UPR A-arm = GARBAGE!!!

[Shifter]

I recently made a post that I bought one of these last fall when they were having a big sale on them, and that the people there made me feel very comfortable that this was a quality piece. I also remarked that I hadn't installed it yet but it looked nice.
It was a moral dilemma biting on the whole UPR thing, but I bit as it was a great price.

The K-member went right in, the issue came when we unpackaged the A-arms and found this:


At first I thought that it was something in the powder coating...so we scratched it off.....

So the next day I call UPR and emailed them the pics and explained that though I'm no metallurgy expert, I'm no amateur either and this metal is flawed/cracked and could fail....and at first I was impressed at how they responded as I'm ANXIOUS and EAGER to put this car back together.

"Mr. H, We'll get you a new pair of A-arms right out, and include a call tag so you can return those...we take this very seriously"

OK, fair enough...so after I gave them my information, I got this:

"well you bought this from a dealer, so I need authorization to send the replacements, I'll call you right back"

I'm thinking "jeez, here we go"

A short while later I get a call:

"I showed these pics to the supervisor and he thinks its merely a problem in the powdercoat. If you want you can pay to ship them back, and if it is a problem on our end, we'll replace it. If not, then you'll also have to pay the shipping to return it to you"

Just great, now this is going to take like 2 weeks.....and now I'm mad. So I say:

"Dammit, that's going to take 2 weeks, but I'll tell you what, I'm going to go home and STRIP all the powder coating off and send you another picture of this....since you can't see the obvious. You should be happy I didn't just blindly bolt this on, have it FAIL and chase you with a lawsuit. THIS IS RETARDED...but I'll play along".

So I came home after work....hit it with a surface prep disk and found this:



I showed it to a good friend that is a master tool and die machinist, and has been for more than 25 years. I mean this guy probably has $100K worth of tooling in his HOME shop. Anyway he says "You're not going to put that POS on your car are you?"

As I look at it more, I think there is more of that crack further up the A-arm so I'm going to go strip it more and see what else I can find.
So Friday night I sent a few new pics along with a nice email to see what happens next.

Saturday I get a call back and they are still jerking me around....and giving me the "Well we need to see it first, we still think it's powder coating..."


Screw them and their junk. Sunday, I spent nearly an hour on the phone with Dave Z of Team Z Motorsports and ordered a K-member from him and A-arms. He was VERY informative and is very reputable....




DOES ANYONE HERE THINK THAT THIS IS A POWDER COATING ISSUE? Maybe I'm a complete idiot??? Then again...maybe not....MIND YOU THIS HAS NEVER EVEN BEEN BOLTED ON!!!!

[eleanorfox]

you will not be disappointed with Dave. he is straight forward and an all around good guy and i have heard nothing but good things about him and his shop, on forums AND at the track.


on the other Hand UPR seams to be not getting good reviews for a while now.

[chuckb]

I just bought a UPR smog pump eliminator. the bearing on it was so loose you could watch the pulley wiggle around at idle.

I got a return # and sent it back. they made me pay to ship it back to them and they never credited me back my original shipping costs either, even though they sent me a defective part. so I was out like $20 because of their low quality part.

that was my first and will be my last experience with UPR.

MM all the way!

[rednotch]

any issues with upr stuff TALK ONLY TO Jeremy Martorella Calling them is a waste unless you can get ahold of Jeremy. Honestly UPR's quality conrtoll is going down the ####ter. I've seen some ####ed up suspension parts from there lately that should have never made it to the powder coating stage.

I think Jeremy is still on here once in a blue moon but your best bet would be to pm him on yellowbullet.com or call UPR and ask for him.

[Shifter]

I tried that Red...it was a complete waste of time. On another site Jeremy posted up that if you have a problem just call them and you'll get off the phone happy.
Well every time I talked to them I got off the phone more aggravated than the time before.

At this point, I want NOTHING from them. I'm selling the K-member itself, and keeping the A-arms....just to show people.

[NUTTSGT]

Uh oh I truly hope that yours was the only one that "slipped" by the QA person.

[rednotch]

Damn you talked to Jeremy and he didn't send a replacement... I would post that #### on the bullet then thats a damn joke letting that ship to a customer let alone make it to powder coating. Thats why I only buy there parts in person at the atco nmra race. The big dude, I think his name is phil. is pretty cool with letting you inspect the parts.

Jeremy's personal line is posted on the bullet if you talked to someone else.

