Rusty - Credit Where Credit is Due (a bit wordy...)

[rbarton]

I know that Rusty's name has been batted around ad-nauseum over the years...both pro and negative comments from many. I just wanted to give credit where credit is due and go on record as saying he really helped me out this past week while I was attempting to take a family vacation and had a major problem with one of his parts.

While towing my 96 XJ to Myrtle Beach, SC from Atlanta, the rear end of our little class C camper started bobbing and swinging wildly. We quickly pulled to the side of the road and after checking tires and the expected list of possible causes, my wife notices the track bar of the XJ is hanging down below the axle. A closer inspection revealed it had broken at the collar weld. Oh crap! now what?!? We were in the middle of nowhere and were flat towing. Without the track bar, we'd have to leave the XJ there...which I knew would mean it would not be there, at least in one piece when we returned. We decided to see if we could find a local welder to come by and help us out and to our surprise, we were able to do just that. But, the idiot put the bushing back in before he was finished and melted a fair portion of it, which could not be seen from the outside. To make a long story short, he left, we reinstalled the track bar and went about 100 yards before another small bump in the road ripped the sleeve from the bushing and sent the XJ flailing side to side violently...again. So, after driving from bump to bump and having to stop and pull over every time we got a bad case of death wobble, we found a well-lit motel and paid the owner to let us park the XJ until we could get back to it. We continued on to the campground and had to have the XJ towed about 35 miles to where we were so that we didn't have to setup and then break campe the next afternoon.

Okay...here's where Rusty came into the picture. This track bar had broken before, in the same spot, two years earlier. Again, while on the road and NOT on the trail?!?! A friend had a portable welder and we were blessed to be able to fix it on the trail. It looked like it would hold so I never replaced it. I told Rusty about it and he offered to send a replacement, but there didn't appear to be a need then. Many trails later, still no problems. It took the horrible roads in South Carolina to break it again. While waiting for the welder to arrive, we called Rusty and told him what had happened. He agreed to send another one out via Fed Ex overnight to our campground. The next day, it arrived by 2pm and although it was an inch shorter than the one we were replacing, I had enough length on the frame mount bushing to make up the difference, or so it appears for now.

I am going to send the original track bar back to Rusty for him to look at, as requested and hopefully he will be able to see what happened. He told me that he had never seen one break before, when it happened the first time.

I have had issues with stuff being shipped to my home from Rusty in the past, as many others have stated on this forum. It was frustrating, I admit. But, when the real need for parts that meant being stranded in the middle of nowhere or not, Rusty came through and got the parts to me that I needed.

Thank you Rusty! This saved our trip and allowed us to continue on to our next destination as scheduled.

(Sorry for the long post...)

[Ghost]

You mean you came to South Carolina and didn't call me? So where in SC did you get the damage?

[ChuckD]

Can you take pics or describe exactly where your TB failed. Just in case there are others with the Rusty TB. We can then watch out for a future failure, ;)

[rbarton]

Sorry...it was rewelded and I sent it back to Rusty today. But, the problem was right at the collar/tube weld. It let go in such a way that you could see the collar inside the remnants of the tube weld and on the tube side, you could see into the open end of the tube.

In all honesty, I think this is just a fluke and I got a bad break (no pun intended). Rusty said he'd not had this happen on the countless other track bars he has sold and I have never seen or heard of anyone having this problem either. I am just very thankful that on both occasions when the unit broke, we were not in a high-speed or other compromising situation. It could have been far, far worse, to say the least!

Bottom line...Rusty stood behind his product and did what needed to be done to get us back on the road ASAP.

[rbarton]

To "Ghost"...

It was along US-501, I believe. A long stretch of farmland and not much else. Nice, friendly folks in the area. We were roughly 15 miles from 544 in Conway when we broke. We nursed it between the bumps until we got into Conway where a very nice Best Western hotel manager let us leave it, even though we were not staying at his hotel.

In Myrtle Beach, there is a closed air base that is being used for other things now. The base housing is now subdivisions and the hangars are being used as retail businesses. I was cruising through the area at around 40 MPH (under the speed limit) where they had been paving...AFTER I'd replaced the track bar. All was well until I hit a HUGE pit in the road that I didn't even see until after I was pulling my face out of the dash. It was a bout 20 inches across, about a foot deep and the width of the road. Now my right front tire points slightly left when the left tire is pointed straight. NOT my week for using the XJ, to be sure!

