If you are thinking about buying Forgestar, take a few minutes to read the horror story that is my personal experience with their company. Many on this forum have followed the story since about a month in when I kept getting delays, but I wanted to post everything in one central location for anyone that has thought about buying their wheels.
Let me start off by saying that nothing said below should be taken to reflect poorly on the dealer that sold me the wheels. Mike at DoubleDown Motorsports handled my purchase extremely well, and I couldn’t have asked for much more from him. Thank you, Mike.
The timeline:
Week 1 – I ordered the wheels from DoubleDown Motorports on June 8th, 2009. At this time, I was told that the lead-time on ordered wheels is approximately 2-3 weeks according to the manufacturer.
Week 2 – I talked to Mike about a week and a half into the order and he told me that Forgestar had finished the wheels, and they just needed to have the bolt-holes drilled and pinstripes done.
Week 3 - I talk to Mike again only to find out that there were flaws in the finish, so Forgestar sent them back to be re-finished. I’m ok with this, and happy that it was caught in Quality Control and not shipped to me with the flaws.
Week 6 – In the last couple weeks, the only updates I have gotten are that Forgestar is going through some problems with their processes, and they are working to get things back in order. Finally in week 6, Mike says that Forgestar has everything running smoothly again, and that my wheels will be finished on July 30th, approximately a week later.
Week 7 – Forgestar hasn’t scheduled the pinstriper, so the wheels will not be shipping on-time. No estimate of when they will be delivered was given.
Week 8 – I talked to Mike, and he was told the wheels should be finished today, pinstriped tomorrow, and shipped the day after.
Week 9 – Now Forgestar is telling Mike that the wheels aren’t even back from being re-finished, so they don’t have an estimate on when they will be completed. Later that week Forgestar expects that they will be back from the powdercoater on August 17th, a few days later. Forgestar places the blame on the delays on their powdercoater.
Week 10 – I am now given a COMPLETELY different story. Forgestar now says that the finish I ordered, Piano Black, was back-ordered and that everything up to this point has been wrong. To try and ship the wheels out faster, they got a set of titanium finished wheels and are going to strip them and powdercoat them a gloss black. Basically, everything so far has been bullsh*t.
Week 11 – Wheels went to the powdercoater but the powdercoater refused them saying that they hadn’t properly stripped the titanium finish. Forgestar brought the wheels back to the blaster to have them re-blasted, and then sent them again to the powdercoater. Was given an estimated shipping date of August 25th.
Week 12 – August 26th rolls around, and Forgestar says that 3 wheels are done, but 1 of them has a “defect” in the finish so it had to go back and get re-powdercoated. I was told this shortly after a conversation I had with Vince at Forgestar in which he told me that multiple powdercoating heat cycles can cause issues with the structural integrity of a wheel. They are now “thinking” it should be back and finished by Friday or Monday the 31st. Later that week I was offered to wait another 2-4 weeks for a brand new set of wheels to avoid re-powdercoating.
Week 13 – Forgestar claims the wheels are still at the stripper, and supposed to be off to the powdercoater in the next couple days. Was given a completion date of September 30th (about 4 weeks) if I opted for the new set of wheels. I told them that I will take either a new set, or the re-finished set AS LONG AS they pass quality control.
Week 14 – Forgestar says the wheels are at the powdercoater again, expected to be back by Thursday of this week and hoping to have them pinstriped and shipped by Friday.
Week 15 – Updated on Monday that the wheels are still not back from the powdercoater. Come Wednesday, the wheels finally come back from the powdercoater. I originally got no response for an estimated shipping date, and finally called forgestar directly on Thursday and spoke with Peter. He said the wheels are sitting and waiting for the go-ahead from Vince to pinstripe, but Vince didn’t come in that day. He said if they get pinstriped Friday, they will ship Monday, September 21st. Vince had told me in a previous e-mail that he wanted to personally inspect the wheels before they ship, to make sure they are “perfect”. On Friday, after calling and emailing trying to find out the status, Vince finally emails back and tells me that the re-finished wheels are not perfect, so he wants to make a new set for me. He then tells me “They should be done by next week”
Week 16 – Vince at Forgestar tells me that “if everything stays on schedule we can do the pinstriping on Friday” which will mean they should ship on Monday, September 28th.
Week 17 – I called on Monday to get a status again, and Peter told me that the pinstriper didn’t shop up on Monday, but he is at the warehouse pinstriping them right now. The wheels finally ship on Tuesday, September 29th, and arrive on Friday, October 2nd.
Note that from order date to delivery date, the process of Forgestar making 4 wheels took
116 days, or nearly
4 entire months….this after a quoted lead-time of 2-3 weeks. Over the course of these 116 days, I was fed more BS about the status of my order from Forgestar than I’ve ever gotten from any car salesman in my life (that’s a LOT).
Now, lets get into the condition that they arrived in!
I open box 1 and am immediately disappointed in the quality of the finish. I ordered Piano Black, which is a gloss finish, and see quickly that this one has a very dull finish compared to the pictures I have seen of their wheels.
