BEWARE!! dealing with CalOffroad

[MidLifeCrisis]

Bugger.

Its always a good thing when all are happy so good on Call and zerosecta.

I was just taking the p!55 but seems I'm either too late or too early, depending upon whether its a good argument or "mummy and daddy time"

[Fred63]

Oops, just tuned in to this one.

It appears you made it just in time for a happy ending.

[MidLifeCrisis]

Wait, wait, just grabbed a seat


Oops, just tuned in to this one.

[zerosecta]

Thanks for the offer #### - if you are near Point Cook that would be great. Otherwise the Pedders just up the road from me me said he'll do it for $20 when I get the Struts back so no major biggy.

UPDATE: Had a call from the man himself this morning. Seems like a nice guy and very keen to get this sorted and have my car up and running. So a big step in the right direction on this story.
Struts are confirmed to be in line to get machined and expect to be shipped back to me on Tuesday - Probably reach me by Thursday.

[Anth120playdo]

- So since there will be no further charges could you please go ahead and process the refund for the air bag spacers I had sent back over 1.5 weeks ago and stop holding it ransom?

- And just so that we are all clear - the Original Springs you sent were "Super Heavy Duty" so they did not need to be fitted to know that they would be to hard for a car with no winch or bullbar...

- I asked for them to be exchanged with Medium Springs to which your team did indeep agree after some pushing to arrange to collect and also not before trying thier hardest to convince me that I needed these and shouldn't be sending them back....
Infact something else I just remember from the phone call - He actually told me that the part number of the Spring I had, (the one with SHD in it) was your standard part number for your springs and that it was a medium spring as ordered so not to worry (funny how the third set that has come has p# HLHD150 nd no SHD...) Of course I smelt a rat and pushed for exchange, just a real pitty that the second set sent werent good iether.

- Since while all of this was going on and just on two weeks since I'd parted with my money I still had'nt recieve the struts in the first place - I figured that I may aswell purchase your aftermarket tophats and get the right springs installed onto the struts and thereby save a bit of effort and time. (charged $40 labour, cool with that). Should get refund for this though since the springs installed again had to be sent back (no offer this time to collect) and I had to pay for them to get removed and will have to pay for them to get reinstalled next week.

Still waiting to hear how you guys thought those progessive springs were suitable after they installed them onto the struts and would have been able to clearly see they they were binding at the top three coils and bulging off one side of the strut - hence losing any benefit of being progressive.


Struts finally arrived - however once installed the car sat way to high and the as said previously and can be seen from the pics, the springs were clearly not even close to being suitable for that strut length.

The Spring I now have - Third Set that has come is "Heavy Duty" and pending fitment I reckon should be good (although still not the Medium I asked for).

Looking forward to getting the struts back next week and glad to hear they arrived there safe, thanks for letting me know.

BTW - after the offer to collect the first set of coils. that I do appreciate I got no offer to collect the second set or the airbag spacer's or the strut's.
The Struts cost $38 and srings cost $28 to send back

If it helps out I can install the coils on the struts for you, once for free. I use the branick 7400.
Please p.m me if you wish to take up the offer.

[zerosecta]

- So since there will be no further charges could you please go ahead and process the refund for the air bag spacers I had sent back over 1.5 weeks ago and stop holding it ransom?

- And just so that we are all clear - the Original Springs you sent were "Super Heavy Duty" so they did not need to be fitted to know that they would be to hard for a car with no winch or bullbar...

- I asked for them to be exchanged with Medium Springs to which your team did indeep agree after some pushing to arrange to collect and also not before trying thier hardest to convince me that I needed these and shouldn't be sending them back....
Infact something else I just remember from the phone call - He actually told me that the part number of the Spring I had, (the one with SHD in it) was your standard part number for your springs and that it was a medium spring as ordered so not to worry (funny how the third set that has come has p# HLHD150 nd no SHD...) Of course I smelt a rat and pushed for exchange, just a real pitty that the second set sent werent good iether.

- Since while all of this was going on and just on two weeks since I'd parted with my money I still had'nt recieve the struts in the first place - I figured that I may aswell purchase your aftermarket tophats and get the right springs installed onto the struts and thereby save a bit of effort and time. (charged $40 labour, cool with that). Should get refund for this though since the springs installed again had to be sent back (no offer this time to collect) and I had to pay for them to get removed and will have to pay for them to get reinstalled next week.

Still waiting to hear how you guys thought those progessive springs were suitable after they installed them onto the struts and would have been able to clearly see they they were binding at the top three coils and bulging off one side of the strut - hence losing any benefit of being progressive.


Struts finally arrived - however once installed the car sat way to high and the as said previously and can be seen from the pics, the springs were clearly not even close to being suitable for that strut length.

The Spring I now have - Third Set that has come is "Heavy Duty" and pending fitment I reckon should be good (although still not the Medium I asked for).

Looking forward to getting the struts back next week and glad to hear they arrived there safe, thanks for letting me know.

