Listers,
Company name: Prestige Autotrim Products, UK
Products: interiors, tops for many cars
Purchased: Full interior, panels, carpet, underlayment, seats,
mohair top, top cover.
Vendor Report Summary:
Rating scale - 1 to 5, 1=very bad/not satisfactory, 2=could be
better, 3=neutral, 4=very good/very satisfactory, 5=excellent
CATEGORY SUBJECTIVE SCORE
1. Customer Relations - 5
2. Material Quality - 4
3. Workmanship - 4
4. Delivery - 2
5. Price - 3
Would I be a repeat customer - yes, as long as all the 'problems'
are resolved (see below) I have nothing to complain about and (I
hope) a nice looking car interior.
NOTES:
1. Customer Relations includes contacting the company, placing the
order, handling complaints, offering advice, apologizing when
necessary,etc. A few times I had called them, left voicemail, and
had my call returned within 30 minutes. Also, had the rep say he'd
handle a problem and get back to me. 20 minutes later he called
back. This same person also had extensive knowledge of their
products as well as installation information. My biggest problem
in this area was getting on the phone at 5AM (EST) to catch them in
the morning.
2. All material matched the samples that were sent previously.
Color and texture were very good. Good selection of material and
color to choose from.
3. There were a few items that could have been done better, but the
score is for the whole package. See Product Discussion, below.
4. Ahhh! Here's where there could be some improvement. I placed
the phone order on 4/9, was promised 3 to 4 weeks as they had to
order the barley (aka beige) leather for the seats. 4 weeks later,
I called and was told the order should be shipped next week. The
next week I called again, and was told it would be out the next
day. Finally received the order 5/25, 7 weeks after placing the
order. To their credit they did ship overnight express. See below
for the bad news.
5. Price, for the items I was looking for, was comparable to or
less than other vendors. I had checked TRF, VB, Skinner and Moss.
Prestige had the items I wanted, in the colors and material I
wanted. With the others - I had to get some pieces from each, I
figured sink or swim with one vendor.
The shipping charge was reasonable (about 5% of the total order),
but I got a surprise when UPS demanded an extra $40 for customs
duty. Prestige agreed that the duty should have been mentioned
during the ordering process, but also stated that, in the States,
some customers reported that NO DUTY was collected!
EXPANDED PRODUCT DISCUSSION:
This is a breakdown of the individual items purchased and any
associated issues.
Mohair top - very nice looking, went on without difficulty, except
the rearmost snap on the right side (installed by them) is about
1/2" off (as measured from the center of the rear window and
compared with the left side) and there's no way I can stretch it to
fit because it's only 4" from the closest rivet. My fix was to
relocate the existing snap on the car body. Also, the window
plastic is thinner and more pliable than my old black vinyl
[Robbins?] windows.
Vendor response: Agreed they made the error, apologize, will check
with quality assurance.
Top cover (I don't use a tonneau) - also looks good, no snaps
installed, have to put them on myself, but it would have been nice
if they supplied all 13 (7 across the back, 3 on each side) and not
8.
Vendor Response: Agreed to ship the missing items straight away.
Interior - Nice material, the piping trim around the door panels is
a little loose and sloppy looking, it's stapled every 4", while the
original panels every 2".
Vendor Response: Took note of the criticism, agreed to send a stick
of the short staples so I could finish securing the piping.
Carpet set - Good color, nice binding (matches interior panels),
compares well with TRF's Magic carpet set (which I bought last
September, in black, used 2 months: for sale BTW). PROBLEM - the
handbrake cover is TAN not BARLEY like all the other vinyl! You
think they'd see that the whole carpet set was trimmed in barley
and put on a barley handbrake cover, but NOOOOOO! Looks stupid
sandwiched between two barley seats.
Vendor Response: Total dead silence on the phone for 10 seconds,
then another very nice apology, and an offer to make up a new
carpet piece and ship with the other items.
Seats - AHHH! The BIG PROBLEM! I ordered and paid for LEATHER.
What I got was all vinyl. And to top it off, the side pieces for
one seat were MISSING!!!
Vendor Response: Had to research this one, promised to call back.
20 minutes later, another apology, they said it was my choice if I
wanted to keep the vinyl, they would send the missing pieces (and a
refund) or I could wait about 3 weeks for the leather. Since I
couldn't tell the difference (and I could see both sides of the
material), and since only the seating surfaces were leather, I
opted to keep the vinyl.
I tried to keep this report as fair as possible while providing the
list with useful information.
Hope it helps,
Rick Ol
son
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
/// with nothing in it but
///
/// unsubscribe triumphs
///
|