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

[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.