just a little post about dealing with the good gentlemen of powerful 4x4 . anyone who has had a good experience with them please feel free to join in . last tuesday i rang these fellows about purchasing a set of their sliders for a 120 prado , i was informed that they had 20 sets in stock at their lansvale HQ . this is an hour away from where i live. $799 delivered or i can pick them up . ill pick them up as i want them for this weekend and i don,t want some doofus to have them in the back of his delivery truck for 3 days . i asked is there any drilling or modifying at all required . no none at all . made the 2 hr round trip to pick them up . all the way home something said to me you should have unpacked them and had a good look just in case something is wrong with them , but no im just being pessimistic i thought . thursday morning arrives , time to bolt these suckers on . upon unpacking i found one of the removable ends had been bent long with the accompanying scratches and marks in the paint . oh well im not driving all the way back to the asshole end of the earth for that , ill just fix it myself . job done . drag all the tools out , jack up the car , unbolt the old sidesteps. now for the fitting . hmmm they aint gonna fit unless i hack off the mud spats and even if i do only 1 of the six holes will take a bolt . that means drilling at least 10 holes in the chassis rails . aaaaaaaahh crap stupid f...ing assholes have given me the wrong ones . so pack them back in the car and off for another 2 hour round trip . oh well theyll just find the right ones and swap them over and ill have only wasted 6 hours of my life and $60 in fuel . not so . upon arrival at the sales counter and informing the young salesman of the situation he duly informed the boss who was seated at his desk . the conversation went something like this .
boss : well we've never had a problem before . we've sold plenty on the north coast and queensland . what was written on the box .
me : fj 120 prado . my car is not an fj , i don't know whether that makes a difference .
boss : no thats just our designation fj .
he then proceeded to hold a conversation with somebody in the next room . he then explained that i could bring my car back sometime next week when the engineer is back and he can look at it , do i live close by ,or you can have a refund . he then suggested that the sales kid go out and see what is wrong . i duly showed the kid that i would have to hack off bits of the car and that even after that they would not go within a bulls roar of fitting . i was given a refund . now thats all fine and good i got my money back . what burns me is that i could have had them delivered inclusive so i probably saved them $100 there but was never offered a discount at point of sale even after hinting . oh well stiff crap thats how i goes . but when informed that their product was not only damaged when i got it but IT CLEARLY DIDN"T FIT THE CAR IT WAS DESIGNED FOR they went straight on the defensive . at no time did the lazy assed boss get out of his chair to deal with a customer at the front counter who had clearly gone out of his way to purchase one of their $800 products . AT NO TIME did they offer to go out the back and check any of the other equivalent products to see if they had been incorrectly packaged or to offer an exchange . it was going to be up to me to take a day off work and bring my car back to them so that their engineer could work out where they F#*ked up . lets see that would be another 3 hours of my life and another $30 wasted . you champions . i hope that the next 20 customers that order sliders for a prado 120 don't get the wrong ones , but i think you might . and i won't even cast any aspersions about them being of middle eastern appearance, that would be racist .