Grumpy1822
Savage Owner
- Messages
- 790
- Location
- Kenner, Louisiana
After a concerning thread posted at s/c, I emailed RPM and they sent me this. I thought I would post it so everyone was clear on their warranty policies.
Dear Jimmy,
Thank you for your confidence in RPM products. We try our best to make the most rugged and durable products and at reasonable prices and it is always a pleasure to hear from end users such as yourself that appreciate the efforts we place into each and every part we build. Thank you for noticing!
With respect to this post on Savage-Central, thank you for giving us the opportunity to answer this situation. I apologize to both you and your readers for having this become a public disagreement. Yes, Mr. Perry did send in his three wheels and they were rejected under our warranty policy. We review each and every item that comes in to us for warranty consideration. Both myself (I design our products and build our molds) and the owner of RPM look over questionable issues and his was such. Upon inspection of Mr. Perry's wheels, all three had identical damage. In his statements to us, he said he only jumped the truck "5 feet in the air". As you can see by his statement on the message board, that was an understatement by almost half with which was clearly evident in the damage inflicted upon the wheels sent in. If the damage inflicted were done by "mild bashing" as Mr. Perry states, it is impossible to create identical damage on three separate wheels of the truck.
Now for the list of damages - All three wheels were crushed as mentioned in his post. Here is a direct quote from Mr. Perry's e-mail with respect to how his wheels ended up like that, "They also got oblong by trying to remove the tires by baking them and pulling and tugging on the tires" (emphasis added). With your position as a moderator on these message boards, I'm sure you've come across numerous posts where people had to remove their tires from their wheels and have you ever heard of such a thing? Neither have we. Anyway, the damage not only included the shape, but there were sections of all three wheels on the inside bead diameter (what he calls "tubes") that were pushed outward, cracking the wheels from the inside, meaning the force of the damage came from the center of the wheel outward. Whatever happened to the vehicle at the time the damage was inflicted was so great that it caused the wheel to compress to the extent that not only did it hit the carrier or a-arm, it hit so hard that the carrier or a-arm actually pushed into and through the wheel. To give you an idea of how strong our wheels are, the owner of the company actually ran over one of our wheels with his full-sized vehicle (Chevy 1500 extra cab) and didn't do as much damage to our wheels as was done to by this individual.
Next, Mr. Perry never stated whether this was three separate instances or from a single instance. If it was from a single instance, the only way to create identical damage at three separate corners of the vehicle in our experience would be if the truck were run over by a full-sized vehicle. That is obviously not covered by our warranty. If it were three separate instances, it is clearly obvious with our history of strength and durability that whatever he's doing is beyond the scope of our warranty anyway. Since Mr. Perry's statements have gone from 5 feet to 6 - 8 feet worth of air, I wouldn't be out of line to assume the jumps were even more extreme than that. With that in mind, let me reiterate a few things about or warranty policy. We have never made the claim that our warranty is "no questions asked". Our warranty policy is designed to protect the end user from materials and workmanship issues. Jumping an R/C vehicle 8 feet in the air and damaging something is not "normal" use nor does it constitute a materials or workmanship issue. We do have numerous customers out there that are doing some extreme things with our parts such as jumping over houses and they've never had a problem. It doesn't mean that's what they were designed for but they can handle some serious abuse, which you undoubtedly have experienced yourself.
With that said, we do have a very liberal warranty policy. We get customer's that break our parts doing extreme things every once in a while and if their attitude is good and understanding, we will sometimes take care of them with the understanding that if they do something like that again, it is at their own risk. Unfortunately, Mr. Perry didn't tell us what happened to the wheels in a note that should have been with the wheels when they arrived (as our warranty policy states), we had to use deductive reasoning to figure out what caused the problem. After we replied to him denying his warranty claim, he had that same negative attitude you see in his post, essentially stating that we're wrong and he's right. We expect our customers to take into consideration whether our parts failed because of a problem with the RPM part, design or material or because of what they were doing. In Mr. Perry's case, the problem had nothing to do with the design, structure or strength of our wheels. The problem was with his desire to do extreme things with his vehicle at our expense.
Once again, thank you for giving us a chance to comment here. If you would like further clarification, I would be more than happy to oblige. Take care Jimmy and I hope you have a great afternoon.
