Marlin Crawler's New Rock Crawling Long Travel IFS Suspension System (#RCLT)

If I had to guess, I'd say Covid has hit Marlin hard, either they were effected directly or their supply chain. I agree transparency is needed however. Radio silence just leaves the masses to speculate.

 

marlin almost never has shit in stock. its been like that since around 2012 when i was looking at crawl boxes. its why i went with inchworm since i basically only had to wait on shipping.

 

You don't have to worry because there's no way you can even put a deposit on either of them now. I've been checking on the Tacoboxes for at least 8 months now and hear the same story, "We're not taking orders on them until we get the orders we have filled. Check back in 3 or 4 months."

 

Having an older truck and MC doing a lot of first gen specific mods, this has just been their company profile. They have many things die in the prototype phase, random orders not be fulfilled etc. and compounding that, the slow down with COVID isn't helping things.

 

Still nothing..?

 

If your lucky this kit will be for sale when a 4th gen Tacoma comes out...

 

Website said early November they would be taking orders and start shipping by late November. Another deadline come and gone.

 

Well that's like number six.

 

Wouldn't be so bad if they'd say something. Instead its just a guessing game.

 

That's definitely a lot of the problem, I think that most of us could understand that things are really messed up with covid. A little bit of transparency would go a long way.

 

But did they say what year?

 

‘20





2220

 

I had the funds for this kit, gave up and spent it on another toy, dumped a bunch of money into it, selling it now. Could have bought 2 of these kits for what I have spent. Hopefully I still have my truck when this kit is available, and I expect to keep my truck for a very long time.

 

Exactly, I see a lot of businesses dropping the ball when it comes to social media or even email transparency when something effects their product. I hate to compare because what they did is awful, but if Pelfrey had come out and said he guys, give us a while, we have to hash out new investors or we could lose the company, please have faith, then they might've came out ahead, but that's IF what they told us after the fact was true.

There were a couple of companies last year that came close to riots here because of super long lead times after being told something sooner, and transparency would've helped there too.

TLDR: Transparency with your customers, when things don't go right, will 99% of the time increase customer retention. An honest company is one I want to do business with.

 

Google Marlin reviews - reading commentary on this is like hearing people just discovering a new thing being referred to as the World Wide Web or x-boxes.

lol super sarcastic but nothings even left of a skeleton anymore on this dead horse

 

So what happens if I get the kit and something on it fails and needs replacing? Do I then have to wait 1 year to get my truck up and running again or will this all even out after the kit comes out?

 

With how much time they're taking to make it, I'd hope it last longer than the truck itself.

 

Off road fab uses replaceable uniballs and heims you can buy anywhere. Anything else on this kit would outlast the other things you’d have to replace that would total the vehicle since it would have to be a significant wreck.

 

But if the steering rack breaks or a lower control arm breaks then what? these are all marlin specific parts right? I get that they are supposed to be strong but how good is marlin at replacing parts? If i break something and need to order a replacement how good will they be at getting the replacement out. they don't seem capable of launching this product in a timely fashion. I'm not trying to be negative I'm just curious. Is it just cool to pick on them or is the criticism valid.

 

Valid concern, IMO. However, I think releasing a product and then support for it are two separate, albeit related, things. Most product releases will mean a steady production of parts through a streamlined (hopefully) process which should also allow for product support should someone damage one side due to hitting a guard rail, or dropping a plasma cutter on it, losing/damaging parts while awaiting installation or when reselling idk lol