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**Kras** · 07-16-2010, 08:58 PM

still haven't gotten my parts... fail

**cschepp** · 07-18-2010, 01:25 PM

I got a s13 as well and my kit went together very easily. For the people not satisfied, just don't buy the product again. I am completely satisfied with my kit and was just really simple to put together!

**BenC** · 07-21-2010, 11:02 AM

Hi guys,

braden here on bens account, Chris (kras) you have an email coming your way. Looking into why you haven't got the parts yet, will let you know what I find out from Paul.

Quality wise, I will be contacting Driftworks myself when I get back. Very sorry to everyone who has had issues. After reading many customer experiences and speaking with people directly who use there products I choice to offer there products. I will also be personally testing everything when I get back.

If ANYONE has ANY questions or concerns PLEASE EMAIL ME, GTRCanada takes forever to load on the shitty wifi connections over here.

I will be back in Canada in just over 1 week so I am sorting out all the bugs that occurred while I was away.

Braden

**DriftworksBon** · 07-23-2010, 11:18 AM

Hi Frankiman, I'd use your real name but I don't know it

I'd like to offer whatever help I can, and answers to the problems I can! We pride ourselves on customer service and product quality combined with bang for your buck, so I'm pretty disappointed that you've had so many problems and not even dropped us an e-mail. I would have done my best to resolve it for you!

Issue 1) To be frank, we don't include instructions for a reason. Our opinion is if you're not confident with how something that holds your car to the road works, then you shouldn't be fitting it. You worked it out so you're obviously competant, no worries there, but there is a reason. We've had problems in the past with people mis-interpreting instructions and doing 'unusual' things, so we now say "get a professional to fit it". Sorry!

Issue 2) You have no idea how many people have complained about thin powder coat finishings flaking off etc, apologies you had to do a little extra work to fit, but we're trying to keep everybody happy with a nice thick coating....

Issue 3) They're not meant to be parallel, the subframe isn't parallel, it matches the faces of the subframe so it can bolt up correctly. I really have no idea why you had problems fitting it to your car, it's not impossible it's bent, but the brackets are manufactured for us by an MOD Approved (Ministry Of Defence, the UK Military) engineering firm to precise jigs. I'd be very surprised if it were bent, we've never had a faulty unit so I'd suggest it's more likely your subframe is slightly twisted. Nissan subframes bend very easily so it's much more likely. Either way, I would gladly have exchanged the bracket for another unit if you'd have just contacted us.

Also, I have some concerns over the modifications you've made to the bracket, if the hole is now massively oversized the bracket could potentially move around under load. If that's possible then let me know, I'd still like to try and get you sorted properly with a replacement bracket. I can't just exchange it now you've cut up the bracket you have there, but we'll work something out. If the next bracket fits fine, then it's our fault (and we'll cover the cost of course!), and if it's the same, then it's your subframe, so we'd expect the replacement bracket back or payment.

Issue 4) Again, we had complaints about the 2 peice bushings making it hard to fit the metal insert and keep the bushes in place in the hub, as a result we went back to the single peice. Once it's pressed into place and the insert is fitted the bushing squeezes out and fits nicely, we try and make the polybushes a slight 'squish fit' to ensure there's no play whatsoever once fitted.

Issue 5) My apologies if the 4 excess nuts weren't labelled correctly, S13/R32 fitment need to use the slimmer locknuts for the toe arms to get full toe adjustment. If they weren't in a bag labelled for S13/R32 then let me know and I'll give the guys who package them a kick in the backside.

But really above all else I wish you'd just e-mailed us! We'd have exchanged your bracket and answered 90% of your issues pretty easily.

Any questions or problems from anybody here can be directed to sales@driftworks.com , myself or Kam will do our best to help.