[Ghost]

Yea 501 has good spots and bad spots. As for the base, wow anything goes there I'd be surprised if those roads have been maintained since the base left. I have not been down to the Beach in a while but I hear its croweded and a pain.

[Georgia Mike]

501 is as rough of a road as any in America,especially in down town Conway! Jeez!! It's cool to hear folks talk about the beach and Myrtle Beach AFB. It brings back memories! I was living there when it got shut down. I was glad to see they finally renovated the old base housing. They had to do a lot of repairs. Mostly getting rid of asbestos containing building materials and scraping away all the lead based paint. It was good enough for the folks that defended our country,but not good enough for the general public :dunno: Anyway,glad to hear someone else giving Rusty credit where it's due :thumbup: I've been done right by him,too!

[KarmirXJ]

he better offer a replacement. sounds to me like a defective peice of s**t. Im not braggin on rustys ( I run his long arm ) but from readying your story. to make it short, you would not have gone through all this trouble on your (and your familys) vacation, if it didnt break. why did it break? one of many reasons, bad weld, quility of the make. it shouldnt have broken while hitting a bump. you are right some rant on him and some praise him..



BTW:
just on a note:

when I did get his Longarm upgrade. there was no instructions. from the time I sent him an email about it and the time he emailed me back w/instructions. it took him almost 2 weeks. when I got it it wall all text with the whole instructions telling me to look at "diagrams" and "bolt A, Nut T" i sent him email back requesting pics.....
Finally I did it without instructions, this has been over 2 months and still no pics:rolleyes:

[rbarton]

Yep, it was crowded, even on a Monday through Thursday stay. The beach was horribly dirty. While looking for our camper last year, we made many overnight drives to Savannah, Jeckyll Island, the Florida Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, etc. (why are all the campers down there anyway?!) and I'm sad to say that Myrtle Beach was the only shore we visited with that kind of litter. My first visit to Myrtle Beach will be my last. The people were wonderful and some of the nicest I've ever met. But, the beach was so covered with litter, fireworks trash, etc. that I couldn't believe it. We were afraid to walk barefoot on the beach because of all the trash. Mostly kids shooting off fireworks at night is where the largest majority of the trash came from. I was very surprised to find that there was not even a county sponsored attempt at cleaning up the beach or at least put trash receptacles nearby. If the tide didn't take it out, it stayed right where it was. It was sad to see because from what I hear from folks who went there years ago, it was a very beautiful spot at one time.

As for the bad part, yes, it shouldn't have broken to begin with. And...I should have returned it when it broke the first time rather than depending on the repair we made on the trail...but it did hold up for 2 more years :-) Just very blessed it didn't happen while towing or driving at 65 MPH or on one of the hairy moutain roads coming back home. We could have literally been killed because of it. I hate to even imagine going down one of the 3 mile, 9% grades with extremely sharp curves we drove through coming back through the Tennessee/North Carolina mountains (we towed the XJ to Mountain City, TN to ride some trails shown to us by the North Carolina Trailblazers 4x4 Club) and having the track bar break on one of those. It would not have been a good thing at all!

[whitexj88]

Here is a picture of my Rusty's trac bar after it broke. In defense of the trac bar I had so much flex that the bar bound at the bottom mount which caused the joint at the top to bend and break. I don't think anyone would have this problem untill going over 6" of lift. To fix the problem I moved the lower mount to on top of the axle with a $25.00 kit from Rusty's

http://www.lynchburg.net/shjc/photos/trac bar 2.jpg







http://www.lynchburg.net/shjc/photos/trac bar.jpg

[BIG98XJ]

Yeh, I think rustys is a great company, with rear good customer service. A bushing went out pre-maturely on my foxed lower control arms, called him up and told me hed send out some adjustables. Cant get any better of a deal than that. And recieved them the next day!

[vintagespeed]

You guys are freakin' nuts. You're thanking cRusty for replacing his broken crap? Well sure he didn't charge you for shipping, you saved him a bundle in liability claims cause you & your family were towing it & NOT driving in it at the time. Jeez man, I'm sorry but those kinds of critical parts that will kill you when they fail on the fwy at 70 mph need to be something you can trust and not worry about. That's why ORGS and other reputable companies use threaded DOM instead of weld on threads, worst thing that can happen is a bend. Dude, it's not just a cheap part it's a necessary part to your family's safety and is worth the extra $50! :twak:

[Rev Den]

vintage....
your missing an important point...rbarton had welded the bar 2 years ago, same spot. At this point Rusty could have said "Nope, it was your weld not mine that failed, too bad"
I have only delt with Rusty once....parts were on-time and as requested.

