Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

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Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby chuckthebeatertruck » Sat Jun 02, 2018 9:03 am

This post concerns a set of UL cams I had reground by Paul Friebus at American Cycle Fabrication. I'm posting because I know many of have more than one old bike in the stable.

Long story short, Paul did some seriously shoddy work and sent me back two rusty cams and two useless cams.

The whole saga is on the xl forum here

http://xlforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2057031

I know Paul us supposed to have a sterling reputation, and I was honestly SHOCKED at the crap I received.

If you've had a better experience, bravo. Mine was terrible and I feel totally hosed.
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby thefrenchowl » Sun Jun 03, 2018 4:22 am

I feel your pain, this is not on...

Patrick
Flat Head Forever
https://web.archive.org/web/20071011184353/http://www.harleykrxlrtt.com/index.htm
I'm the one who has to die when it's time for me to die so let me live my life the way I want to...
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby Redpan » Sun Jun 03, 2018 9:25 am

I'm not impressed with his ULH cylinders.
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby Ferrous_Head » Sun Jun 03, 2018 3:32 pm

Do we have an"Unreliable resources and suppliers page here ?

I know we have one for good parts and services - seems we should have one for bad ones as well.

Could kick it off with Cycle Fab from what I'm hearing.
"I know only too well the evil that I propose, but my inclinations get the better of me."
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby Mutt » Sun Jun 03, 2018 5:03 pm

I agree 100%. Give honor to whom honor is due and dishonor to whom dishonor is due
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby chuckthebeatertruck » Mon Jun 04, 2018 11:26 am

Well, I tried contacting them on Friday and Saturday -- both days they are "open." I tried the telephone -- no answer. I sent two sets of emails with photos of the damage and rust. I tried ebay messaging and facebook messaging. Birds chirp louder.

So I opened a PayPal dispute today. We'll see if that gets their attention.

I have never had a company be so responsive in "winning" my business, then go radio silent for several months, and then send me junk parts back and not respond at all.

Really, all I want is to exchange the crap cams. I can toss the other rusty ones in my tumbler and clean them up (though I shouldn't have to!) -- but I can't/won't run the other cams.

I can't figure out how a shop with this reputation could turn out such shoddy work.

But, I have a suspicion. They already deleted one of Ferrous Head's comments on their Facebook page. I wonder if they actively suppress criticism and build up praise. I had this exact same issue with another well known vendor this winter that ripped me off on a set of connecting rods and came up with every excuse in the book. I learned later they are "friends" with the moderators of other forums and work to remove any negative comments!

Yeah internet freedom! :evil:

I'll post if they make this right -- but I stand by what I wrote. Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication.
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby Mutt » Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:14 pm

Yeah, I got one for y'all too. I was gonna buy some more parts from FlatlandMotorcycleCompany/45PartsDepot. Kurt's wife evidently runs the website. They had a FREE SHIPPING offer going on. Problem is shipping was NOT free and I emailed them and asked them why they would try to decieve people into thinking they were getting free shipping when they weren't getting any such thing. FREE means NO CHARGE.
It's the same senario ya see on TV. Buy one, the a second one free, just pay seperate processing and handling. Problem with them was this, you buy up to $10 worth, you paid $4.95 "handling" , up to $25 (or something like that) and you pay $12 "handling"

Strange how with each increment, the "handling" charge was the exact same amount as the next size USPS Flat Rate shipping box.. I called them on it. She sent me a nasty letter, then banned me from buying parts from them. What a sorry business model to say the least................................

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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby chuckthebeatertruck » Mon Jun 04, 2018 2:44 pm

Mutt; that's nothing.

Read the below, which I posted to the XL forum earlier this year in a review of good and bad companies:

45 Parts Depot/Flatland Motorcycle Company -- This one was the mother of all "WTF" this winter. I ordered just under $1000 in parts at the New Year. At first, Wendy (the wife half of the husband and wife team over there) was very nice and responsive; we had some fun email conversations and I was genuinely enjoying the transaction. But it got weird fast. The first communication was to let me know they'd "consider" letting me use a credit card to pay for the parts. Normally, they will only take an EBT for parts orders that size to avoid paying excessive bank fees.

Seriously.

That is NOT my problem as the customer -- that is your problem as the business. And, no, I'm not directly transferring you cash. What's my recourse if you flake?

Eventually, they let me pay by PayPal . . .and I'm glad I did.

First, my parts shipment was delayed 4 weeks waiting on a set of connecting rods. The first message said the rods were in transit from New Jersey and held up due to the snow storms. Then, they were "in Tucson" but not delivered to the company for a couple of days. Finally, they were shipped with the rest of my order.

When the rods arrived, they were not in a box -- just wrapped in wax paper with bubble wrap. Hmmm, that's odd.

