Stillen service reveiw .BAD

370ZilverZ

See how you feel after you need support from that initial sale. Everyone is nice while their hand is out getting payment. It's the way they act after, once payment is in their pocket that divides the good vendors from the not so good ones IMO.

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370ZilverZ Journal

BMW Z4

ANMVQ

Still no word ,I do know that he said we was working with the dealer I purchased through to get something done?
So far he has been helpful. :/

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14 Q50 AWD, ARK, ECUTEK (SEB), Takda,

370zFORme!!

I too had a horrible experience with Stillen. The guy I spoke to specifically was Kenny and he literally was trying to provoke me to come down and fight him? Wtf. There was another thread on here that went into specific details. Pretty much anyone I've dealt with at Stillen has been rude, flakey or confrontational. Never bought anything from them and Im glad. Good luck OP. My biggest concern if I were you would be getting them to honor any type of warranty after this debacle.

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87' Honda Civic Hatchback: Kaput @ 288,000 miles, 90' Toyota Celica: Kaput @ 175,000 miles, 93' Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4: Kaput @ 138,000 miles, 06' Scion Tc: Traded in @ 64,000 miles, 10' Nissan 370z: Traded in @ 25,000 miles, 12' Subaru Impreza Sti: Current.

wstar

Well, I'll pile on this thread. I've generally avoided really harping on Stillen negatively very hard, because I think they *do* put some quality stuff, and I have had some nice interactions with some of the guys there, especially Josh (who was/is a frequent poster here) back in 2009.

I've had so many bad experiences with so many car parts vendors over the years, I'm kinda at my limit. It seems like the whole industry sucks, and I'm just getting a little bit tired of how we, as aftermarket car parts consumers, tend to hold them to a lower standard and just accept it.

I've had two issues with Stillen and my 370Z over time, which I'll recap here:

The first was their ridiculous first-generation catback exhaust back in 2009. I spent untold time and money on that piece of ****, running around to different exhaust shops having them try to fix it, all the while Stillen's getting the early marketing benefit from me being an early adopter (at full retail price!), and telling me their exhaust is perfect and it has to be an install problem. Then they finally announce a "minor design update" to correct the fitment issue. Just before this, one of my frustrated exhaust shops made a new bend in one of the pipes to try to work-around the problem. That bend ended up leading to a persistent leak problem at a nearby flange. Stillen didn't want the installer-damaged exhaust back and didn't want to give any kind of refund. I ended up throwing the whole catback in the trash and buying Fast Intentions in the end.

So figure the whole cost of the Stillen cat-back, my time doing the initial install, my time trying to fix and re-installing it a couple of times, my money spent at two different exhaust shops on labor trying to fix it, me buying custom gaskets trying to fix it. All of that and in the end it just goes in the trash as unusable and no compensation. I sure as hell wasn't going to pay retail for a replacement from the same guys.

The other incident came along when I bought their 7AT cooler kit, stupidly. The gist of the incident is documented in this post, but the bottom line is the lines were too large for the factory fittings, and I wasn't about to take that sort of increased risk of an ATF cooler line blowing off during hard usage from improper use of clamps on an oversized hose. I emailed them about the issue twice two days apart and *never* got a response in the ~9 months since. I ended up basically just re-using their Setrab core and making my own fittings/hoses kit that I sourced myself. What a waste of time and money - I basically paid them to put a kit together and validate it, and ended up only using the core from their kit and putting together my own validated hose/connector setup. As far as I know they're still selling people the same kit, and I'd imagine most installers just follow the directions and don't think twice. I'd be wary of running this kit if I were you.

It's doubtful I'd ever buy another product from them again.

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7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details

ANMVQ

wstar, MAN sorry to hear about your issues. But the things they did with you are rediculous,, I cant say I feel your pain cause I did not have to spend bad $$$ chasing $$$$. But the thing about their cooler kit it the lines leak,( Dealer had to fix them) An I think is was hilarious when they could not even help me with my trany temp sensor install and it cost me almost $400 to have some thing customed.