Rev

[vintagespeed]

Um, this thread has TWO pics of broken cRusty's trackbars already and there's only 8 replies so far............ I think you're missing the point.

You guys just like to defend the stuff you've bought cause you dont want to think you made a bad decision. I understand your feelings, but crap is crap and no matter how much you polish it it's still gonna be crap.

[Rev Den]

OK, i can see your point, but, the 2 bars broke in different spots in different situations. In looking at WhiteXj's photos it seems that the bar is threaded, and does not use welded on threads.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I think stuff should stand up to what we dish out also. Every vendor has failures, even Tomken, that I run I am sure has had problems.

Now, lets take the vendors out of this and ask this question. At what point does personnal liabiltiy take over and vendor responsability stop? If for example I have a aftermarket bumper, and I hit a tree on trail, the bumper bends, or breaks, is it my faulut, or the company who built the bumper? After all the bumper was being used as intended.

Food for thought

Rev

[Georgia Mike]

Well,I can say my Rusty's skid plates and transfer case crossmember are certainly not crap! I've landed the entire weight of the XJ on them and all they got were a few scratches in the paint and some gouged metal. No bends,nothing! I'm not defending them because I like *thinking* I made a good decision on buying them,I'm defending them because *I KNOW* I made a good decision on buying them. 'Nuff said! :D

[COXJ]

in my experence rustys suspension parts are by far the chepest and worst i have ever seen. i broke track bar at lower weld also but instead of telling him and haveing him send me another defective pos i saved my money and had one made. then there coils one basicly stoped holding weight and the other broke the top winding off the coil. but i didnt call and get more crap i got the real parts RE coils then his rear springs sagged like crazy real fast witch i can under stand but they have the worst spring wrap in the world and the main leaf in driver pack cracked at the center pin. once again i didnt want more crap parts on my jeep so i went to BOR and got there springs with militarry wrap but in all honasty when it comes to wheelin you get what you pay for and i lurned this the hard way.

WIll

[vintagespeed]

Wow that 3 for 3 on trackbars. I'm not saying that EVERYTHING he makes is worthless and even Rusty might be able to make a flat skidplate work I mean....it's flat plate. But maybe he shouldn't be making something that will kill you if it fails in the mountains (where we wheel) on a curve at 70 mph? Was that broken bolt Grade 8 (yeah right).

[SeanP]

OK, one more story:

Last spring with a bunch of other west coast XJ'ers, my rustys steering failed in a catostrophic way that, if we were on the freeway, might have killed my family.

The block in the steering where the draglink meets the tierod separated. The tie rod tube just slid out of the block. There was no penetration at all on the weld where it cleanly broke. We were luckily only driving 10-15 MPH on the dry lakebed at Johnson Valley ORV. If we were on I-5, results would be much worse.

We laid a proper bead on the steering (thanks Crash) and when I got home I drilled a hole thru the block and tube and put a retaining bolt thru it.

I took some pictures but were close-ups and out of focus. The whole thing pissed me off. The welds were total crap, absolutely no penetration.

another thumbs down for me. I have seen enough anecdotal evidence that I would not use these componenets for critical applications like steering and suspension.

SeanP

[Goatman]

Originally posted by vintagespeed
You guys are freakin' nuts. You're thanking cRusty for replacing his broken crap? Well sure he didn't charge you for shipping, you saved him a bundle in liability claims cause you & your family were towing it & NOT driving in it at the time. Jeez man, I'm sorry but those kinds of critical parts that will kill you when they fail on the fwy at 70 mph need to be something you can trust and not worry about. That's why ORGS and other reputable companies use threaded DOM instead of weld on threads, worst thing that can happen is a bend. Dude, it's not just a cheap part it's a necessary part to your family's safety and is worth the extra $50! :twak:

Everybody has a high regard for Rubicon Express products, and yet I have seen, heard, and experinced failures....mostly welds breaking. Because of the way we use our vehicles, components can fail.....Rusty's or anyone else's. Tall lifts, too big tires, or lousy driving techniques can put many products beyond their design parameters. Currie pulled their steering system off the market because it wasn't adequate and had way to many failures......until they could upgrade the design. Many companies have had a bad production run of some product, with failures, while most customers with the same product have had no problems at all.

