Wheel Nightmare / Part 2 / KOREA?
 

So some of you may have followed the other thread where I ended up with 4 new Volks TE37, 2 of which were the wrong size.

So back on April 12, I ordered 2 more, in the right sizing and in Matte Black through a company called Velocity Factor, while I was visiting in Pompano Florida, and the company assures me there will be no problem having them shipped to my home in CANADA.

They 'assure' me the wheels will ship from Cali ASAP and I will have them in 5-10 business days.

A week goes by and nothing, so I call them and I get a tracking number, which means a label was created but nothing was received by USPS until April 26, two weeks after my order.

Ok whatever not the end of the world, so I'm tracking and checking for updates every couple days until this morning I wake up and see this:

Label/Receipt Number: CJ18 4749 425U S
Class: Priority Mail International Parcels
Service(s): International Parcels
Status: Into Foreign Customs

Your item is being processed by customs in KOREA. Information, if available, is updated periodically throughout the day. Please check again later.

Detailed Results:

Into Foreign Customs, May 09, 2011, 2:15 pm, KOREA
Arrived Abroad, May 09, 2011, 2:14 pm, KOREA
International Dispatch, May 05, 2011, 2:35 pm, ISC LOS ANGELES CA (USPS)
Arrival
Acceptance, May 04, 2011, 3:58 pm, SANTA FE SPRINGS, CA 90670
Electronic Shipping Info Received, April 26, 2011


WTF?!?! My wheels are in Korean Customs?

I called the company obviously pissed off, and the guy answering the phone sounds as surprised as I was, and says he'll look into it and get back to me. He calls me after 10 mins later and says someone messed up in Cali, and he's going to try to get them to overnight the wheels to me.

They're in Korean Customs, how is he going to get them out? Realistically what is the soonest you guys think I can expect them? :shakes head:

Honestly I can't catch a break to save my life on these fvcking wheels....

Could be worse. They could be in North Korea. Then you'd never see them :rofl2:

Sorry to hear all of the hell you're going through for the wheels, but at least you'll really, REALLY appreciate them when they do arrive! :tup:

Dude that really sucks... I hope you get the right wheels soon. If they can have it rerouted directly to you from Korea, that might be ideal. Either way I think you're probably looking at a week at least to get all this sorted out...

this is why you make it a point for any company you buy things from internationally to ship with fedex express (especially for canada). im not sure which service on ups' side you need to use, but with fedex express, they have a dedicated customs division to expedite items like this.

(note: i used to work for fedex express). if you ship via fedex express, not only do you not have to pay an outrageous customs fee, as soon as the label is printed and submitted to fedex, the entire customs process starts. and hopefully by the time it lands, the customs process is complete and customs officials can check the shipment and get it out to you ASAP. if there any issues (such as this one, where your wheels ended up in korea), you have an agent who will do all the work for you. i dont know how USPS works, but i know most, if not all government agencies take their sweet time.

anyway...sorry for the blurb. hope you get your wheels in a timely fashion!

phelan- this is not the time to be joking around! :mad: although :rofl2:I LOL'ed.

If they can get it out of the country today 5/10 korea time it should be there by 5/12 ure time. :) hang in there!!

bummer man. gotta love things like this.

I know one thing I'm starting to see alot of is Vendors here advertising products here, then you call them up and they don't have them there. It's at there distributor. So you pay. They call over to there distributor to place the order and find out they don't have them either. Then not offer you anything in exchange.

Yup, I will never take them for granted.

It sucks double azz not being able to drive my Z with such beatiful weather, because my winter setup is still on the car, since I sold the sport 19's so I have nothing until the TE37's arrive.

:shakes head:

Yup, I have noticed this trend also. A lot of vendors have no problem taking your cash and making promises regarding shipping/delivery dates without even having the item in stock.

This often leads to a disappointed customer.

:iagree: yah I've been hit the same way number of times. I did all the leg work too like ure doing right now. :ugh2:

this is why i like buying [slightly] used wheels from people that have already gone through all the trouble of getting them..


