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Gruppe-S review thread (merged thread)

79K views 331 replies 189 participants last post by  anxiouz 
#1 ·
As a follow-up to my post here:
http://www.clubwrx.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6393&pagenumber=3

Ordered HKS downpipe ($175 shipped) Friday August 2nd about 9pm CST (7pm PDT). Had billing information that night along with a tracking #. Package arrived right on time after being shipped Monday. Arrived with all necessary gaskets, well packaged. Could not have experienced a smoother transaction from start to finish!

It was a complete 180 from Vivid, who, BTW, emailed me on Friday, nearly two weeks after I ordered and a week after I cancelled to tell me that my credit card was declined. Well, geez, for the first time in my life I was HAPPY that my CC was denied!! :rolleyes: [sarcasm] Thanks for checking your email, and staying on top of things, Vivid... [/sarcasm]
 
#127 ·
I've ordered gaskets from them before, and no prob...
Now its on to the bigger things, my tranny just went :sadwave: so I told the tranny shop to order from Gruppe-s, the STi V6 Ra gearset, ACT Clutch, ACT streetlite Flywheel, synchros, and bearings... about $2500 total :eek3: best prices and free ship. Calvin took the order, hope he gave me a discount.
Get it to me faster and I'll prolly by a turbo kit from you guys!
P.S. thank God for my Tax Return
 
#128 ·
I ordered some gaskets from them, and didn't get a shipping confirmation. I tried contacting them by email, using 3 different addresses, after a week had gone by with no confirmation. Finally I got pissed and posted a negative review on their vendor thread at Nasioc, and within the hour I had a reply from someone there that they were backordered. I finally got them after another week had gone by, and the uppipe gasket was bent because of the crappy way they packaged them. I thought they were a great vendor in the past, but I think those people must have left the company. If they want people to call and nag about every single order, then they should get an 800 number.
 
#131 ·
yeah my girlfriend ordered me a Cusco rear strutt bar and V-brace from them and she called back to cancel it and they didnt answer and finally on the 4th email they responded. If they're not careful they could turn into Vivid Racing. But I understand that when you get a lot more business and probably dont have the staff to handle the business you get behind. I'll order from them again. But customer service is key.
 
#132 ·
Hmm, seems like they're really busy right now. One or two months ago, I e-mailed 3 times and they responded within hours... I think they are just busy. If the items are in stock, you should get your things in just less than a week or at least from my experience. Don't know about out of stock items.
 
#133 ·
freeking inflation.. all these people can afford parts and then they get understaffed.. looks like they need to hire some more people on or get some better communication with their vendors. I still really want to order the helix sways from them. and i probably will. seems like they are trying, i dont wanna wait a month though
 
#134 ·
GIRex said:
freeking inflation.. all these people can afford parts and then they get understaffed.. looks like they need to hire some more people on or get some better communication with their vendors. I still really want to order the helix sways from them. and i probably will. seems like they are trying, i dont wanna wait a month though

I just ordered these and endlinks and got them in 5 days. They said they only has 10 in stock though so you might want to call. My Blitz DTT 2 won't be here until next Friday they said it was out of stock, although I'm sure they said it was in stock.

As far as customer service goes they've been good, I've called twice and someone picked up right away. I emailed them once and got a reply in one day.
 
#135 ·
Being busy is no excuse for ignoring customers. I will not buy from gruppe-s now because of the near complete consensus from customers that gruppe-s is neglecting their business duties.
 
#136 ·
Wade-0 said:
I ordered some gaskets from them, and didn't get a shipping confirmation. I tried contacting them by email, using 3 different addresses, after a week had gone by with no confirmation. Finally I got pissed and posted a negative review on their vendor thread at Nasioc, and within the hour I had a reply from someone there that they were backordered. I finally got them after another week had gone by, and the uppipe gasket was bent because of the crappy way they packaged them. I thought they were a great vendor in the past, but I think those people must have left the company. If they want people to call and nag about every single order, then they should get an 800 number.
I don't think they give confirmation on small packages like gaskets because it goes out "first class mail" not UPS or Fedex so no tracking # is provided either.
 
