FYI before ordering from the wheel smith or any other custom wheel maker

No matter who made the mistake the vendor didn"t handle the problem very professionally. Could have told the op to send them back and he would fix the problem. Don"t blame the op for disputing the purchase at all. To many vendors getting away with bullshit business practices these days,then being glorified by guys that got treated good by them.Bout as bad as the jerk sending out a rusty ass crankshaft to a customer,then coming on the Hamb and instead of resolving the problem,blasting the customer and showing just how much of a bad business man he was.And still got glorified for his great work.Good luck with the wheels.

 

if i am reading this right, your wanting a 15x7 with 1.5 ( or 2" off of 0 offset , 3.5 back) backspacing..? not even sure if you can get that with a reversed hoop..

 

he just stated the facts as he knows them, if it sounds like bashing, maybe the vendor should take note and correct his customer relations ways. just saying

 

fwi- Before ordering from wheelsmith, or any other suppliers of custom parts check list:
1. Use the proper terminology OR make it clear that you don't have knowledge of the terminology.
2. Make a written document to "memorialize " the verbal discussion , request confirmation.
3. Make a sketch of exactly What you want, be as detailed as you need to be or want your part.
Those three things would have eliminated any possibility of this problem.
Realize I'm not picking on you, or taking sides that just good judgment.

" good judgment comes from experience, and that comes from alot of bad judgment "

Doing the above may take a bit longer, but how does this setback fit your schedule?

I find it hard to believe that any established business man would resort to name calling as an accepted procedure to reach a resolution, LET ALONE be his first without serious provocation . And too a Hamber?!?!?
If that's what happened, I feel deeply for your troubles, the three things mentioned above would likely have been of no use other than to prove your discrepancy


I'm interested to hear what wheelsmith has to say.

 

I am saying, I am open to It. He doesn't want to work it out man to man so maybe he will when everyone else hears the way he treats HIS customers.

 

if bob really did say "my people don't make mistakes" that WAS HIS MISTAKE. EVERYBODY makes a mistake sometimes i don't care who you are. i have been involved in customer service for a long time and can also tell you i have NEVER hung up the phone on a customer. had it hung up on me more than once but never done it to a customer thats just bad business no matter what is being said. now since there were only 2 people involved in that call there are 2 sides to every story and only those 2 people know exactly what was said in all truth.

i will agree with sending an email/fax with EXACTLY what you want in a situation like this is the safest way. even if you did the order by phone maybe ask for an email confirmation of the order for personal records...ken....

 

the guys building custom wheels should have a chart similar to the driveline guys so they have documented proof of who the fucktard is them or customer. we all know the suppliers goal is zero returns, 100% delivery on their goods.

 

a verbel agreament aint worth the paper it's written on.

 

I'm not gonna lie, the OP's post mean more to me than the rest that say everything went good. I probably won't deal with them when it comes time for me to get wheels. There might be a small possibility of bad things actually happening, but I've gotten bad products from reliable vendors before. If Bob isn't going to stand behind his product when that happens, I'll take my money elsewhere.

 

I custom order products every day. I don't do anything without a diagram or picture signed off by my customer. That way everyone is on the same page. I would think that would be the way to go with wheels.

 

I'll give another example, AXLES. You can order from several reputable manufacturers and get a good axle. For our race cars, they come from the company who has a equally good product, but he has a build sheet that you fill out. The sheet has a diagram of a axle. On the diagram, you fill in the dimensions you want, and the axle is built accordingly. Now I know too, that if I put i want 333 spline, I would get a phone call before the axles were cut, and asked are you sure you dont mean 33 spline. In the O/P defense, IF the situation was handled by the manufacturer as described in the thread, well that was not very professional at all.

 

I've got to admit that I had to read the above paragraph twice to understand what you wanted. It makes complete sence when I remembered that you're dealing with a fenderless car but on the first reading I somehow got the impression that you wanted the rims to stick out more. My mistake but maybe the guy at Wheel Smith made the same error. If you don't use standard terms like "backspacing" it's easy for them to mis-understand what you're after.
Still, I think the people at Wheel Smith should have made sure to get it 100% straight what you needed.
Like many have already mentioned, many places insist that you fill in an order form for things like custom wheels and driveshafts. That pretty much eliminates any confusion. If I ordered custom rims over the phone, I'd be pretty nervous that they might not be right.

 

None of us heard the original phone conversation.

 

Neither did bob I ordered the rims from rex, bob just says his people don't make mistakes and blames it on the customer without resolution

 

having been in the Wire Wheel business in a previous life, i can tell you that this type of thing happens a lot. Customer calls and says his wheels are now such and such and he wants X amount more offset. Ask him if he means positive or negative. He says positive thinking that makes the wheel further from the body (Thinking positive must mean sticking out further) when it really makes it closer, like a front drive wheel. Are you sure that's what you want? Yes! OK, we make them and he screams we made them wrong. Nope did just what you asked for. Customer expects you to eat the wheels. Some times they can be reworked, sometimes they can't. We finally got to a point where we would only accept order form retail customers in Backspacing, and in writing.
AS for this situation, I have known Bob for along time and have to believe that there is more to this - that something set him off to become that negative and defensive.

