there is a lot of us that have spent thousands of dollars on a turbo kit and we are all wondering what is the deal? well we were all promised july 5th would be the days kits would ship out....july 5th came and went and nothing. so we were promised $100 a week. july 19th marks the 3rd delay. the 5th was a hundred, then the 12th and then the 19th. maybe its only 2 because they will probably say they dont count the 5th as one. fine im not worried about the money coming back. i have no problem paying for my kit in the price that was asked for. what i do have a problem with is these promises that just keep getting pushed. we were promised a care package in which not one person has seen because they "are waitign on the t-shirts", the july 5th promise, these s-pipes that people are having problems with, our money that we are getting back? where is it? do we get it when the kits ship?? well what if they dont ship for anohter 24 weeks? are they free? they tell us they are waiting on 1 pipe......why not just get the first 5 out. how hard is it to get just five pipes?!? just pay the money elsewhere to get them done! they are already losing out on a hundred dollars a week to customers who have already payed! they dont seem very concerned anymore with the lack of posting (oh they moved but it is not that hard to log on to a computer anywhere and inform us). why were we not infromed about this move until someone else had noticed? im sorry zpi for bringing all this up because yall have always been great over the phone. but as of right now thats all i that i can brag for. i know some that support zpi will probably be mad at this post but i do support zpi myself. i am just a little mad how we had these promises and not one has been made. i have made a promise that i will not cut my hair til i get a turbo kit on my front door for the tc and i am looking pretty shaggy. i live in the south and it is hot! im talkin 100's and with a full head of hair, it is not fun. so zpi please prove me wrong! i want to be wrong! show us something promising......a pic of all these kits ready to go out the door or some of these care packages that your customers have paid thousands for and recieved nothing! please dont turn this into one of those threads that will have to be locked. i just want to know if im the only one out there that is as frustrated as me. i have been a customer since i believe april 17th. i go back to school in less than a month and really need it before then because i have to install it here at home with all the tools here and my dads knowledge. i really really dont want to cancel but i may have to soon. i have been excited for a while now but have it shot down everyweek now.

 

feel your pain here.. even though I opted to not go with turbo. if they said they were only waiting for some pipes, the least thing they can do is take a pic of the whole palet/boxes ready to just have a pipe inputed and be shipped out.

 

quit ur crying

 

We agree that our internet presences have been limited the past few weeks. Please do not take this as a lack of support but as a gesture as our dedication to getting our parts out. ar We have always held our customers in the top regard; we understand that we have not met our deadline. We made this deadline as we felt there would be no problem delivering by the date. We can not ship a kit incomplete as this will start more internet drama than the delay. We are hoping to have the kits shipping by Friday, whether or not this happens we are yet to see.

We understand that the some are feeling a little uneasy about the delay. We would like everyone to remember that we initially said that we would like to see a June 1st date we never truly committed to this only that this was our target goal. We did commit to the July 5th deadline and we offered compensation for those directly affected by the delay.

We are truly starting to feel that this is a double edge sword with double standards. We started taking orders in April and committed to a July 5th ship date at this point we are only a couple weeks behind yet we are taking a bashing on the internet like we ran to Mexico and this is over a few weeks. While the local trolls are taking this and exploiting it to the extreme; trying to insinuate theft. While our competition has been taking these orders for over 8 months and there is not a single post questioning there motives. We sell parts to over a hundred people a month without incident yet we forget to place an install kit in a few S-pipe boxes and we get flamed like we are terrorist.

The facts are the pipe we are waiting on is the most important of the kit. The MAF placement is crucial to success of the kit. The flanges had to be CNC and the welded; we have the flanges now we need to pipe. We only have the ability to cut and weld mandrel bent pipes as most shops are limited to this also as Mandrel Benders are very expensive. We have to contract out the one piece mandrel bent pipe; we are at the mercy of this company until they get it done.