I open box 2 and find that this one looks much like the pictures, and has a nice gloss to it. Fantastic, this one looks great, but now I’ve got wheels with different finishes…I open the other 2 boxes and their finishes look just like this wheel, so now I’ve got 3 gloss, 1 satin wheel.
I took pictures of the wheels and posted a few on the forums after sending them to Mike at DDM to forward to Forgestar. A couple people noticed on the forums that there was a variance in color before I even explained what I could see. Bad enough to show in pictures, even with a black finish…that’s pretty bad. Here are the pictures…pay particular attention to the light reflection towards the center hub of the wheels, that is where you can see the finish the best.
I’m pretty pissed having these wheels come in this condition after Vince told me he was personally going to inspect the set of wheels and make sure they were perfect before shipping them out. On top of this, the wheels were shipped with the old centercaps after Vince had agreed to include the new centercaps with my purchase. The new design is much more attractive and goes with the black finish.
At this point, I’ve had a buyer waiting for my stock wheels for 2-months, so after I told him his wheels will be ready to ship as soon as I mount mine, I’m pretty pissed that now I’m going to have to tell him they aren’t ready yet, because I know how bad it sucks to wait.
Mike calls me back about an hour later and tells me that Forgestar will be making me a replacement for the 1 wheel that does not match, and they will be sending it to me so I can go ahead and just mount the one I have for now to get rid of the stock wheels. Cool, I’ve got an appointment to mount the wheels up the next morning.
No issues with the mounting and balancing…I bring the wheels home and put them on the car and do a quick drive around the block to let the suspension settle again after jacking it up. I pull it into the driveway and start washing it for some pictures.
Only then, out in the sun with water and washing between each spoke, do I notice that the black finish on the wheels does not even cover the entire surface area of the wheel. At the right angle, I was able to see some bare metal reflecting light inside the spokes kind of in the u’s and crevices of each spoke. I inspect the entire wheel and find 5 or 6 spots like this in various positions. I then go and check the other wheels, and ALL 4 of them have these defects.
Now I realize that the wheels they sent me were not the new wheels that Vince said he was making, but they were in fact the refinished wheels. The 1 wheel that didn’t match was the 1 wheel that originally needed refinishing, and it was done separate from the other 3 wheels causing the finish not to match. Apparently the powdercoater wasn’t very thorough in making sure the finish reached all of the crevices in the wheels.
I contacted Forgestar with the newly found defects in the finish, explaining in detail that all 4 wheels are in this condition and got this response:
Quote:
Sorry to hear your are disappointed with the finish. What I propose since you already have waited a long time is let us know which wheel is the one with the slightless less clear coat and we can just manufacture one more wheel to replace it. You can keep that extra wheel you use it as a spare later. Just let me know if it is a front wheel or a rear wheel?
Forgestar Custom Flow Formed Wheels
sales@forgestar.com
Forgestar Wheels | The Worlds 1st 1 piece lightweight flow formed wheel lineup
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It appears that Vince didn’t even bother reading my new email and just assumed I was talking about the 1 wheel that Mike had already called him about. So I sent another contact explaining that it was not just 1 wheel affected, it was all 4 and he responded:
He had the nerve to tell me I SHOULD have inspected the wheels thoroughly after receiving me, after telling me he was going to PERSONALLY inspect them before shipping them to me to ensure that they were perfect. I explained this to him in another e-mail and got this:
Joseph,
Fantastic, at this point I’ve dumped $150 in mounting and balancing, I’ve dumped $150 already for the shipping of the stock wheels that are due to be picked up the next morning, and I’ve already taken this guys money. Not only that, but he wants me to pay to ship the wheels back to him after all the issues they have caused. So all in all I would end up being out about $400 for this fiasco. So I respond to him with this (explained the stock wheel situation a little differently to him, but in my eyes there was no turning back with the stock wheels at this point)
Quote:
I had a little hope that you had personally inspected them yourself prior to shipment as you said you were, so I didn't take them outside and look at every angle of the wheel. I was also still under the impression that I was getting a new set of wheels and not the re-powdercoated ones.
As far as a refund goes, that would leave me with no wheels to drive on now since my stock ones were sold the minute these came in since that guy had been waiting months for his wheels too…I knew how he felt and wanted to get him his set ASAP. My car was on jack-stands after the initial inspection and the agreement that you were going to replace the one mis-colored wheel. Also, I am not about to pay another $100 out of pocket to ship these back to you, again, none of this has been my fault and it shouldn't cost me a dime out of pocket to return them to you.
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This e-mail was sent on Wednesday, October 7th at about 1pm, and it is now Friday, October 9th at about 2pm and I still have not received a response from them. I sent an email Thursday around 5pm reminding them that I have still not gotten a response, but that didn’t seem to matter.
If you took the time to read this novel, I applaud you. I also hope that if you were originally contemplating the purchase of Forgestar wheels, that I have successfully steered you in a different direction that will ultimately leave you without regrets.