DMCH Balljoint issues anyone?

[A Van]

Well at least they have investigated and found the cause, at least once the duff stock disappears, normal service will resume.

[Admin-bloke]

Well at least they have investigated and found the cause, at least once the duff stock disappears, normal service will resume.

Good to see they have investigated it, found the cause and then putting it right.
That's more than some other manufactures do today !

[A Van]

What does concern me though is the difficulty that a few people seemed to find to get any sort of communication at all! John being one of them, I hope that they learn from that too, with online forums abound you dont get many chances!

[dmcjohn]

I'm sure if you had a problem and called them direct they would issue a replacement, but most people seem to take their fight to the Forums before bothering to contact the vendors direct.

Not trying to defend anyone, just being realistic from the other angle.

Just my 2p

J

Hi James,

I did try and contact them offline at first about this - repeatedly. I know they had my messages and had discussed them, but chose to ignore me. After a few weeks of being ignored, I posted this on dmctalk:

http://www.dmctalk.com/showpost.php?p=1 ... stcount=26

and later started this thread:

http://www.dmctalk.com/showthread.php?t=14561

I finally got a response only after posting publically about it, and then got lies and excuses as to why they had not contacted me. They then denied there were any known issues with their ball joints, and tried to blame it on poor installation. A few weeks later however, Stephen admitted to me on the phone that there were multiple similar cases out there. So in effect, they were knowingly selling sub standard ball joints, and continued to do so since this was brought out into the public.

Look, long story short they were given plenty of chances to settle this privately, and chose not to. Most of my experiences with DMCH on this ball joint issue are detailed in the thread on dmctalk and I don't feel like getting into it again.

I think the way to judge the customer service level of a business is how they deal with problems when they arise. Anyone can be nice and friendly when you ring them up and place an order for a few hundred dollars, but more importantly they should stand behind their products and work to resolve any issues as promptly as possible - especially when the product in question is a critical suspension item.

John

[A Van]

I remember at Eurotec 2010, Stephen did ask if you were in attendance John, maybe he wanted to discuss it..dont know.

I cant see how anyone can have a problem with the way you handled the situation, it should never have got anywhere near the problem it has...I wonder how many people have these balljoints installed and dont know when or if they will pack up.

[arranj]

Unfortunately I'm still hearing reports of people being supplied these ball joints. Only last week we sent out a set of DCUK ball joints to replace a set of recently purchased "new DMC" ones that aren't fit for use on UK roads. Just to refresh your memory for any new owners - there are 4 "brands" of ball joints:
- The 30+ year old ones that came with your car (probably a bit old. When these fail, this is what happens: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=470 )
- The Volkswagen cross-ref ones that Special T Auto sells (will change your ride height and aren't quite right.
- The re-made ones that DMC / DMCH / DMC-EU sell/sold, often these have been known to fail a UK MOT even when new. It's not hard to find multiple reports of failures of these, although they typically occur at low speeds.
- The DCUK/Amsteer ones that we sourced and now sell worldwide. Most DMC vendors have switched to these, but it seems there are obviously still a few of the above type hanging around. These are available from many vendors if you ask for them by name, but they will always be cheapest from us: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=2282 (more stock on the way!)

[dmc4087]

That is shocking if a vendor supplied those POS balljoints.