What do you do when a company will not honor their part warranty? RLD Designs Shell

I really NEED some advice / suggestions on what to do. I'll try to make the explanation brief.


I bought this canopy / shell from RLD Designs. The paint has been falling off since it was two weeks old. I have been emailing them for over 7 months asking for them to help me with this in some way.

Although slow to respond, they have said several times they will make it right and they are looking at options. The factory agreed to resolve it and the local rep, Adventure Ready said it would need to be resolved with the factory.

I ordered the shell through the RLD website. I was then billed by Adventure Ready.

Today I got an email from the CEO of RLD Designs pretty much telling me to pack sand. They will not help me in anyway. They are now blowing me off on the local rep. This is new, after dozens of emails over the last 7 months.

Is there any recourse to get them to fix the shell or take it back? Has anyone had to deal with a company like this?

These are only the few most recent emails but you can see where we're at.

 

Here is the problem:

 

Small claims court . That should get their attention.

 

That’s not paint, it’s powdercoat, and should absolutely be covered under warranty. There’s thousands of these out on the market (I’ve owned one for a year with zero issues) that are holding up fine. It’s my guess that the powdercoating obviously wasn’t applied properly and needs to be completely redone.

Adventure ready needs to handle this as one of their distributors, that’s the point of having a USA based distributor. I went through Rhino Adventure Gear in San Marcos and they would absolutely be notified and handling this, if I ever had problems. Have you thought about having the powdercoat redone? Maybe see if RLD will reimburse you for this?

 

Seems pretty normal to me. It would be equivalent to asking Toyota Corporate to fix your truck under warranty directly when it is in fact the dealerships job to do that.

 

Yep! Have RLD send them a replacement, and just swap it out at Adventure Ready.

 

Thanks, NACA.

I got an invoice for the frame to get repainted. They didn't respond to the email with the invoice though.

I have asked many times for any offer of a resolution though. Replacement shell, help with repairs, compensation, or take it back. They won't offer me anything.

 

What’s the place you bought it from offering to do for you?

 

I'm in So Cal and Adventure Ready is in Washington. When I asked about how much to ship one to me, their response was:

 

Call up your CC company (I'm assuming you used one to buy their product), and dispute the charge. The best way to get a vendors attention: Affect them financially.

 

Nothing.

I ordered it from RLD's Website. Adventure Ready contacted me with the Invoice.

Neither RLD, nor Adventure Ready will do anything for me.

 

I'm going to contact the CC company tonight but I don't have high hopes. I bought it over a year ago. I had to wait 8 months for it to get here and I have been patiently waiting for them to come through with a fix for like 8 months. They kept saying they would make it right and I believed them.

Damn, I feel like a sucker!!

 

If your CC company is like mine, there's a 99.99% chance they'll side with you and you'll win. Plus, right away you'll get a "statement credit", meaning they will reverse the charge from the vendor. That will make them sit up and take notice.

 

Toyota is the warrantor and responsible. The dealer owes you nothing and will screw you at every turn.

If your truck doesn't get repaired under warranty or turns out to be a lemon, Toyota Motors is required to buy it back. Not the dealer.

In fact, it ultimately gets billed back to the factory the truck was made in. That factory has have to pay back the warranty costs for all their problems.

 

I’d call your card company immediately and find out if you can dispute. The longer you wait the odds go lower.

 

Not really. Toyota does not do any of the work. Their dealers do and Toyota reimburses them. That's basically what RLD is telling you in a nutshell but they don't have a good dealer network prepared to do warranty work evidently.

 

I can tell you with 100% certainty, Toyota is responsible to provide you with warranty repairs. The dealer has a contract with Toyota to provide these said repairs. Your warranty manual will even have some language about how to get repairs when you're x > miles away from a dealer and your truck is inop (reimbursement). Also, you contact Toyota to file a lemon claim. They give you back the money and come take the truck.

This is how it works. Definitely. I know.

 

I haver a good understanding of what to do for the truck / Toyota, it would be the B.A.R.

I can't find anything that would apply to this though. It isn't a repair and there is no licensing for it.

 

I never said that RLD wasn't responsible, just that they, like Toyota, do not actually do any of the work. The dealer network takes care of it all and if you contact Toyota directly for a warranty claim they will simply direct you back to a dealer as RLD did.