If anyone is questioning the effectiveness of the kit lets look at the results. With just the Stage 1 kit, clutch, s-techs and tires the car has went as fast as the other Scions on the market sporting 500% more modifications. We can only imagine what the car would go if we had the ability to heat cycle the tire and get a good 60’.

We will ease your mind in anyway you would like just tell us, PM us email, call if there are issues with us or our business practices please take them up with us before posting them on the net.

We registered AIM names today so that we may be reached this way also.

Thescionstore ……Part inquires
KennyStrickler …..All other inquires

Thanks for reading my long post.

-Kenny

 

to begin with, i believe that i should first introduce myself... i am just as it says, thechick@zpi. i am kenny's fiance and i believe that i have probably spoken to many of you on the phone, as i mainly answer questions and handle all of our accounts payable and receivable.

second, i am in complete awe of the post above me...???? i understand everyone's need to vent, but honestly, one gigantic paragraph repeating what has been questioned and replied to in other threads? i am so confused as to what the actual need for this post was? could this have not been sent in a private message? so maybe you "are speaking for the group," but either way, the group has already spoken and the questions that you have asked have already been answered.

first of all, let me just tell you from personal experience, kenny does nothing half way. whether it's building the biggest, baddest turbo kit for the tC's or having a cookout...everything is meticulous. asking him to ship half of the kits or ship everything but the turbo inlet pipe...neither or these is going to happen. first of all, it isn't cost efficient shipping wise. of course, the $100/week discount isn't cost efficient either, but shipping half would just irratate some customers more. i can promise you that these kits will not ship until they are complete with all pieces and honestly ready for your daily driver.

second, you have to understand the desire for these kits to be perfect...like a fellow scionlife member posted in a previous thread, the foundation of these kits rests on the first batch that is sent out and how well you all believe that they perform. it just wouldn't be smart of us as a company to send out a product that we knew wouldn't set a good foundation for us to have the opportunity to continue to provide you with quality and reliable parts for your tc.

as for your care packages, i can personally vouch for the reason that they are not out to you yet. the t-shirts are not ready yet. i personally ordered the t-shirts and i am personally the one who is dealing with why they are not ready yet. the truth is, the scion that is on our shirts is white and the logo company cannot make the white tc look good on the shirt so we had to have it photochopped to change the color of the vehicle so the shirts don't look silly. plain and simple, they aren't ready, and we aren't trying to pretend like they are. the day we get the shirts i'm sure i'll be the one packaging and shipping them to you guys...

as for informing you of our move. we have always been brutally honest with the scionlife members. let me just put our move in a little time frame perspective for you, the same day a local drove by was the same day that we left 8003 Beulah Church Road. We literally packed and moved an ENTIRE performance shop in two days. And this was only a week after we found out about the building EPA violations...which of course is why we had to do all this moving in the first place. Two days was our sacrafice so that we could be up and running as soon as possible. Taking into consideration we moved welders, toolboxes, lifts, air compressors, etc and NINE customer cars. With the help of family, employees, and even a couple helpful customers, we managed to get everything out of the current building and into the new....needless to say, we were a little too busy to be concerned with the whole two days that scionlife was not informed. as you can imagine, the following week at the new shop was even more hectic, and remember that you were of course informed of our move by one of our lovely "louisville boys" once again trying to "watch out for their fellow car enthusiast..." You have to remember that as a business, even though we are working our butts off on these turbo kits, we are still taking a lot of local calls, and working on backlogged local work. We are busy!! None of us sit at a computer all day and have the chance to jump to the rescue and respond when everyone has questions. I also think that sometime you guys don't always remember the time difference.

In conclusion, I want to apologize for the excessive length of this post. I also want wowtc to know that this post is in no way a direct attack towards you, more so my venting on the current situation. I decided that it was finally time to put my thoughts in other than just proofreading Kenny's post to you guys. All in all, the main goal we want to accomplish is that you guys know that we are just like you, we love our tc's, we want them to be so freaking fast that people don't know what him 'em, and we want to do great things with such a perfect setup.