#137 ·
I called gruppe-s yesterday b/c I was ordering the STi RA gearsets, they said the last one was bought on monday :( and it takes 4-6 weeks for them to get them from Japan, so.. I know its not their fault, but it f---in sucks for me. I have no car until I get a new tranny in there.

Anyone know where I can find one sooner?
 
#139 · (Edited)
I've changed my mind about Gruppe-S.

EDIT: Since making this thread, Gary has contacted me several times, and he has been very honest about the situation and has been very upfront with everything. He offered to refund my money, but I'm considering putting it towards other suspension parts, as I'll need that taken care of anyway. I'm very glad that Gary took the time to respond to this thread, and that he has been very helpful rather than getting angry with my expressing my original dissatifaction with Gruppe-S. I'm not going to delete what I originally wrote, because I would like to keep this thread intact to see what the original problem was, and how Gruppe-S responded. Right now, my confidence in them has been reinstated, and I am sure that I will order from the in the future, as prior to this experience, they have been a very good vendor. Thanks again, Gary.

Additional Edit: I just got off the phone with Gary, and I must say that the situation has been resolved very well, and Gary has gone out of his way to make the best of an unfortunate situation. I am very pleased with his costumer service, and I will definitely be ordering from him in the future. :thumbup: to Gary at Gruppe-S for going out of his way to handle the situation. I'd feel good about recommending Gruppe-S to others in the future!

I have ordered a number of things from Gruppe-S since 2002, and I have always had absolutely no difficulty with them whatsoever. I even posted in other threads denouncing Gruppe-S saying that they have always been a good vendor to me, and they have always been expediant with their delivery, et cetera. However, I don't think I will be ordering from them anymore, because I have been getting exceptionally bad customer service with my last order.

On Jan. 11, I ordered GC KYB AGX struts and Eibach springs. I didn't get a shipping number, so I called them a couple days later, and they told me they were on backorder, and they would come in on Monday (it was the Friday after I ordered them). This didn't bother me at all, because I understand that things get backordered, and you can't ship a product that you don't have. I would have appreciated an email telling me this, but oh well.

I called them that Monday, and they said they hadn't come in, and they would call their supplier and then call me and tell me when they were expected them. They never called me back. I called back a few days later, and they told me the same thing. I checked to make sure they had my phone number, which they did, and they said they were going to check with them again and return my call. Once again, they never did. I called them again on Friday, and they told me the same thing. I haven't gotten a return phone call from them once. In fact, I haven't gotten any kind of notification from them at all for an order I placed almost a month ago. Needless to say, I've very displeased.

So I'm going to call them tomorrow and cancel my order. Honestly, I'm in no huge rush to get my shocks and springs. I completely understand things not being in stock, and I can deal with that. It's not really a big deal. However, I don't think it is too much to ask that the a customer be notified if the product they ordered is not in stock, and I definitely don't think a return phone call would be too difficult, even if it is to say that they don't know when they're going to get more in stock. This ordeal has made me lose a lot of confidence in Gruppe-S, and I don't think I will be ordering from them again.
 
#140 ·
I got a runaround when I bought my turbo. Their customer service is horrible. Their lies are horrible. I sell parts all day, everyday, and I wouldn't dream of ignoring customers they way they do. Ignore your customers, and they will go away. Gruppe-s needs to take some lessons from vendors like Dave at Oakos. So far everytime I order from him, his customer service is second to none. His website is constantly updated with what is available and what isn't. He ships on time, packs the parts well, and backs you if you have a problem. I would order a part from him even if it costs more than elsewhere just for the peace of mind that I would be taken care of.

Gruppe-s, if you're reading this, you need to come up to speed before you lose customers. You are going down the same road Vivid did.
 
#142 ·
I had the same problems...not to beat a dead horse, but basically....call, nothing, call again, nothing, call again "oh yeah sure it's on its way", then more nothing....