I think any testimony of good treatment or customer service from a vendor is worth repeating, and there certainly is no reason to pile on and call the product crap. Other testimonies of similar experiences are justified in my opinion, good or bad. I'm not sticking up for Rusty here, and I think all points of view are valid, I just don't think any poster should be criticized for making a good report.

[Kejtar]

I think it's fair to say that everyone has issues. Whether it's Rusty's, OME, Warn, Dell, IBM, Compaq, Nortel, Samsung, Avaya, Aspect, JKS, ProComp....... this list could go on! Those are just the few that I had dealt with or had heard stories of people having problems with them. So in my opinion it all comes down to how the vendor/manufacturer will treat the customer. Unfortunately it's all not as clear cut as you might imagine... because the vendor is just a person. Especially when it comes to Rusty where from what I understand it's more of One Person. I have seen here a log of great stories praising him as well as stories that have mixed him with mud. It's hard to say which is more common, but seeing some stories and seeing how people recount how they called him and told him, I'm not surprised if the next person calling with a problem and being polite might get their head bit of or receive no help just because the other guy is fuming right now. So who's to blame here now? All of us have a bad day every so often which results in a similar behaviour :(

ok, I will get of my :soapbox: now

:skull1: Kejtar :skull1:

[Bronco]

I think Goatman has brought some much needed balance to this thread. I have no love for Rusty. I bought one product from him and it was a problem. The fact is however that if you are driving your Jeep like God intended it to be driven you are going to break stuff. So in that regard Rbarton rightly accepts some of the liability.
Working in the field of development and production quality control I can tell you that as you develop a new product you follow an exponential curve. The more you test the more certain you can become of how the product will behave in the field. You test and you make improvements, but you never reach a full confidence that it will never fail in the field. At some point you must release the product. You don’t get paid till you sell it. If you are selling discount Chinese roadside souvenirs then you don’t do much testing. If you are making parts for a fighter jet you better be fairly dame sure.
My point here is that failures will always happen. They will happen to every company that make anything.
If you are Rusty you should be replacing that safety critical part for free and hoping you don’t get sued, and then taking the next step of finding the failure, either in the design or in the production process (he did ask for it back, I’m impressed).
If you are Rbarton or anyone else who pushes their vehicle to the edge, you should spend some time under that thing carefully inspecting every safety critical part, and being willing to spring for a new part when you know a part is suspect.
If you are a consumer you should be patronizing companies that have a reputation for high product quality, customer service, and integrity.

[rbarton]

Rev Den


"your missing an important point...rbarton had welded the bar 2 years ago, same spot. At this point Rusty could have said "Nope, it was your weld not mine that failed, too bad"
I have only delt with Rusty once....parts were on-time and as requested"

Maybe Vintage is right. Yes, I DID have the bar rewelded 2 years ago and it lasted a year longer than the ORIGINAL weld! I shouldn't have had to reweld it to begin with though, right?! The OEM track bar lasted well over 100K miles, including a lot of wheeling. The original unit from Rusty's didn't even have 5K miles on it. Also, the original break happened while approching a trail head...with NO rough areas having been ridden to that point, not even bad roads. We had just come off the expressway near London, Kentucky and had been doing 65-70 MPH all the way from Atlanta, and in mountainous areas where the drop at the side of the road would be a one way trip to eternity. I am just glad it waited another 5 minutes to break the first time or we would have all been killed, no question.

Yes, he got the part to me overnight this time, which got us out of a bind. And as far as I know thus far, we have not been charged for anything. And for that, I am very appreciative. But as others have pointed out, it shouldn't have failed to begin with. But, I understand as well as anyone, that stuff breaks, no matter how good it is and that goes for any manufacturer's products. The point of the original post was just to express that Rusty didn't give me a lot of crap about it and got me the part as promised. However, I am disappointed that he said he has never had a track bar break before and I have heard from at least 5 folks in the past 2 weeks that say otherwise :-(

[Kudzu]

Yes you may here that but the reason Rusty does nt know is because those poeple chose not to infom him....Weather or not you intend to buy from the vendor or not if you have problems with a product tell them...thats the only way they know of the problem and can track down where the problems is on their end.

[rbarton]

Very good point. Rusty DID ask me to return the bar to him. However, he was a bit bent that it had been rewelded in our attempt to get back on the road. I sent it anyway. Possibly just bad steel at that end of the bar? Who knows?

[89TrailXJ]

Yep, they won't know about it or whats needed to fix the problem if people don't fill them in on it breaking. I have seen people post about lots of parts breaking, some were bad parts, but most were parts being used over their limit, or for the wrong application.