Went to check out the rods and found they were .010 oversize. Yep, the races were ground 10 over and the supplied crank pin was 10 over as well. I don't even know who makes a 10 over crank pin. But the pin was so poorly machined it was laughable. The threads were so rough I couldn't even thread the nuts on without serious binding and the surface finish was just terrible. We won't even talk about the supplied bearings and cages . . . junk is a nice word.

It took two text messages, two voicemails, and three emails before I suddenly got an email back from Kurt -- the husband half of the team. He swore up and down these were the same rods they'd supplied for years but that their vendor had gone out of business and sold the inventory to another company. Well, that's a different story than the "in transit from New Jersey." The story kept changing slightly as I pushed -- just enough for me to know something was up -- especially when Kurt refused to refund me until after I shipped the rods back to the company THEY BOUGHT THEM FROM. That's right, they didn't want the rods back. WTF?

I eventually got it sorted and when he sent me the return shipping label (no way I was paying shipping on this steaming pile) -- the label was for Castleland motorcycle parts in Batavia, Ohio. I went online and Castleland is selling these rod sets for just over 200 bucks on ebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Harley-Big-...dUNDmk&vxp=mtr

well, actually, if you look Castleland sells them for two different prices . . .

Kurt and Wendy charged me $528 for a "superior set of rods made in Japan."

Right after my exchanges with Kurt their website was updated to say the rods were back ordered and they've also upped the price to over $600:
http://www.flatlandmotorcyclecompany...-Prodview.html

Notice that the bottom of the site says these rods are made by the same company as their 45 rods and they've sold 100s without a problem . . .

When I confronted him about it -- the excuse was that "I was told these were the rods we used to sell." He then went on to say "I didn't see the rods . . . so I can't vouch for them -- Wendy just shipped them out." No apology for seriously ripping me off and misrepresenting what I was getting. The only "apology" was that he's working on new rods and they'll be better. I don't mind mark up -- it's part of the game, but buying a set of junk rods and selling them to me for more than double the retail price you paid --- that's just plain wrong.

At least they refunded me. If he'd just come clean from the beginning, I wouldn't even be writing this. I'm still debating posting it on the AMCA forum -- but I know he'll just go nuts on me and swear up and down it wasn't his fault. Well, I've got a bunch of emails with this all laid out. And, I think you all can tell I have an ability to type.

The biggest problem is that Kurt goes NUTS on anyone who criticizes his business and blames the customer every single time. If you search some forums, AMCA, S&S, etc, you'll see this time and time again. His common line is: "how am I supposed to improve quality if the customer doesn't contact me and just posts on line?" Well, I contacted him and he told me to fly a kite.

I will never, ever do business with him again and because he was such a butt hole to me, I DO hope they lose business. They are nothing more than a glorified outlet for Eastern, V-twin, and Colony. I've got access to all three through much better, kinder, and responsive vendors.

It seems folks like these "protect" their reputations by crushing true reviews of what went wrong and labeling the customer as difficult.

I am NOT difficult -- I'm one of the most easy going people you'll ever meet. But I don't suffer fools and when I'm putting mortgage payments out there for parts -- I expect what I paid for; not some trumped up junk.
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby Mutt » Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:03 pm

Yes sir, I had read that just recently.

Castleland got hooked up with Dixie years ago, selling them boxes to ship parts in. I guess maybe Castleland and Dixie horse traded and Castleland got a buttload of parts from Dixie.

He's one of those sellers that list it for a high price and a lower price, hoping someone will see if for $79.95 and a few auctions down, he'll see the same part for $69.95 and buy it, thinking he's getting a good deal.

I bought Dixie stuff for many years, a lot of NOS 45 parts, some repop stuff that was good and some was from India which was not so good. But selling stuff for over retail price (up-selling) is a terible business model. Shame that's becoming the AmeriKan way.

Don't believe me, look at some prices on eBay, then google teh same parts elsewhere. I saw a case of 24 cans of Hormel
potted meat on eBay (retail price at Dollar General $12) the seller was trying to sell it for $2,000.00 a case <<<WTF>>>
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Re: Do not do business with American Cycle Fabrication

Postby chuckthebeatertruck » Mon Jun 18, 2018 12:24 pm

UPDATE:

On Thursday, Paul and I missed one another on the telephone. However, we did connect on email.

Here's the skinny; per Paul and Denise, they have a new mechanic. That mechanic failed to bead blast, clean, and oil the cams before shipping == hence the rust issues. The pitting on the #4 cam teeth was just an oversite -- no one is sure how the tooth got chipped on the #2 cam.

Paul agreed to exchange the #2 and #4 cams.

This is really all I was after.

I did run the #1 and #3 cams through the vibratory tumbler with course walnut shells. It took 72 hours to take all the rust off -- but they look good now.

Once I get the replacement cams back; I'll post the full grind specs.
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