Feel free to PM or call me at the shop anytime with questions or concerns...it would be fantastic if you guys could speak with us directly instead of on the internet, we all know how different things can be read and the tone they can portray.

<3,

keisha

 

Don't take this as a flame, but it's not your money in question. Yes, Kenny does come on here and give updates, the problem is, he doesn't keep the date part of "UpDate". Issues ranging from not sending pics, care packages, etc. as promised causes very hard feeling to develope and causes concern of the ethics of the company. Only a fool would not heed these warnings if you get my drift (fools and their money soon part). I understand every question has been answered with an excuse in previous threads as you stated. But how exactly does that comfort anyone from the stress of what's happening?

Just a few posts not delivered by ZPI:

April 22 Posted by ZPI
"The official release date is June 1st this gives time for the recently chosen test cars to be reviewed. There will be no delays in the released date as the kits are done now we just want to make sure that we have all the kinks worked out before we say bring on the orders.

May 30th Posted by ZPI
"The turbo kits should start shipping the first week of june we are on schedule as of now. "

June 26th Posted by ZPI
"The turbo kits are coming along nicely and are scheduled to start shipping the end of this week or the first part of next. The pre-order discount is over for the stage 1 and 2. We will continue to take pre-order on the stage 0 until Friday the 1st."

I've been trying to understand how May 30th, everything is on schedule for the following week of June 1st and then it's all off. Then ready end of June and it's off. Now it is the end of July and still nothing. Several people have asked to have whatever is available to be shipped and we would have the pipes done ourselves. Still nothing.

Your word means NOTHING if you can't keep it. That IS business. Flame away if you like, I for one am done with this game of hold my money while I wait for a pioneering product. Remember guys, Pioneers are usually the ones with the arrows in their backs.

 

I'm really sorry to see the stress and distress of our bro here. No need to save your hair just for the sake of getting turbo. No good for your health.

Sciondad has it right, business is business. Excuses (even facts), in the eye of the customers, are not gonna cut it.

 

Can't make everyone happy. Might have been better marketing to not tell anyone about the turbo until it was completely finished and sitting in boxes on the dock ready to ship. Of course, then you wouldnt' have the overhead of pre-orders, but niether would there be angry customers. I completely understand ZPI's position, and think that people should just chill out and wait for the turbo to be done right. Would you rather they just threw something together and sold it to you? Sure, they were wrong to make a deadline, but it was not in there control that the deadline was not made. Contracting work out to other companies, like they are for the mandrel bending, is a risky business, you are essentially at the mercy of the company you are contracting out to.

 

which i believe is why greddy hasnt released their kit yet, though they probably have the overhead for r&d as well as making sure their kits are ready to ship woth out the need of presale... but frankly its more a curse of the early adopter in general. and thing when it forst comes out, or is coming out in this case will have snags, delays and even problems.

delays people can deal with to an extent... turning your engine into a paperweight after you blow it up from a poorly made kit is a problem the the customer, nor ZPI wants. this is a major product that can not have any problems. its too costly... thus you should expect delays... sorry but its just the curse of the early adopter...

 

I would like to understand why people are insisting that ZPI promised 100% that the kits would be here weeks ago when they KNEW that they offered $100/week for the delay. Obviously that was a chance you took. Whether or not you're having buyer's remorse isn't the fault of who you bought your product from.

Personally I'm sick of these friggin threads popping up in the power forum too. This is supposed to be about power mods not vendor experiences/updates/flames/complaints.

If you want to get an update about ZPI, call them. They have telephones. Nobody wants to read 83 times a day about how you're sad that your kit isn't here yet and how ZPI didn't e-mail you with pictures of the kit and tickle your ***** to make you feel better about the delay.

 

Then DO NOT come on a forum and say the KIT IS DONE, just tweaking the fuel management and take preorder payments IN FULL. Then a month and a half or 2 months after the promised ship date say you're waiting on freakin mandrel bent pipe, they had to move again, they're busy with other work, etc. I don't care how busy THEY are, I WAS their priority. They already HAD my money, so why are they taking other jobs and not delivering on what I ALREADY paid for. They should have been working on this every single day until delivered. PERIOD.