Thanks guys!

on a serious note, that sucks and your looking at at least a week

Get me a ticket to South Korea, I get them for you and while I'm there I can get me soon Korean female pie. ;)

WTF? Korea? What were they smoking when they printed that shipping label.

Yeah, I've found this out as well. Very annoying.

Thanks to the economy, not much vendors stocks stuff now, especially expensive stuff like TE37s

Some vendors are good enough to keep you in the loop about stuff like this though and at least refund your money if things are not in stock. More often than not, you have vendors that won't do much except take your money.

Just gotta hang in there man, some people have waited months and even more than a year for their wheels.

they don't have another set they can send you in the meantime? and have the set in korea be sent back to them....

Good question, I actually asked them about this, but apparently there are zero 19 9.5 +22 Matte Black Volks TE37 in Cali.

I called about 4 different vendors and nobody had them in stock, all would have had to have them shipped from Japan...

Forged Performance stocks a lot of Volks.

some vendors suck... im dealing with one right now too in the background.

biggest problem with a lot of these shops (especially ones run by kids) is they're too small and dont have much leverage to do anything especially internationally due to lack of experience, lack of face (no one knows them). also the forwarders and services some of them use are crap to begin with and they make YOU feel like you're a burden to them while it's the other way around.

hang in there Jjaden!! :tup:

Thanks Ken, to take my mind off things I took a set of Center Caps I got a while ago, and decided to fiddle around with them.

I sanded down the silver lip and painted them Matte Black to match the TE37's.

This should cause the center cap to blend into the wheel more, which is the effect I am going for.

What do you guys think about the end result?

^^ that looks frikken awesome. :tup:

I won't be getting ANYTHING from "Velocity Factor"!! That is RaDICKalus!

That's sick! I would love to do that to my center caps. Did you just tape of the center and spray paint them?


Back on topic: I have several buddies that have shops. Just about all vendors drop ship from a distributor or the manufacturer. It saves them from having to stock parts for long periods of time. Believe it or not It actually saves the customer some money. However I do think the vendors should have a better grasp on what they can get and when. It's too often that you find a great price but then 2 weeks later you get notice that a product is out of stock, then they try to sell you something else instead. Not good business! I respect the vendors that apologize and immediately refund your money.

Wow!
I hope you don't get slammed with import/brokerage fee's!

yep, they need to have more leverage with the manufacturer in Japan, not just their distributor stateside. in order to do that they need to buy more volume and have actual connection with the manfucture in person...which most small shop can't support (which ultimately leads them to sell cheap replicas and crap).

if we're going to be buying from local distributors i rather have a big shop like superautobacs make a great online store and just dominate our market so we can buy everything from them at the discounted price without having to worry about these low-level clerk mistakes. i dont have time for this kind of crap.

if local shops specialize in custom work or installation i think that's great to have a all-in-one solution for local customers and such shops should be supported. but shops that just sell product from a shared distribution center run by kids... man that's like a business model from 10yrs ago, yet they still manage to screw up your order. :ugh2:

I said not much, not ALL.

I would've been surprised if somebody actually had them in stock. Mine had to be built and shipped from Japan. Took 4 months to get them from time of order. Not sure if they went through Korea though.

Even from a reputable vendor, The Volks I ordered for my Mazdaspeed3 had to be built and then shipped from Japan to California, then to Pennsylvania. Total time was around 15 weeks.
I can't imagine how any vendor could possibly stock each style of wheel in every combination of colour option, diameter, width and offset, not to mention lug patterns! When I order something that's a more expensive and exclusive item, I don't expect it to be in stock. If it was readily available, everyone would be sporting it.
Food for thought.




Centre caps look awesome!

Don't get your ballz in a bunch, I'm just saying. They specialize in Zs and usually have a lot in stock. maybe it will help someone in the future. I think they actually move more volks than any other dealer.

Luna- don't know about ur ms3, but vendors can move a lot more wheels if they simply have knowledge of popular sizes and colors and keep them in stock. Rays wheels should not be that exclusive unless rays themselves lack manufacturing capacity...honestly they are overrated wheels to be used on street. :)