 

To the guy with the wrong wheels,I see you being stuck with the wheels.Might be best to cut your loses and sell them.
You may have messed up terminology a bit on phone order.The person taking the order should have asked a few more questions to clear it up,they do make wheels for a living .On the other hand,the order taker may have thought he got it right.

 

i assume you paid with a credit card. call em up and have them do a charge back. the least wheelsmith could do is have you send back the wheels and then make you another set. if he gives you no other option i'd do a charge back. you have not gotten what you paid for.

 

I have ordered several sets of wheels from Bob over the years, always friendly, delivered on time and gave me exactly what I ordered, I will say one thing though when ever I made my orders there were 4 things I told him I needed, the Wheel type, diameter, bolt pattern and backspacing not offset on the wheels, you do that and you should get what you want everytime!

 

This happens alot at my shop because people confuse the terms positive, negative, offset and backspace. I narrow alot of rear end housings, and I will only do one if the customer lets me order the axles because there is alot of room fo error. I know what the terminology is when I order wheels and axles.

 

"changing the offset to bring the wheel closer to the body" is a very hard statement to understand just on its own ...

"closer to the body" means OUT on a regular vehicle and IN on a fenderless vehicle. (picture a Camaro with a 5" gap between the tire and the body ... the rim would need to move OUT in order to fill that gap). Obviously what happened here was the person placing the order was "picturing in their head" the body INSIDE the wheels and the person taking the order was "picturing in their head" the body being OUTSIDE the wheels ... the problem here is the "picturing in their head" part ... clearly this issue would NOT have happened if, as others have mentioned, you had faxed, emailed, or USPS'ed a diagram showing exactly what you wanted. I also agree that you should have ordered the rims using the "backspace" term ... for example, "my wheels are 15x7 and presently have a 3" backspace ... I need 15x7 with a 5" backspace please". Sounds to me like you failed to correctly explain what it was that you wanted ...

 

The customer is not always right. However, the customer should be made to BELIEVE he's always right. That's just good business.
I think both sides fucked up.

 

To me if you run a company that makes custom on off pieces that you will not take back it is up to you to clear up any ambiguity in what is being ordered. I agree that your description is confusing but the guy taking the order on the phone should not assume anything and make certain he is providing the customer with what he wants and if he is not certain he should require the right information before anything is produced. If there is any question that one of the two parties in not on the same page nothing should be done until that is cleared up.

Now the problem is we have one side of what was supposedly said when the order was placed so this may or may not have happened in this instance.

 

While we only know one side to this story, unless 48Chrysler is telling us a real fib, the owner of the wheel shop is doing himself a REAL diservice by not trying to resolve this mess - even if the mis-understanding is not his fault! By apparently acting as a total prick, Bob has brought his dirty laundry to this forum for thousands to see. That's just not a good business practice to follow.

If 48Chrysler did not know the proper terminology to use when ordering the wheels, don't you think it is incumbent upon Bob to ensure that he and his people NOT make any custom wheels UNTIL there is an exact understanding as to what work will be performed? Seems to me that is the cause of this whole ruckus and Bob, as the business owner, probably should just suck it up and try to work this mess out. Just my two cents worth...

 

Give the man a cigar! If there is a customer-signed drawing and price quote on special order wheels on file with the vendor, that pretty much establishes who screwed the pooch if the wheels don't fit.

 

His description made sense to me. And B.you should never hang up on the customer and call him a low life. Sometimes vendors have to eat it even if it may have been a customer f-up. He will lose more business from this thread than he would lose on remaking the wheels. Anyway get the credit card chargeback send the wheels back and call it a day. Just make sure you search here first. I have seen tons of threads lately about wheel shops fucking people

 

I agree with Weasel, post #3 above. A verbal description is prone to much error on the part of one or both. If your order specifications were in writing, on paper, then any error would be in evidence. If the terminology is the problem, a drawing helps.

 

Oh Lord

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I cannot accept,

And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill today because they pissed me off,

And please help me to be careful of the toes I step on today-----

As they may be connected to the ASS I have to kiss tomorrow.

 

Ttt

 

Put the rims on wrong???????????

 

What I'm getting from this is a guy who doesn't know the correct terminology and ordered the wrong wheels, but won't man up to that fact, and thinks jumping on the HAMBwagon will get everyone on his side.

I'm also getting that the business owner doesn't handle customer relations very well and treats people who spend money with him like shit instead of working out the issues with the customer and trying to make things right. Because if he doesn't make things right, the credit card payment can be denied and he's shit out of a set of wheels.

A simple, "look kid, you ordered the wrong wheels. Ship them back to me on your dime, give me the exact measurements in writing, and I'll send you out another set of wheels if you cover the shipping back to you". So the wheel maker gets the wrong wheels back, sells them at a discount, whatever. The customer is happy because the company owner treated him right, but he's out some more cash because of his own personal ignorance. The customer tells everyone how happy he his about how he was an idiot but the wheelmaker made things right and then everybody is happy and rainbows appear, and unicorns fly around, and butterflies land on your nose.