BTW - after the offer to collect the first set of coils. that I do appreciate I got no offer to collect the second set or the airbag spacer's or the strut's.
The Struts cost $38 and srings cost $28 to send back

[Anth120playdo]

555 is what we use as a safe length and have seen many customers pull the inner shaft out of the diff centre running longer. 555 is a strut shaft measurement not a wheel travel measurement. if you are running 575 and do hard offroad you will run the risk of pulling the axle out of the centre, or damaging CV or binding steering ball joints and affecting ackerman angles. please remember if you dont agree we can make it how you want at your request. We are not sure on what superior does as we canned our international programme with profender in 2007 as it didnt meet our testing requirements.

This is 101% exactly correct! Great info Cal.
Agreed 555mm is the limit of safe travel! Like I have said you can get lucky or not use it offroad lol........
I have seen where people set up hiluxes & Prados with too much travel, the inner tripod pulls out on too much angle & gets smashed.
Reliability is number 1#!

BUT, as we have mentioned earlier he wants the illegal 3" lift you sell & paid all the extra for diff drop & uca's etc to have 3", may even pay even more to get it engineered, so naturally you should know he will need the extra travel to suit.

Did you firm make a mistake sending those struts/coil overs? Or do you tell us they will be ok?

[crliin]

555 is what we use as a safe length and have seen many customers pull the inner shaft out of the diff centre running longer. 555 is a strut shaft measurement not a wheel travel measurement. if you are running 575 and do hard offroad you will run the risk of pulling the axle out of the centre, or damaging CV or binding steering ball joints and affecting ackerman angles. please remember if you dont agree we can make it how you want at your request. We are not sure on what superior does as we canned our international programme with profender in 2007 as it didnt meet our testing requirements.

[crliin]

I am really interested in hearing more about this process. How do you test in Germany for AU conditions?

strength, valving and failure tests are done in Germany and final valving tests are approved after testing in Australia

[crliin]

CalOffroad

thanks for your reply, we understand how frustrating some things can be and we are passionate about our vehicles as well. Of course we try and keep customers happy and resolve any issues. Originally when we sent you a return pickup at our cost for your front coils that you wanted to replace we would have been happy to pickup all items and refund so you wouldnt incur any fitment or freight charges etc. Please remember you never fit or tested these coils. With our struts and shocks they are long travel but are also set at a very safe range as the majority of our customers need reliability in their front end as they are setup for touring and the Australian outback. ARB struts are 543mm open and the Bilstein ones we sent you where approximately 555mm this equates to about an inch more down travel at the wheel. we can also make other mods if needed to be 565 575,585 and others. As you have requested 575 we are in the process of rebuilding your front struts to the required length and these should ship tuesday. Please note that a full shock length change normally costs as it takes us good labour hours to do it (but we are sending to you at good faith no charge)
We are glad you are exited about the CalOffroad kit and are happy to work with you on any mods you need to tune your car to be how you would like it. let us know if you have any other requests or questions.
also send us your shirt size and we will include a merchandise pack, T shirt Cap drink cooler DVD stickers.


regards


Cal Goodman

[BlakMoth]

We're gonna need more popcorn I reckon clarkie


Sent from my iPhone using Crapatalk

[clarkie383]

How this problem is solved will say a lot about customer service.
waiting.......

[zerosecta]

Not arguing!
You might know, but the answer is c/v joint premature wear, likely damage if used offroad.
Also upper ball joint binding.
Wheel alignment.
You would need diff drop - which means you loose your clearance again, so why for.......
Also Aftermarket uca's.
That's why we stick with a good 2" lift on prados. Right?
Edit: The o.p has the required stuff so for him no probs!!! So your point is taken.
Not sure what to do with the brake adjuster twits.

Yip - Got all those things from Cal :-) actually in my list of things above I forgot about the diff drop kit and rear Adjustable panhard rod that also came

[mjrandom]

Don't forget about the Department against Transport and Insewerants.

[Whitey]

Hey all,

For those interested, it appears the CV binding open length on the 150 series is slightly longer than the 120 series, start reading on p8/p9;

http://www.pradopoint.com/showthread...-Bilsten/page8

I can feel my rotors on my 120 start getting very hard to rotate at 578mm open length. Zerosecta measured somewhere in the 580-590mm range, but has yet to have some more data from other 150 drivers to verify the figure.

I would say there's no problem running a 575mm strut on a 150 series. I'd be getting slightly antsy about 575mm on a 120.

At full droop, I only have a 1 degree improvement in my CV angles with a diff drop in (amts 20mm), so the diff drop does nothing for the CV at full droop, it's really only there to improve the angle at ride height.

As AJ has said, after market UCA's solve the upper ball joint binding problem. However, the SPC arms with first generation boots always end up binding on the coils, and the boots break. The smaller second gen boots get around this problem.

...the thing I'm more concerned about is the lower ball joint. Also, my CV boot is already very close to binding at 570mm.

Running a 3" lift can sacrifice a lot of articulation, even with a 575mm strut. You will struggle to get 70mm of droop.

Running a 555mm strut at a 3" lift is mechanical madness, you'll end up with less than 30mm of droop, and your fancy pants Bilstein struts will be dead from top-outs in no time.

Best

Mark