-Never return calls
- Don't ship on time
-Their website is TOTALLY out of date
-Play runaround games on the phone.

I dunno, they're losing it....
 
#143 ·
evL`WrX said:
whos vivid?
Vivid is Vivid Racing. They're here in Tempe, AZ and have the worse customer service. They are more worried about their own cars than their customers. Don't ever order anything from them it took my mom ( cause she's great at layin the law down) threatening to call the better business burea on them to get my BOV. It took them over a month to ship this to me by the way and we called them atleast 2-3 times a week they said they couldnt overnight it to us but when they got threatened it was on my porch the next day.. But to get back on topic yeah that is very disappointing about Gruppe-S Customer Service is key to good business.
 
#144 ·
I was also dissapointed with them when I ordered an uppipe. Same story "oh yeah, we will ship it tonight." I call back the next day to get the tracking # "oh, it didn't go out last night but it will definatly go out tonight." repeat twice more. That left me very dissapointed.

I'm not trying to "bash" Gruppe-S, as I did get my downpipe as soon as they got it in stock, but i'm dissapointed because someone from Gruppe-S actually came on here a few months back and vowed that things would start to improve in the customer service department and so far...well, looks like it's gotten worse. :(
 
#145 ·
Trainrex said:
Gruppe-s needs to take some lessons from vendors like Dave at Oakos. So far everytime I order from him, his customer service is second to none. His website is constantly updated with what is available and what isn't. He ships on time, packs the parts well, and backs you if you have a problem. I would order a part from him even if it costs more than elsewhere just for the peace of mind that I would be taken care of.
Dave is my favorite vendor, hands down. The best to deal with. :thumbup:
 
#150 ·
Hi guys,

I'm very sorry for all the problems experienced by everyone. :(

For those of you that may not know, two of our sales team left the company in december, one of our sales team left for vacation from december to late january, and two of the partners traveled to Japan for business in January, which really just left myself and Preston to attempt to maintain some type of continuity in the company during the month of January.

Zoophagy - I'm very sorry, I think I took your order. Our supplier for KYB stopped carrying KYB without telling us. I should have done a better job of following up with the supplier, which I didn't. :(

Trainrex - I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with your order. :(

Timdog & Vitamin WRX - I'm very sorry for your experiences. I can't recall a case where anyone has intentionally gave the customer the runaround. However there were many times where we have either given the shipping guys a shipping label or faxxed over a purchase order for a drop ship item, believing that the item was shipping out, only to find out for some reason or another it wasn't. Obviously this is an internal problem that needs to be fixed, but I hope you guys don't feel we were intentionally decieving you guys - we don't do that, but sometimes there are communication problems between us and our suppliers. We are doing our best to fix this problem.

Trainrex - We do give everyone tracking numbers when their order is ready to ship. Sometimes the tracking numbers don't track usually do to the following reasons:
1. Shipping guys backlogged or FEDEX truck full (we have over 100 packages shipping everyday). Most of these packages are fairly bulky (exhaust systems, body kits, etc.). Sometimes they don't get to it, but if they don't, you can pretty much bet it will ship within 24 hours.
2. Product is not ready to ship - this is primarily either our inventory was wrong, or the shipping guys found a problem with the package (mislabel, damaged etc.) - we try our very best to inform our customers in this situation, but admittedly things sometimes fall through the crack. We will try better here
3. FEDEX loses or damages the product - Believe it or not this happens way more frequently that we would like. Our current FEDEX claims are over $14,000 USD.

Guys, I'm very very sorry for those of you that have had bad experiences. :( With two new guys in shipping and one new sales associate this month, we will be doing our best at providing the very best customer service and trying to win you back as a customer. If you ever are having any difficulties or customer service issues, please give me personally a call or an e-mail, and I promise I will do my very best to try to resolve the situation.

Sincerely,

Gary
Managing Partner
Gruppe-S Engineering LLC
gary@gruppe-s.com
510-783-5300
510-783-4300 fax
 
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