LemonSqueezy

Not trying to rant but never felt so compelled to write about an experience here. Purchased a front lip from Future Design a few weeks back. Decided to get some work done on my hood and bumper so I could get some xpel film wrapped on it. Lip sat in my office still wrapped the entire time. When I finally got around to installing the lip, we lifted the car to test fit. the tech noticed about a half inch crack on the clear coat as well as clear coat run off. I told the tech it's all good, go ahead and drill, no big deal. I emailed the guy I purchased from. He basically would not acknowledge it. I didn't ask for a refund, just asked if there was anything we could work out. His response, "perhaps YOU cracked it, not us". I understand from his point of view how people might try to get a free lip. But he was not one bit professional. He goes on to say, and I quote, "it's funny how everyone of you entitled kids who broke our product do exactly the same thing, you are willing cry like a little baby and ask for a few bucks back (like you do to your poor parents)" and ends it with "get your story straight before you try to ruin our reputation, i hope you feel like a hero trying to take food out of my infant child's mouth."

So yeah guys, anyone considering their product please proceed with a little caution. The product itself is not bad. carbon fiber laid out very nicely, the clear coat without the crack is an 8/10, and the product looks pretty good installed. The customer service though.. I'm not sure.

On to my hood, I had my body shop tech copy some of the lines off other mercedes vehicles like the new e63 and the gla hood. I also had him cover and fill in the flat emblem badge. The result I think looks OEM but also way more aggressive.

Photos of lip installed + modified hood together.






Here's the little half inch crack in question

Royce118

Car looks great but I'm more impressed with the way you dealt with that sort of customer service.

Youngd

Mud

That look is gold, really nice. Good job with the vendor, he'll spend his life looking at what the other guy has and b!tching about it.

kajtek1

Too much black for my taste, but its your car.
Tell me more about that wrapping? My high mileage car has scratched bumpers and shows some defects on other panels as well and your wrapping looks really good.
Commenting on the sellers attitude - he is bad, but than internet is full of scammers, or simply idiots who don't know what they are doing.
I was selling center console from W124 that I found in exceptional shape on JY and figure out somebody will appreciate it for few bucks. Posted 4 high-resolution pictures on ebay and had a "buyer" who bought it without asking questions.
Than he reports the item as defective, what triggers ebay procedure of me paying return shipping even I had "no returns" in listing.
Couple of emails with the guy and he is telling me that he wants his money back, becouse 30-years old panel has couple of scuffs on it. (it really is nice panel)
At least I got him to pay the return shipping. but the idiot wasted lot of my time and the money I paid for shipping.
So there always are 2 sides to the story and looks like you got blamed for other buyers behavior.

MBSebas87

Great job on the hood work!!!

Becksan

cocobeex

i also have same question

Was it Kevin from FD you dealt with ?

kevinfdusa

This is Kevin from Future Design, I was informed by multiple followers on IG/Facebook and customers about the existence of this thread, so I want to at least show my face here and let everyone know that we are a complete open book and we have nothing to hide. If any of the member here considered doing business with us but got scared away by this thread, we can provide the original email thread from us and OP, and you can be the judge on how we actually handled the situation.

this is a direct quote from OP's E-mail:
"The body shop tech notified me about the crack before he drilled screws. I made the wrong call to let him drill I guess. The crack comes from the inside out, not something you'd see if I drove around with it and hit an object."

what he said in the beginning of this thread:
"When I finally got around to installing the lip, we lifted the car to test fit. the tech noticed about a half inch crack on the clear coat as well as clear coat run off. I told the tech it's all good, go ahead and drill, no big deal."

We stand 100% behind our product, and dutifully inspect and polish every part that goes out of our warehouse, each shipping box are custom made double walled paper box with anti crush materials that basically guarantees part will arrives safely, unless it's crushed, bent, or dropped from a height that shouldn't occur in a normal logistic environment.

But in a rare situation where a part is damaged upon arrival, we need to be notified before any part is altered in any way, including hole drilling. Once it's drilled and installed onto the car, we cannot accept the return, which is industry standard policy that most people understands.

Thank you all for trying to see things from my side and post positive review photos, your help is our main motivation and energy source to keep pushing forward and provide quality service at a reasonable price.

kajtek1

So Kevin, the quote
"it's funny how everyone of you entitled kids who broke our product do exactly the same thing, you are willing cry like a little baby and ask for a few bucks back (like you do to your poor parents)" and ends it with "get your story straight before you try to ruin our reputation, i hope you feel like a hero trying to take food out of my infant child's mouth."
did come from you?

kevinfdusa

If you want to know about who and how I am, please write me an PM or email and ask anything you want to ask, I will not respond to anything that will put my character in jeopardy again in a open forum like this.

