Rusty's tie rod conversion - Bad experience!

So I bought the SC-250 tie rod conversion from Rusty's and after mounting up the tie rod I found that it made contact with the track rod mount bolrt at the axle at about 4/5 through the right hand turn. This was last Friday and there was nobody at Rusty's because they were all at a show or whatever.

The tie rod flexed about 3/4" - 1" around that bolt and it immediately scratched up the powder coat. Not being comfortable with this, I bought $317 worth of new steering gear from a local parts store to put my truck back together and I thought "Oh, well... I'll send it back and get that skid plate I wanted."

BUT - When I called Rusty's this morning to work this out, I was told that the tie rod knocking into the track rod mount was OK. He also said that since it is scratched, they won't accept it as a return!

Of course, when I discussed this part, ad nauseum before I bought it there was no mention that it would rub on anything even though I asked very, very specific questions about this sort of thing. Given the problems people said that they've had with it, I ASKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS...

I am so pissed that they are sticking me with this thing!


That will be Rusty's last chance to burn me, and I intend to make it my mission to tell every wheeler I know about every single thing that Rusty's has been wrong about, every time they screwed somthing up, and about how they completely hosed me on this steering part.

Go ahead and keep my money, Rusty's... That's the last buck you'll see from me.


-Hap.

I know your pain man, i had a rusty's hd trac bar... it sheered off while I was driving it broke right where the threaded sleeve was welded into the bar. I called rustys and they said it was due to offroad abuse and it would not be replaced. I called Tnt customs told them what happened with Rustys, they knocked some cash off and shipped me one of there systems overnight. good good guys over there

Add me to the unhappy Rusty's family. I bought a WJ 4.5" lift for $1200 and had nothing but problems with it. DW, bump steer, DL vibes, and just really weird handling. I tried for over 4 months to fix the Wagon and nothing would cure her curse. Pulled the lift and all is well with the Jeep again. I also ordered a transfer drop for the Jeep in March and recieved the wrong bolts after calling at least 10 times over the course of 3 months I just said screw it. I never did get the bolts for it.

Rust's is shit.

I will never give them another penny of my hard earned cash.

I installed a Rock Krawler steering on mine and it was a lot of work to get it to turn lock to lock without binding. Their solution is to install the enclosed longer steering stops but with carfull grinding and spacers I finaly got it to fit nice. I would not recomend it either because of the extra work involved on a "bolt on" system.
http://www.rockkrawler.com/

I'll sell this thing to anyone who can actually use it....Cheap.

I should get *something* out of it.

Customer service is everything in this industry. We're modifying vehicles here, and problems are the norm. How you, as a company handle these problems is paramount.

Discarding the old saying "The customer is always right" and treating me like a moron over the phone isn't the way to do things. This guy was talking to me the way unscrupulous mechanics talk to women. It was insulting.

I gave Rusty's way more than just the benefit of doubt. I've bought a lot of stuff from them, but now that I reflect on it, it's because they often were no correct on the first order and I had to buy more stuff to finish the project.

I asked for nothing that was unreasonable, just for my cash back. I was likly going to spend it with them anyway. I'll just take my $260-plus-shipping lesson and deal with someone else from now on.

What a ripoff.

-Hap.

Stumpalump said:

I installed a Rock Krawler steering on mine and it was a lot of work to get it to turn lock to lock without binding. Their solution is to install the enclosed longer steering stops but with carfull grinding and spacers I finaly got it to fit nice. I would not recomend it either because of the extra work involved on a "bolt on" system.
http://www.rockkrawler.com/

Click to expand...

Keep a close eye on the bracket that bolts to the pass. knuckle. They have been known to crack. This happened to a friends Rock Krawler steering and you'll probably find other cases of it as well with a search.

A.

i've never even dealt with rustys but from what i've read it sounds like he deserves a nice curbstomp smile

Andy in Pa. said:

Keep a close eye on the bracket that bolts to the pass. knuckle. They have been known to crack. This happened to a friends Rock Krawler steering and you'll probably find other cases of it as well with a search.

A.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I smelled a rat when they sent the long steering stops. It binds real easy if left unmodified. This bind puts all the stress on the bracket and on the tie rod ends. By carfully grinding the bracket for clearance and adding a washer or two to space the heims properly it can be set up to work nice. Actually I love mine now and it drives great. It looks to be super strong and no way will that bracket be a problem if you don't let it bind. It's possible to make it work real nice but I would Imajine the average joe won't be paitient enough to find just the right washers and be that creative with a die grinder ,angle grinder and flat files to get it to fit without binding or will he be willing to give up that much sterring to set the stops correctly for no bind.

PsychoBoyHappy said:

I bought $317 worth of new steering gear from a local parts store to put my truck back together

Click to expand...

Now here's the real ripoff in the story...

why dont you send it to someone near rusty and have them hurl it through the front window.
I got burned by rusty years ago and try to steer people away from him at all cost.

Good luck

i agree with all the negative comments about rusty's. i have had a few bad experiances with them after being a big supporter of his products. never again. there are a lot of other companies out there that will help you out and have great customer service. just my .02

You're right! $317 IS a ripoff. But when you have the truck apart and you have to get rolling, well, that's what you have to do.

I suppose I could look at it this way: New Moog steering parts plus a large, unattractive paper wieght: $646.00

That's a new rifle, a new whitewater kayak, a new set of tires....


My ass is gonna be sore for awhile over this.

These threads come up with regularity, here on on JF. Obviously, the negative publicity on the forums has little to no effect on sales. There will always be people looking for the dirt-cheap price with no regard for quality, or the ambition to do the research necessary to actually know what they should buy in the first place.

I haven't heard much good about them . I will be lifting my XJ sometime in the future , and RE is what i will be going with . :flipoff:

my rustys tie rod conversion fit perfect no clearence issues what so ever and i love it. strage

At least yours didn't come apart.. I had that steering conversion on my old cherokee and you know the square section where the drag link bolts to.. Well it seems someone forgot to weld that part of it and just powder coat over it and after about 5 miles down the road I guess the powder coat wasn't strong enough to hold it together and it pulled out. Both wheels went the opposite way and put me in the woods. I had to pull it apart walk home and weld it so I could get the truck home. When I called and told Rusty what happened he said there was a previous bad batch of them and I must have got the last one laying around.. Some quality control there hu? I will never deal with them again!

that sucks to hear...i bought my exhaust thru them, and like it. also have a rusty's lift, bought used though. after hearing all this i'm not too sure i'll ever support such an a-hole again. thanks for the heads up, everyone... :cheers:

and btw, i agree with the idea of getting someone to hurl it through the window, if that's how they deal with customers. apparently, if all the unhappy customers this place has had did that, they'd have a serious pile of scrap lying around the shop in the morning.

I hate Rustys, Cust Service is virtually nothing. Shipping is high and takes forever.
Don't waste your time.

Thanks for the replies. I had a feeling that more dissatisfied customers would come out of the woodwork on this thread. As I am relatively new to this board, I had no idea that this was a regular thing with Rusty's.

I've got the BBB looking into resolving this issue.

I would assume that you bought this with a credit card. Most credit cards have a service where you can ask for arbitiration due to a number of reasons including poor fit, quality, etc. They will usually stop payment until the credit card company resolves the matter. If the credit card company gets sufficient complaints about a company they place them on a watch list and are more likely to resolve in your favor. Not the way you want to do business but sometimes you do not have a choice. I have used this feature with Amex a couple of times. It will get the vendors attention.

Good luck on your resolution.