You can see some more of there quality control issues posted on the bullet here http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=62319

[Shifter]

Originally Posted by rednotch

You can see some more of there quality control issues posted on the bullet here http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=62319

I added mine to that last night

At this point they can KMA, if they want their junk back...they'll have to BUY it back. I tried dealing with them, in fact..."Oscar" thanked me for being cool and understanding the first time I called.
After the 3rd and 4th BS phone call...I wasn't so cool anymore.

I'll be at some of the NMRA races and NMCA races....this A-arm will be on display for anyone wanting to view it. I'm also having a full report done on it....I'm curious to see if it's actually the "chromoly" they claim it to be. I've never seen chromoly peel like that....

After seeing this, I have NO confidence in their product and feel bad for anyone else running it. Who knows how many people have "problems waiting to happen" on their car that were hidden by the powder coating. I hope nobody gets hurt or worse due to running this scrap.

[AnthonyDalrymple]

That is a seam failure of the tube. What's odd it the fact that the fracturing of the material off of the seam line..... Either that is a previously used, returned, & re-coated part that snuck through their inspection process (most likely & since China employees know that it'll be long gone to the U.S.) or damaged in house at UPR and the employees just passed the buck through production (very likely since the first pic shows the fracture under the powder coating ). What's really disconcerting; it passed from China to UPR & they missed that obviously damaged part before repackaging; IF they are repackaging them that is. Any azz could tell that from the picture IMHO....

I'm sorry for your troubles & hopefully we all learned a tough lesson there.....

[badloser]

Shifter: Sorry to hear about your trouble.. I all the UPR stuff in my car and everythiing has been great and have been 1.29 60' with their stuff with no problems , like in the above post you must speak to Jeremy Mortella about this he is the man and am sure he will help you.

[XplPerformance]

I have never had a problem with UPR stuff. I just purchased a kmember kit for my personal car and the stuff looked great!

[Shifter]

Jeremy has been in the loop in this and has been NO HELP other than to say that it looks like a powder coating issue and I have to PAY to send it back. Honestly, I sent them ULTRA HIGH resolution pics that you could zoom in on...and clearly this is a structural problem, not a "powder coat issue".
They had it right the first phone call when they said they'd send me 2 new arms with a call tag to get those back....after that it got more and more bogus as it went along.

After seeing this, there's no way I'd trust their stuff. How could their QC miss something like this?? I mean really, how do you miss that???
Whoever cut that tubing had to see it, and the welder certainly had to see it.....

[Mustang5L5]

Yeah, i wouldn't put that on my car. That's CLEARLY not a powdercoat prob.

I'm surprised they gave you the runaround.


When i bought some brake lines from MM, one of the lines had what looked like a defect around the sealing port inside the fitting. I did the same thing you did. I took some pics, and emailed them. They came back saying that they didn't think it would be a prob, but if i wanted a replacement they would ship me out a new one ASAP and give me the label to mail back the old one. I was on the phone a total of 5 mins and had my new part 4 days later.

[eighty8gtfiveo]

wow lou!! your lucky that pos didnt make it on your car man, you will be completely satisfied with dave and the team z products. i have 3 upr front end kits on my cars now, but now im seriously thinking about removing it all and just getting all new stuff from team z.. i cant believe someone would just ignore that during production.

[Bad_Mach]

Sorry to hear about your poor customer service. Sad to think a company can't stand behind their product and make sure the CUSTOMER is 100% happy. Makes me want to inspect my UPR front and rear suspension before this year's abuse.

[Shifter]

Bad Mach....I certainly would!

[LT1HAHA]

Poor customer service seems to be the norm in this business rather than the exception. Thats why when I find a good reputable place, I stick with them. Usually that means the parts/service cost a little more.... I gladly pay!

Even if it was a powder coating issue, it's my opine it should still be returnable. You paid full price for a part that is supposed to be powder coated correctly! Clearly, that looks as more than a powder coating issue though.

I hope this thread costs them more than just your business!

[FoxChassis]

That's alright. This is going to hurt them one bit. They'll just keep on making money because their parts are "cheaper" than the ORIGINALS they copied.

So keep on buying copied #### because it's cheaper.

Suckers.

[Pat@UPRProducts]

We are willing to warranty the a arm for you. We offer a lifetime warranty on Every part we manufacture. We left a message for you this morning. Please contact us so we can get the new part on the way for you.