This is an example of EXACTLY what I'm pi$$ed about. I felt like I was tricked.

Per ZPI post May 16 (One Stage 0 Special Deal)
"We have one stage 0 kit that we built for a local customer we already have this kit done so we are offering this to you. This is a Stage 0 kit with external wastegate we will sell this kit for 2400 with the external. The external is a 38mm tial.

If you are interested you need to PM us our call the shop tomorrow. We will be open 10-7est.

This is a one kit deal first come first serve."

I guess their idea of done and mine are different because I never got it. I really do hope ZPI delivers soon. I don't want to see a bunch of hard working peeps get hosed. I'll wait for a product that is ready to ship the day I order.

 

done building the kit for one person.
done designing the kit.
not done making the kit that you were going to buy from them.

 

Obviously, you have never ran a business, nor does it sound like you have ever been at the forefront of running a business. You are probably one of those people that think the statement "The customer is always right" is actually true.

 

This makes NO sense Matty. Done building a kit for one person. Done designing the kit (which would be the first step actually...I hope), but not done making the one that I was going to buy that they stated was done.

How about this. Don't read threads talking about how ZPI is pi$$ing off their customers. If you have skin in the game, then keep " " you're correct. If you don't have skin in the game, then you really shouldn't keep telling people to relax their fears.

 

At this point all we can say is sorry if you feel like you have been deceived. I can assure you that this was never our intentions. We will deliver a quality product in a timely fashion we have dedicated our lives well at least 60-70 hours a week to this cause. We are able to install them on customer’s car because we can make a two piece pipe that works.
This is not the quality image that we want when you all review the product online for the world to see.

We want to ship these kits more than anything but at this point and the amount of scrutiny that we are under we have got to exceed all expectations just for it to be considered a success. If you feel that the discounted price is not worth the wait then we will gladly refund your pre-order money and take your name off the list. I would like to think that the compensation is worth the wait and this is why we offered such a deal but if not then let us know.

We will deliver these kits, we are not on here to scam anyone….not that this is even plausible with CC companies anyway, please do not insinuate that we are with ridicules slanderous attacks. We have been honest with you all this far and continue to do so, when things where looking great we told you…..when things got delayed we told you we have been very forthcoming about the delays and the specifics of the delays not just that they are there.

 

Now there is a brilliant man.

See, this is a perfect example why people shouldn't assume stuff on forums. Actually, I own my own business and have for over 12 years. www.projectgroup2000.com

I have 30+ employees building cellular systems across the country. If I make a promise to my customers, I HAVE to deliver. If I don't....they will move on to someone that CAN deliver and cross me off. I can make up all the excuses I want...they could give a crap less. So, in my world of business, if I make a promise...I deliver on that promise.

 

What did I state that was ridicules or slanderous? Quote me on just one please.

 

Grammar.

Good point bro, but throw a lil grammar in der.

 

not you scion dad the local trolls..................you are right that we need to get our product out.......the arrows in the back thing was a little far but we do need to fill these orders as we have every intention on doing so.

 

Kenny, I don't think you guys are scamming anyone and I hope everyone that reads this clearly understands this. I think you guys may have just jumped the gun a little with the final product delivery expectations and the frustration is getting up there. I want to see this finished kit and I want it to be simply amazing for ZPI and forum members alike. The idea of the pre-order care packs-shirts was great. It gives pre-order peeps something they see all the time until the kits ship. Not delivering them however is worse than not offering them in the first place. Just another arrow as pointed out in the original post.

The pioneer thing is from a mentor of mine years ago when I started my own business. Pioneers make this world evolve regardless of industry. Arrows are to be expected in business and dealing with anything "version 1". It is a risk-reward thing for the buyer and seller. I would certainly take a delay arrow than a blown engine arrow any day and I'm sure others would as well.