Cheers,

Bon -Driftworks

Originally posted by frankiman View Post

issue #1; no instructions with a brand new kit, that isn't really a bolt-on affair
issue #2; paint is too thick, metal arm's bushings won't fit
issue #3; passenger side bracket is bent, or not welded properly, call it whatever you want its scrap
issue #4; poly bushings isn't wide enough, and requires cutting in 2
issue #5; left over fasteners that i don't know where they go because (refer to issue#1)

so i know this is in no way JNS's problem,
i'm going to send Driftworks an e-mail about this and test the quality of their customer support

**frankiman** · 07-23-2010, 09:44 PM

i'll try to make this as polite and constructive as possible

and i admire that you took the time to sign up to this board simply to comment on this issue

1st i think its weird that you didn't see my name clearly written in my signature..

ok.. frankly, all the fibers in my body wanted to send you that e-mail 2 weeks ago the day i installed the kit, but then i forgot and lets face it, i've been spending more time on this project to have it done, tuned, tested, and aligned before september, than with my girlfriend that i love and have been with for over 5 years (just to prove my point even further) so i didn't quite find the time and/or energy to write you a comprehensible complete message, which i am doing now..

second, some info about me, just to back up my statements;
i'm 22 years old and have been studying mechanical engineering for the past 5 years, on a college level and university level
i'm currently working in my 4th internship, having worked as a machinist (technicien/fabricator) and a project manager (product design) in my previous interships
and i spend my off time ready tuning magazines and automotive engineering articles

so i have more knowledge / competence about this kind of issue than most

and i am very fastidious about the quality of the parts i use, or the services i require

3rd, as Franc stated;

Originally posted by NismoS-tune View Post

The difference between a field tech and an engineer. 1 can put anything together, the other points out what shoulda been done another way and modifies it ;P hehe

4th to answer to your replie for each issue;

#1 i'm confident with my knowledge and experience, i can make anything (loosely used term here) road-worthy
if you've had problems with people mis-interpreting your instruction, the problem might not have been with the people but with the instruction, basically you're calling you're clients stupid this way
if you spend enough time making clear quality instruction, no one will be able to mix them up,
believe me, my first university class was all about writing proper product literature and project documentation
i've bought a decorative box from IKEA for my girlfriend that had instruction, ITS A BOX
even the most basic instructions would have saved me tons of time
and you can't forget that its not everyone that has the option (or funds) to have profesionnals install parts
in my case, i had to install the kit to put the wheels on, to get the car to the shop, conundrum

#2 the problem of powder coating could have simply (VERY SIMPLY) been fixed by considering the nominl thickness of the paint and have designed the bracket that much larger
basically, you created a problem trying to solve another one

#3 the bracket was obviously more "crooked" than the other which bolted right up
and stating the manufacturer of the part doesn't garantee its probable quality, if you lack a good quality control program, the best fabrication won't save you
a teacher told me long ago about chinese manufacturing;
if you have 100 cheap workers each making a part, but have a really good quality control program, theres a good chance you'll have at lest 10 parts that are absolutely perfect
then if you have 1 worker, the best in the world, that makes 10 parts, if he feels tired one day, or his girlfriend just left him, or his mom just died, or the air con is malfunctionning, and since hes the best in the world, the quality is assumed perfect, theres a good chance not one part is within specs
..the more i work on my car, the more i realize it is absolutely pristine, greatly doubt the subframe could be crooked, if everything else is stark, but then again we can't rule it out
and the way i made the modifications, and having torqued the bolt to 65 lbs.ft, that thing is not going anywhere anytime soon

i could have contacted you, but at the point i am in my build, i had a 2 day window to install the kit,
it would easily have taken several days to exange messages, then come up with a commonly advantagoeus solution, beeing in two totally different time zones abviously wouldn't have helped
then add the days it would have taken for you to send me a replacement part, ship it overseas, go though customs, and finally at my door, it would have been a miniumum of 2 weeks, also consider the kit came in 3 weeks late (not your responsibility)

#4 pressing a 1 piece bushing, which was slightly short, through an opening that size, could have "squished" the material beyond its elastic threashold, and making it permenantly deformed,
in my case, using proper lubing and the right tools made inserting the metal sleeve the easiest step of the installation
and then, why was there such a large gap between the bracket of the arm and the bushing, careful not to mess up your comment about the opposite issue #2

#5 my box said S13 kit, and there was no more identification on the individual wrapped parts
then again, a short instructions list would have helped,
now the question is, should i take it apart to use the thinner locking nuts for the R32 chassis, or keep it the same,
frankly, i found the rod to be longer (by eye) than i thought it should have been
and why was the kit labelled for S13 when i ordered for R32, i know they are practically the same, but if the slimmer nuts would have already been installed for a kit labelled R32, it would have avoided any confusion

again, i had no time to go through the whole technical / customer support, i just assumed that for the price of the kit, there wouldn't have been any issues
i've bought many many Japanese parts, similarly priced, that installed like magic, contained instruction (mostly japanes only, but stil..) and were packaged to withstand a nuclear blast followed by a tsunami..

