mistake they alever made was powder coating my bumper and i wanted bare steel. So i got powder coating for free. I actually think their customer service is great. Their rear bumper installation instructions are missing key things though.

 

We're in extraordinary times right now. I know it's frustrating, but SSO has a way to log on and check the status of your order. I've placed several orders with them and they've always communicated effectively and provided a top notch product.

 

This is detailed enough for me - straight from SSO's site when you log into your account and see your orders.

 

My front full plate just moved in to that stage too and while I find it helpful, the email that came along with it actually made it more confusing because it mentioned a two week turnaround after the material was ordered. I assume that means two weeks until they get their hands on it and then ??? until they're finished but at first glance I was hopeful!

 

Yeah that's what it sounds like to me. They ordered the raw material and their supplier will get it to them in about 2 weeks.