I am sure after few private message exchange I can convince you I am not the type of person OP tried to portrait me as, and one thing I hate more than anything is a disappointed customer.

kajtek1

I have no dog in this fight, but avoiding explanation to direct quote is not giving you high credibility.

i700plus

It was a simple question of if the response came from you or not. Based on your response I think we can come to our own conclusion.

To be honest it doesn't really matter who the email came from. Unless the customer completely lied about the response which I doubt then is this the image that you want your company to have on one of the largest MB boards on the internet?

If this happened to me I would simply file a charge back and ship the bumper back. I would never do business with a company that responds to their customers like that.

LemonSqueezy

[QUOTE=Youngd;7365096]I purchased two of these 5/8 inch plastic corner guards from Home Depot. Went online and bought this fiberglass product called Kitty Hair. Had the tech use the corner guards as a molding to lay the fiberglass on top. Once he had a foundation, he used bondo to smooth out the edges , then primer the entire hood, and paint. I have only a couple photos if anyone is interested in them.

Yes this was Kevin@FD. I have to agree, he is very responsive. The buying process was easy to deal with as well.

Like I told Kevin, the tech noticed the crack before drilling because we lifted the car up and the crack was now visible at eye level, tech asked if me I wanted to continue. I said sure go ahead and drill. Tech actually told me to email FD which is how all this even started.. I wasn't looking to refund the product or get a free one, I support small businesses more than anything. I simply asked if there was anything we could work out, like a discount, didn't even care if it was a 5% discount on another order. Most companies if professional enough, would say "apologies we can't do anything after the lip is installed" and stand firm on that no matter what. I was not expecting to be insulted and attacked personally. After I received those last two paragraphs which I quoted above, I decided it just was not worth it.

For god's sake the paint job to my hood, adding the lines to my hood, painted bumper, and xpel film was already over $2500. Then I'm told "it's funny how everyone of you entitled kids who broke our product do exactly the same thing, you are willing cry like a little baby and ask for a few bucks back (like you do to your poor parents)". The 'like you do to your poor parents' was icing on top I suppose.

I really wish Gary@Suvneer carried a product like this for 2014+, but he doesn't. I've gotten like 4 lips from him for my 211 as well as a full e63 kit. Any issues were handled properly and professionally.

Granted, during the email conversations we had, I probably got caught up in the heat of the moment and could have handled some responses better, but no company big or small should insult a customer just because they do not want to accommodate for something. If I was denied in a professional matter with good reasoning even after I responded back a couple times, things would have probably been ok.

I'm not looking to add fuel to the fire. I'm glad others have had positive experiences. I just wanted to share what I went through.

cocobeex

[QUOTE=LemonSqueezy;7366383]Myself in sales job for 10+ years.

Doesn't matter how rude the client is, I would never ever say something like that to my clients.

It is shocking this happened.

​​​​

Was it an e-mail conversation ? Or on the phone ?

LemonSqueezy

Email. Everything I noted above in quotes were direct copy and paste. I'm more disturbed on how he responded towards the end of the conversation than I care about the product issue itself. He forwarded me an email of another customer where he did work something out with them, in order to justify himself with me. But then again like I said, not trying to burn bridges, not trying to add fuel to the fire. Just wowed by this.

Suvneer

Okay guys. Time to bring new stuff in for the newer models.

Royce118

Do it... I've been waiting for your to bring it in. Ordered from you since w204 days.

Suvneer

Thank you!

rediesel

Lemon-
That hood is amazing I love the ridges. That was one of the design elements I missed trading C63 for the E63. Those ridges go back to the 1950's with the W198 (Gullwing and roaster) so a nice homage.

KEY08

Mud

I've got to say a huge thumbs up to the guy that actually did the work, especially those hood ridges. Excellent blending and paintwork, looks like it came that way from the factory.

LemonSqueezy

Thanks! I do have to give the tech all the props for making it happen, all I did was give him an idea and pictures of other MB's for reference. He wouldn't stop reshaping and redoing until we were both satisfied. Initially it was just the ridges, then we got the idea to remove the hood emblem and slightly sharpen the center line and the result is pretty amazing.

Tump43

Agree absolutely -- this is one the coolest mods I've seen on W212. Great work!! Thanks for sharing!

kevinfdusa

After a year and half of this incident, this thread have once again came to my attention.

I will admit everything said above is true, and I've promised myself not to have another emotional outburst no matter what the issue is.

This happened half a year into this business, and I had much to learn at the time, so please excuse my past mistake and give me a chance to grow into a better person and business owner.

if anyone reading this thread is turned off by what I've said in the past, I will promise everyone here that will never happen again.