anyway, having read all this, (well i sure hope so), you have 2 options i suppose

#1 you can stand by your product and defend it to death, say my methods weren't correct, my car was damaged, or that my expectations were too high

or

#2 you can consider the constructive criticism and the proposed design/production modifications by a competent inidividual who has done similar things in his progression through education
and make the proper changes to be able to provide your customers with quality parts that can match those of the established quality giants (HKS, Cusco, Greddy, Nismo, just to name a few) at a competitive and reasonable price

this is by no means an argument, just a critic

thank you

fran�ois th�riault rehel - junior mechanical engineer

**Kras** · 07-24-2010, 10:02 PM

still don't have my parts

**MaxGTST** · 07-25-2010, 11:26 AM

My opinion might not worth a lot, but .. Frank, seeing that you're the only one who had problem installing their kit, proves that driftworks products aren't as bad as you're telling everyone here.

Second, you had 1 "bent" bracket, that means that yes, driftworks had a small quality check problem there, but even the biggest names in this industry already sent parts that were faulty someday. I mean, good for you, you still managed to make everything fit, but you should of have taken 5 mins to email driftworks and they would have exchanged you the "bent" part. I'm feeling like you're way too much "pissed off" then you should.

My opinion would have been different on all this story, if you weren't the only one with problems, and I'm on driftworks forum so I saw more people happy with their kit then only on GTRC. As for instructions, I bought alot of car parts in my life and only a few came with instructions.

Nobody's perfect, even the best company in the world.
No need to argument on this, I probably won't even look at this thread again.

**cschepp** · 07-25-2010, 11:47 AM

Once again, I have no idea how you were able to screw up such a simplistic kit especially since you seem to be so knowledgeable in those areas. I for whatever reason same age and very little experience compared to yourself was able to put the kit together(properly) with no fitment issues in 15 minutes. Seriously when I saw how you installed it I asked my friend " is this guy serious" like I said originally I will send pics of my kit installed and you will clearly see it was actually quite simple.

**NismoS-tune** · 07-26-2010, 02:38 AM

Originally posted by cschepp View Post

Once again, I have no idea how you were able to screw up such a simplistic kit especially since you seem to be so knowledgeable in those areas. I for whatever reason same age and very little experience compared to yourself was able to put the kit together(properly) with no fitment issues in 15 minutes. Seriously when I saw how you installed it I asked my friend " is this guy serious" like I said originally I will send pics of my kit installed and you will clearly see it was actually quite simple.

You saying this reminds me of someone. When I was in tradeschool, there was a newfie who had 3 or 4 years electrical engineering experience when I only had field experience. He aced every exam while I simply passed. When the time came for lab/hands on work, the guy F'd everything up cause he was useless on tools, couldn't chew gum and slice wires at the same time. He was smarter than me in a book but was useless when it came to hands on. Sadly, he went back to engineering and went behind a desk for a job "designing" stuff which we modify to work in the field cause it's only true/functional on paper. I see him every now and again. He's paid well cause he's an ENGINEER!!! but field guys like me are paid better for some reason

Believe me, it's not about the pinky ring.

Not attacking anyone here, just made me think of that lol.

**JNS Performance** · 07-26-2010, 05:12 AM

Originally posted by Kras View Post

still don't have my parts

Chris still looking into this for you, have yet to get an answer back from Paul after 3-4 emails.

I will be in Calgary July 28th @ 7 pm if I do not hear from Paul by the 27th I will call him from here before I board the plane and have him bring 1 of EVERYTHING to Calgary so nothing can be messed up.

Then slightly later on the 28th I will give you a ring (please email me your number) to stop by your place and exchange the lower arms for the uppers you actually want.

Very sorry about this, trip has been great but F me I can't wait to be home business wise.

Regards,

Braden @ JNS

**DriftworksBon** · 07-26-2010, 05:19 AM

Hi Francois,

Sorry for missing the name, that's me being very useless and not spotting it, I quickly scanned through for a name, think the lack of capital letters just helped it slipped past my radar!