Best Regards,
Atticus Overbay
RPM R/C Products
Dear Jimmy,
Thank you for your confidence in RPM products. We try our best to make the most rugged and durable products and at reasonable prices and it is always a pleasure to hear from end users such as yourself that appreciate the efforts we place into each and every part we build. Thank you for noticing!
With respect to this post on Savage-Central, thank you for giving us the opportunity to answer this situation. I apologize to both you and your readers for having this become a public disagreement. Yes, Mr. Perry did send in his three wheels and they were rejected under our warranty policy. We review each and every item that comes in to us for warranty consideration. Both myself (I design our products and build our molds) and the owner of RPM look over questionable issues and his was such. Upon inspection of Mr. Perry's wheels, all three had identical damage. In his statements to us, he said he only jumped the truck "5 feet in the air". As you can see by his statement on the message board, that was an understatement by almost half with which was clearly evident in the damage inflicted upon the wheels sent in. If the damage inflicted were done by "mild bashing" as Mr. Perry states, it is impossible to create identical damage on three separate wheels of the truck.
Now for the list of damages - All three wheels were crushed as mentioned in his post. Here is a direct quote from Mr. Perry's e-mail with respect to how his wheels ended up like that, "They also got oblong by trying to remove the tires by baking them and pulling and tugging on the tires" (emphasis added). With your position as a moderator on these message boards, I'm sure you've come across numerous posts where people had to remove their tires from their wheels and have you ever heard of such a thing? Neither have we. Anyway, the damage not only included the shape, but there were sections of all three wheels on the inside bead diameter (what he calls "tubes") that were pushed outward, cracking the wheels from the inside, meaning the force of the damage came from the center of the wheel outward. Whatever happened to the vehicle at the time the damage was inflicted was so great that it caused the wheel to compress to the extent that not only did it hit the carrier or a-arm, it hit so hard that the carrier or a-arm actually pushed into and through the wheel. To give you an idea of how strong our wheels are, the owner of the company actually ran over one of our wheels with his full-sized vehicle (Chevy 1500 extra cab) and didn't do as much damage to our wheels as was done to by this individual.
Next, Mr. Perry never stated whether this was three separate instances or from a single instance. If it was from a single instance, the only way to create identical damage at three separate corners of the vehicle in our experience would be if the truck were run over by a full-sized vehicle. That is obviously not covered by our warranty. If it were three separate instances, it is clearly obvious with our history of strength and durability that whatever he's doing is beyond the scope of our warranty anyway. Since Mr. Perry's statements have gone from 5 feet to 6 - 8 feet worth of air, I wouldn't be out of line to assume the jumps were even more extreme than that. With that in mind, let me reiterate a few things about or warranty policy. We have never made the claim that our warranty is "no questions asked". Our warranty policy is designed to protect the end user from materials and workmanship issues. Jumping an R/C vehicle 8 feet in the air and damaging something is not "normal" use nor does it constitute a materials or workmanship issue. We do have numerous customers out there that are doing some extreme things with our parts such as jumping over houses and they've never had a problem. It doesn't mean that's what they were designed for but they can handle some serious abuse, which you undoubtedly have experienced yourself.
With that said, we do have a very liberal warranty policy. We get customer's that break our parts doing extreme things every once in a while and if their attitude is good and understanding, we will sometimes take care of them with the understanding that if they do something like that again, it is at their own risk. Unfortunately, Mr. Perry didn't tell us what happened to the wheels in a note that should have been with the wheels when they arrived (as our warranty policy states), we had to use deductive reasoning to figure out what caused the problem. After we replied to him denying his warranty claim, he had that same negative attitude you see in his post, essentially stating that we're wrong and he's right. We expect our customers to take into consideration whether our parts failed because of a problem with the RPM part, design or material or because of what they were doing. In Mr. Perry's case, the problem had nothing to do with the design, structure or strength of our wheels. The problem was with his desire to do extreme things with his vehicle at our expense.
Once again, thank you for giving us a chance to comment here. If you would like further clarification, I would be more than happy to oblige. Take care Jimmy and I hope you have a great afternoon.
Best Regards,
Atticus Overbay
RPM R/C Products
