ATTENTION ... Wheelkid ... I want to buy some wheels ...

I waited 4 months for some items that I paid for and finally told him to stick it up his a## and got my money back.

 

The 18" steelies that I ordered from Jimmy were super & arrived quickly. Custom order too. He made them to suit me.

Jimmy, please stay on top of the business. If you can fill the orders & provide good service, there is $$$ to be made.

JH

 

i wont buy anymore wheels from him, pleased with the product but not with the time and that i was quoted once price and billed for more.

JEFF

 

Dealt with Jimmy a couple times the last being about 3 weeks ago .I order a couple oe style chrome rims he told me a couple weeks and they actually showed up in a week . nice wheels too, no problem here

 

I saw these in person and maaaan were they ever nice!!! I need two more chrome factory wheels for King of Trucks and I'm going with wheelkid. When I called to ask, I got proper and polite customer service.





For those whose stuff took a little too long...

I think the thing to take away from this is most chrome shops*****. And Rally America sends stuff out to be chromed. Much like a lot of painters, the chrome shops make up their own schedules and put big customers' work ahead of yours. The chrome shop's buddy will always get his stuff quicker even if you were first in line. You could do what I did and ask wheelkid what time of year yields the quickest turn around time and buy accordingly. Show season is probably busiest. Just a guess. I'd bet you'd get worse service that takes longer with worse results and some of your parts disappearing if you'd try your local chrome shop. If you even have a local chrome shop that is.

What I've seen of wheelkid's product, its worth waiting for. Not to mention the custom aspect of building a wheel tailor made for you. I'm a six lug guy and he can take a six lug center and reverse it on another hoop if that's what I need. And then he'll chrome it til you can't even look directly at it. And it'll be at a price that's probably less than what it should be.

Lest you doubt...check out what JeffreyJames got from wheelkid...



More here back when he still had the Hussy...
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=346968&highlight=wheelkid&page=3



Just sayin'......

 

I bought a set of their rim laced wire wheels, powder coated with cap adapters. When I received them one of the cap adapters was not flush against the rim so the cap set at an angle, but the wheels look great. Got my tires and had them mounted and balanced, had to have a lot of weight added to get them balanced (a lot). Got the engine installed and fired it up, jacked the rear up to check the tire runout, the tire tread has no wobble and runs true BUT the outer center of the wheel is not running true where the hub cap fits, its not the adapter ring but the wheel itself. Called and talked to Jimmy but he said that happens on hand laced wheels and nothing could be done about it. I mentioned I would have liked to have known this before buying them. They are nice looking but have a kind of KeyStone Cop wheel wobble in the center, will have to live with them I guess, I did ask him if someone asked where I got them if I should tell them where they came from and he said sure, so you didn't ask but figured I might save someone from making the mistake of ordering the rim lace wire wheels from them.

 

other than waiting for his chromer he was DEAD on when i delt with him and the chrome delay was not that long.. he redid my trus with custom bent stainless spokes, new dishes, rechrome everything... nice clean work...

also bought hot rod wheels from him before...

will shop again if i need wheels.. prices are NICE... worth the small wait when you encounter one.. if you dont want chrome, you will get your parts FAST .. if you want chrome it wont be slower than anything else gettin chromed..

those of you that have ACTUALLY delt with a chrome shop know the looong turn around time...

 

After posting in this thread about not getting a refund for two weeks after they had received the returned parts, I got a PM on Wednesday from Jimmy saying

That was early in the morning.

Well it didn't happen Wednesday. It didn't happen yesterday (Thursday), and it hasn't happened today.

Jimmy - you have the absolute worst customer service I have ever experienced. You will never have my business again.

 

wheelkid rules!!! only the best at rally america

 

Wheelkid is the best in the business and he (with the help of Gary & Melvin) builds the nicest products. I have had several transactions with him and I have always been more than happy.

 

How is it that all the good vendors eventually piss customer service down their legs?

 

I guess they don't know how to handle any kind of significant customer load on their own.

STILL no refund.

JIMMY - What the hell man??? Just send the adapters back if you aren't going to take care of this. I'll sell them to someone else who probably can't get you to take care of them either.

 

my wheels for the 60 took a couple weeks more than I was initially told. I did get an answer when I called to check on them and it was the chromers delay. I was just starting to think about getting pissed when they finally arrived. i opened the boxes and was absolutely flabbergasted at the quality! much better than I thought was possible!. deep deep chrome and it was very even and shiny even in the crevices between the lugholes. I realized then that these weren't just another set of chrome smoothies, they were works of art. I will order from Rally America again.....

 

I have ordered 3 sets of wheels from Ralley America in the past. The last set I was told would take 6 weeks..................they took 6 months to the day! (I ordered in March 1st, arrived Sept. 1st.) After many phone calls they did arrive, look great, correct back spacing as I ordered. Would I order again??....not sure. Jimmy always answered the phone, always said 2 more weeks.I think they need to hire some help to answer the phone so he can build wheels.