I can understand you were busy and forgot to contact us, but considering you found the time to publically slate us, take artsy photos and then discuss the issue at length, it seems a bit null and void to say you didn't have time/forgot. You could have written us a one line e-mail "I'm having some problems could you contact me please?" or even picked up the phone. A phone call would have resolved this in minutes and made you realise we're decent guys interested in helping!

Had you proven to us the bracket was at fault, (you could have compared the brackets to each other to confirm if it was the bracket at fault or the subframe. I'd expect an engineer to have thought of that) then we would have sent out another bracket immediately by courier which would have been a 3 day delivery, and quoted as warranty parts with zero value or a nominal value it shouldn't need to go anywhere near customs.

I fully take on board what you say about instructions, we could at least include a basic set of instructions, I will admit I'm not educated to a university level in documentation production, so in the past we may not have written them as well as they could be. Unfortunately though, a lot of customers DO struggle with the basics and require a full "hand-holding" walkthrough, and I have known basic informational instructions to cause issues with many such customers.

Regarding powder coat, unfortunately in the real world it's really not always possible to be that precise, plus I hate providing a part that is a loose fit if the coating were ever damaged. Cost-effective powder coating for a relatively small company such as ourselves is never precise enough to account for in an engineering sense, so it is a fact that fitting the parts MAY need some sand paper to allow for clearance. I still maintain I'd prefer that than either crap quality coating, potential loose fit or increased product price.

Point 3, the manufacturer is approved to the highest standards possible. They DO guarantee their parts. It's not impossible it has been damaged at some point down the line, and regardless of guarantee it's still never impossible. Strictly speaking, nothing is ever impossible, everything has a probability so I'm not going to rule it out without empirical evidence from you. I was just saying, probability wise, it's more likely your subframe is at fault than the bracket. Had you contacted us proving otherwise, I'd have sent you another one ASAP as above....

"and having torqued the bolt to 65 lbs.ft, that thing is not going anywhere anytime soon" - sorry if it offends you, but that's just not how it works in the real world. I'd weld a washer onto the bracket in the correct position to prevent movement. I've done almost exactly what you've done with suspension parts before thinking "it's fine" and done them up to a lot more than 65lb/ft and had them work loose, I've even tack welded nuts in place and had them break free. The toe arm doesn't see incredible loads, but if you were to run over kerbing while on full load with sticky tyres I'd really expect it to move.

The toe rod bracket is 100% a quality control issue and a mistake, I can only apologise. If you were to just tighten it up it would clamp into place and take the form it is supposed to have in the first place. Reality is, once tightened it would have fitted correctly. It's a compromise, at the moment our arms are made in a factory in Taiwan that we've used since day one, using Japanese made bearings and specific materials, our current range of products are cheap, strong and use very good quality bearings, but occasionally we have glitches like your toe rod not being perfect. We're currently working with Birmingham University to develop a superior, UK manufactured range of arms which will be slightly higher priced but cater for the Cusco/Ikeya Formula market. Incidentally, these will be strictly quality controlled, but even then the design of the parts won't allow for any variance, ever. I realise this doesn't help your immediate issue, but does show that we understand the need for 'perfect parts for perfect cars'!

Box labelled S13 issue. Point 1), S13 and R32 subframes are identical geometry and fitting wise. Point 2) ALL Nissan Hicas subframes have the same orientation for those brackets. We did make a mistake not labelling the included nuts, but otherwise there's no mistake made, just all Hicas Eliminator kits use our S13 toe rods. If your car is aligned correctly, then you don't need the shallow nuts, you just might find that if you go for X camber and Y toe that you can't achieve it, the shallow nuts will give you a full range of adjustment.

So I'll take both option 1 and option 2 please?

I recognise what you're saying, but still stand by our products and service.

And for reference I'd still like to fix the problem! If you like, I'll send you another bracket out, if it fixes your problem keep it with no charge, if it doesn't then return it at your cost? I'd rather you were happy, believe it or not!

Cheers,

Bon

**JNS Performance** · 07-26-2010, 05:22 AM

Regarding Driftworks, As I said before I will be double checking all the other parts when I get back & will speak with them directly about the issue.

Francois sorry about the problems you have had with the kit, if there is anything I can do to help please contact me directly at the email below. This goes for anyone else as well of course!

sales (at) jns - imports (dot) com

**frankiman** · 07-26-2010, 03:07 PM