I really hope nothing happens to the kit in the first year( Only warrenty I have-would be a complet cluster IMO if something did) My dealer kept my 60k mile drivetrain warrenty because they installed the kit, So I did not buy they 3-36 Stillen warrenty, Plus I would have had to run their crap tune for that time, The car would not start all the time with there tune, So hot start issue, That was fixed by Kaizen,

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14 Q50 AWD, ARK, ECUTEK (SEB), Takda,

UNKNOWN_370

This is not a case of mediocre. They insulted him. Its unnecessary. I been dealing with Z1 for many things I need and I get good service from them as well as auto-anything. But it seems to me that the best way to get good service is through your local speed shops. Let them haggle out a good price...
First research the MSRP of the things you want. Then go to a speed shop and ask for a "street-price". They will usually get you a good deal on parts.

ANMVQ

Well another 4 days goes by and NO contact with them again, I did contact my dealer and they told me Stillen called him and he called the back and left a message-No return call the them either? That was last week.

An they did insult me, Not just mediocre service, No service?

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14 Q50 AWD, ARK, ECUTEK (SEB), Takda,

alb84z31t

m4a1mustang

This is really sad because in my few dealings with them I have always had good service.

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wstar

Well, that's what makes this all so tricky. It's not like anyone founds an aftermarket parts company and starts out with the mission "We're gonna screw over our customers". It's reasonable to assume they all start with good intentions. In the end some are more or less successful at being the kind of company that customers enjoy doing business with, I guess due to various differences in business strategy and hiring decisions and probably a million other factors.

Most of them don't end up perfect: you'll find one or two bad stories about almost any company. Most of them don't end up completely horrible either (because if they piss off every single customer they go out of business quickly). It's the ones like Stillen that are in that sad middle ground IMHO. Like I said before: they have some nice employees I've enjoyed working with at times, who have made good efforts. They have a few well-designed products that do the job right as well. But they've definitely screwed up some over the past several years, and it's not just a one-off isolated incident.

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7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details

slo

All transactions that go smooth will make a happy customer. It's when something doesn't go 100%, what the company/vendor does to make it right, this is what makes the company shine.

I recently had some case covers for my race bike sent out, one was for a different bike. The vendor immediately made the phone calls, apologized and said he would make it right. Which he did, he sent out the right part immediately no questions asked and I sent the incorrect part back once I got the return label.

If a part didn't fit correctly, he would have done the same, no questions asked. This is how companies make things right. And he was polite, and apologetic all throughout this.

Will I purchase again from them? Without a doubt yes, will I refer them to many others locally and through forums, absolutely. Others where it has been a legitimate bad experience, well, no more orders from me, but most importantly, everyone that knows me personally will order from other vendors as well.

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ANMVQ

To wstars point, I had a convo with a guy from the G37 forum looking to go SC on his G( He local to me) so he calls me up and we talk for about 35 mins. He had called Stillen to ask them questions on the kit and the sales guys where not able to answers the guys questions. Tech questions about the compressor side.. He said to me" Is it me or is most of their sales guys, young kids who just do not know or don't care to know?". No here is a guy calling them direct wanting to buy their kit and they can not answer his questions. Granted I know we or they do not know everything but you'd think they would find out, ask someone who knows, Not just not answer the question???

Maybe he was to smart( Coming from SC mustangs and does his own tuning). LOL

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14 Q50 AWD, ARK, ECUTEK (SEB), Takda,

ANMVQ

Ok so the next call I make will be over this guys head. I was blown off three times of Friday.I told him it was VERY important he call me back an guess what nothing!! I even check the website for the Stillen bucks and even the FN fine print says the bucks are even redeemable through a authorized dealer WTF So I can pay them (authorized dealer) with the bucks but Stillen says they will not honor a purchase through them. OFFICIALLY the worst company ever. Will be looking for the owners voice on Monday when I call.

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14 Q50 AWD, ARK, ECUTEK (SEB), Takda,

wstar

I wouldn't go quite that far Given the average of the whole industry Stillen's about par for the course. A lot of shops suck a lot worse, and Stillen's not entirely bad.

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7AT Track Car!
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3zworld

I had to return an oil cooler that was the wrong one and Stillen has been great at assisting me with returning it and getting the right one sent out (my fault not theirs), and normally he said they would charge a stocking fee and they were waiving that. So far they have been great all around, sorry you a having a bad experience with them, maybe it has to do with that "authorized dealer" bit as I am dealing with Stillen directly.