 

That is totally unacceptable. I am looking for someone to do some wheel work and chrome some old Ford wheels hence myu interest in this thread..............amazing

 

The 'Wheelkid' was at the Turlock swap yesterday. I asked him about the post here and he was concerned about it. He does want to do right. My accessment is that he is a small business doing his best to keep up. Not that this eases the frustration for those that are having problems getting service - hopefully he will try harder to do everyone here right.

 

I got my last set of chrome reverse from them, loved them, they were upfront about needing to find some cores and I understood fully. I will use them again when I do my next set. their quality was way above others I have bought from.

 

I am sure that Jimmy will get through this.....having a Son and Dad business is unfortunately tough when you get overwhelmed with orders. I know that beginning and mid-year they were moving the shop from the big city to their property in the foothills so I know it has delayed them a bit.

 

I will not write em off yet but jeeze!~ Hire a high school girl to answer phones and email in the afternoon.........or some retired lady

Not the same but 2 of us handle the phones 24/7/365 for a multimillion dollar business. One of us has the phones at ALL times. If I walk out into the yard I transfer teh phone to my cell. Dont answer on the*****ter but in strange emergency times I have transferred it there as well. This is the modern era, gotta use all teh tools int eh quiver.

 

Good words Tman and I will not disagree.

 

i bought two 18" steel wheels for my race car, they are true and good quality. i dont like wheel vintques or stockton wheel. my experience was a good one.

 

What a shame and a suprise to hear so many disappointed customers!

I ordered a set of 4 chrome reverse wheels with original Merc centers and tapered rims about two years ago and Jimmy's communication was VERY good. I got the wheels in the time promised and was happy with what I got, much like the pics of Jeffery's wheels. A while back I called about pricing for chroming a set of wide fives and got an immediate response from Jimmy on pricing. I couldn't find ANYONE else that would touch a set of old rims for chroming.

Not sure if you guys know this, but there are VERY FEW chromers around that will do old wheels. From what I understand, to do them right you have to separate the rims from the centers, chrome them separately and weld them back together. It appeared that this was how my rims were done and they looked great!

Hope things work out for Rally America, they do great work but I can certainly understand how frustrated some of you guys are with them. I would feel the same way, there's no excuse for bad communication. Just remember, there aren't alot of companies that do what they do.

 

UPDATE ...

I got a phone call tonight ( October 26 ) from WheelKid saying my wheels were built and would be shipped tomorrow ... ( October 27, 2010 ) That is less than what he told me ( by weeks ) so I am hoping to have the wheels soon.

They are holding up progress on my PROJECT ... so I will be HAPPY to have them.

.

 

Very cool DR!

 

called on a sunday just by chance that someone would answer!! they did thanks Gary for the great service and the chat! got my cleaned/blasted used wheel in less that a week as promised!

 

I had a good experience too. Ordered some wire wheel covers, they came and I was happy.

 

Guys if you want good fast service on wheels and powder coating them try Jason at the Early Wheel Company.

http://www.earlywheel.com/products.html

CRUISER

 

Wheelkids wheels are the BEST, bar none.

If you want the BEST...you'll need to have PATIENCE, as they are not some big company mass producing wheels and spitting them out through vendors. These guys are building YOU a custom wheel MADE TO ORDER with their hands. It takes TIME.

If the biggest problem anyone has had with Wheelkid/Rally America is that they take too long, then I suggest you have a little more patience. 6 months of waiting is unacceptable, but 6 weeks is reasonable considering what youre getting in the end. If these guys get 10 orders in 1 day...you've got to understand that they can't promise 3 weeks on every order.

If you don't have patience, and want some wheels fast, then order from someone else, there's plenty more wheel makers out there as we all know.

I've seen the Rally America wheels myself...and was impressed with the quality of them. There's nothing worse than having that Christmas Day feeling opening your box of wheels, only to inspect them and see blemishes in the finish, and poor welds or construction. And from what I've seen & heard about Wheelkids wheels is nothing short of PERFECTION.

I will be ordering a full set of custom wheels by Wheelkid in the future, and I will be patiently awaiting their arrival.

Wheelkid, please chime in with more detail about your situation. You guys do great work, and you don't need to be black listed for falling behind, just give it to us straight, and everyone will be satisfied.

 

Two more days....bringing it to an official MONTH that Jimmy has had the parts back IN HIS HANDS and I have no refund whatsoever, and the only contact was a returned PM in which he LIED in saying that he would refund my money "today"....which was now a week ago. I think i have been MORE than patient. It is a 30 second transaction on your credit card machine. You had my card number around for 4 months before you shipped in the first place, surely you've still got it. Do it first thing in the morning, do it right before you leave, do it when you get back from your lunch break....JUST GET IT DONE MAN!

It's VERY clear you have the money in the bank to give back since in this thread you have a new customer who you have taken money from.

 

I was going to order a pair of steelies from Jimmy, but after going through this thread, I decided to go with Wheel Vintiques through Summit Racing. I wish I could support a vendor like Rally America, but you can't beat having the wheels I ordered from Summit arrive in 2 days! I'm on a schedule, like everyone else, and can't wait around for months.