Heads up .. Flaming River

[ironworks]

I have never had anything break like that from Flaming River. But I have had columns that rattle when new and racks that just die. When I made the switch to Ididit columns I felt they were just a better built column.

I had to deal with the warranty department at FR on a repair we had on a customers car built by another shop and the comment about never having seen that happen before is a common statement in the customer service industry for our world. I told him that's funny this customer has had this issue twice now on his car.

I had a ring gear in a Moser diff wear the hard facing off in like 300 miles on the Chevelle we built. And that was the easiest half throttle 300 miles so I knew we had not over done it when new. I now call when I order a diff and make sure the gear ratio I want is available in a US gear not some foreign crap. The last sales guys tried to make me feel stupid for asking him to check and I told him it has happened to me twice, it seems funny you have never heard of that issue and you might ask your sales manager "Kip" because that is how I got to know him was from this issue happening to me twice before, so if you could please check the brand of ring gear in stock. Thank you.

Sometimes these sale guys at the bigger companies seem like they just got a job down the street for their old job at Autozone or Pep Boys. It really is bad for the company as these guy are their front line with the customer.

[GregWeld]

Originally Posted by ironworks

I had a ring gear in a Moser diff wear the hard facing off in like 300 miles on the Chevelle we built. And that was the easiest half throttle 300 miles so I knew we had not over done it when new.

Rudy and I always drop by to see my buddy Barry White (he did a lot of early work on the Nomad - and I found the Nomad via Barry 15 years ago).... and while there we started talking shop... He's telling me about MOSER... and the 3 bad ring gears he went thru in one customers build... REALLY LOW miles as in less than 500 and the gears were SHOT.

That was a "wow" to me because I always thought of them as very high quality providers...

I've had very good luck with Yukon from Randy's Ring and Pinion... Never once had a howler or a bad set... SO FAR.

[ironworks]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

Rudy and I always drop by to see my buddy Barry White (he did a lot of early work on the Nomad - and I found the Nomad via Barry 15 years ago).... and while there we started talking shop... He's telling me about MOSER... and the 3 bad ring gears he went thru in one customers build... REALLY LOW miles as in less than 500 and the gears were SHOT.

That was a "wow" to me because I always thought of them as very high quality providers...

I've had very good luck with Yukon from Randy's Ring and Pinion... Never once had a howler or a bad set... SO FAR.

The way I understood my issue was that it was more of a Richmond Gear problem. The gears used to be made in the US and Italy. Well when they went to the where ever to have the gears made, they were not nearly as good. When we removed the gear it had just worn the hard facing off the gear.

[FRJohn]

If anyone has any questions or concerns for a part you purchased please feel free to give me a call. 440-824-2168 direct line

John
Flaming River

[DBasher]

Thanks for chiming in and giving those who have purchased your product an opportunity to make it right. With that being said, do you care to expand on the QC or manufacturing process FR uses?

[ironworks]

Originally Posted by DBasher

Thanks for chiming in and giving those who have purchased your product an opportunity to make it right. With that being said, do you care to expand on the QC or manufacturing process FR uses?

[70 tt rustang]

Honestly i did want to post this but i figured since we were at this point i should. I have my car in the home stretch so i had my tuner come and put a street tune in my friends shop. Car was running no leaks everything was double checked because i wanted a street tune iam not into dyno #s. So he proceed to tune the car for an hour or so and i her a pop and fulid hitting the floor and a yell! What happened was the seal on the steering shaft on rack blew out, inturn makeing the steering wheel cut right pinning my guys arm that was through the steering wheel against the dash! He shouldn't of had his arm in the wheel and thankfully hit was extremely bruised and not broken which i could of swore when he hopped out. What scares me is that we could of been in the street driving when this happened and it would of been much worse! I proceeded to contact flaming river and they wanted to know nothing about it, they dont even rebuild my style rack. I wonder why, so they tell me my cradle is not compatible with there new racks. So they tell me i have to get a hole new setup for 2k ( iam goin with a manual rack, iam too worried about this happening again). I was hoping they would step up in some way by offering some sort of explanation, help or even a discount to keep me as a customer.
Maybe iam old school but this is not the way things are supposed to work. Iam still looking for options or answers.
Thanks

[214Chevy]

Originally Posted by FRJohn

If anyone has any questions or concerns for a part you purchased please feel free to give me a call. 440-824-2168 direct line

John
Flaming River

It's amazing how word gets around when a buzz is started on a forum about how bad a manufacturer is. Then suddenly a spokesman joins to clear up the mess they could have already fixed by doing the right thing in the beginning when said customer called and wanted good customer service. Once this issue is muted and goes away, FRJohn probably won't post anymore. But, I will say, at least we hope they make this right.

[E.rodz]

Originally Posted by FRJohn

If anyone has any questions or concerns for a part you purchased please feel free to give me a call. 440-824-2168 direct line

John
Flaming River

I really don't approve of bashing on this site.I have seen many people complain about there u joints binding and the first thing they want to do is to blame junk products and point the finger at someone and bash the heck out of a good company have seen there posts and there u joints are out of phase! but this does not appear to be the case in this situation. it does appear that he has also tried to give you guys a chance to make things right? your companies stuff is way more expensive than other companies products and have in the past been great quality stuff.so this is a great opportunity to make everyone at ease and please try to make things right and please post it on here because lots of people would like to hear the other side of the story!

[FRJohn]

Flaming River is a ISO 9001 Certified Company, we manufacture 96% of our part numbers in the U.S. including Steering Columns, Column Accessories, U-Joints, Vega - Mustang - Mopar - Corvair -T-Bucket Manual Steering Boxes, Power Rack and Pinions and many more.

All of our Power Rack and Pinions and Steering Boxes are computer tested for the correct amount travel and torque. Each part is given a serial number and are sent with a "Dyno" type sheet. The serial numbers allow us to track the parts back to the day they were built, who built them and what the original test numbers were.

The u-joints actually take this even farther, with the serial number that is on each yoke we can trace it as far back as when the material came into the door.

Again if anyone has any concerns, Please feel free to call me. My Direct Number is 440-824-2168. This will ring bypass the operators and goes direct to my office.

John
Flaming River Industries