Sincerely,

Pat Casey
UPR PRoducts.com Sales
561-588-6630
UPRPat@gmail.com

[LSNotch]

Shifter, stick to your guns! After seeing that I must admit that I am uncomfortable with my u/l rear "chromemoly" control arms now.Think about what can happen if that breaks during a 1/4 pass? The worst thing is that they should have a QA department right?

[Pat@UPRProducts]

I know Dave Zimmerman of Team Z will probably post in here soon, since he was over on bbs.hardcore50.

This is for you Dave.

Dave Zimmerman is upset with UPR Products.

A. B/c we wouldn't buy his failing business

B. We wouldn't hire him when his wife wanted to move to Florida.

[tstang90]

this is a class act showing right here. So typical of them!!


Shifter you made the right attempts to fix this issue and even a better call on switching to a reputable company!

[erich306]

Originally Posted by Pat@UPRProducts

We are willing to warranty the a arm for you. We offer a lifetime warranty on Every part we manufacture. We left a message for you this morning. Please contact us so we can get the new part on the way for you.

since when???? i bought a bumpsteer kit from you(UPR) and the threaded stud where the end goes on the spindle with the spacers, that stud & nut stripped with ease, installing by hand tools and good old oscar gave me the run around trying to charge me 39.00 for that stud to replace.

I guess lifetime warranty doesn't mean with out getting a run around!

[Pat@UPRProducts]

PM sent.

[Shifter]

Pat, so it only took 4 days to decide to warranty this? If there is a lifetime warranty, then why the 4 day problem? Even if it was "just a powder coating issue" (which it certainly ISN'T)...but even if it was, why wasn't UPR willing to replace it on Friday when I first called?
I was told that I had to pay to send it back, and if it turned out to be just a powder coat problem, I would have to pay to have it returned back to me.
That's bull ****, I don't care how you put it. I didn't buy this at a "scratch and dent" sale....and I'm spending a TON of time and money building a show quality car.
Why do I have to PAY to ship this POS back? I bought it new, and it was messed up on your end...and now I have to PAY more money?

Sorry man, I'll just keep it and display it everywhere I go. If you'd like, I'd entertain the idea of you guys giving me a FULL REFUND on the entire kit, and I'll pack it ALL back up and return it. Otherwise, I'm not interested in more of your stuff.


Also, I did try to return Jeremy's call but he was out to lunch. My afternoon did not allow me to try back. I'll try again tomorrow.

[Shifter]

Originally Posted by 408WNA

Shifter, stick to your guns! After seeing that I must admit that I am uncomfortable with my u/l rear "chromemoly" control arms now.Think about what can happen if that breaks during a 1/4 pass? The worst thing is that they should have a QA department right?

No worries man...sticking to guns is in my blood. As for quality control....that must not exist in China.

How did that crack in the tube get past:
#1. The person cutting the tube
#2. The person that welded it
#3. The person that powder coated it
#4. The person that packaged it

[MFE]

Originally Posted by Pat@UPRProducts

I know Dave Zimmerman of Team Z will probably post in here soon, since he was over on bbs.hardcore50.

This is for you Dave.

Dave Zimmerman is upset with UPR Products.

A. B/c we wouldn't buy his failing business

B. We wouldn't hire him when his wife wanted to move to Florida.

Look! Over there! A bear on a bicycle!


I wouldn't be setting up straw men if I were you.

[Pat@UPRProducts]

^

[MFE]

I hear sniffling.

[Pat@UPRProducts]

snoring maybe

[erich306]

Pat@UPRProducts
pm sent

[Pat@UPRProducts]

erich, pm replied.

[erich306]

thank's pat much appreciated

[Pat@UPRProducts]

^ You are welcome.

[tstang90]

Originally Posted by Pat@UPRProducts

I know Dave Zimmerman of Team Z will probably post in here soon, since he was over on bbs.hardcore50.

This is for you Dave.

Dave Zimmerman is upset with UPR Products.

A. B/c we wouldn't buy his failing business

B. We wouldn't hire him when his wife wanted to move to Florida.

I can not believe that you would post this on 2 sites before ever once thinking how much of a tool you look like.

Did anyone else notice that Team Z did not bash UPR not even one time in this thread or anywhere else??



But yet the UPR rep pulls out personal low blows on him?



Now that is customer service from a company/guy who has something to protect and hide.





Totally off topic and not right!!