Their customer service is unimaginably bad. If you get a bad part from them you are S.O.L. their policy is no return no mater what. You can send it back for repair or replacement and if they can't easily fix it, you are out of luck.

I want everyone to know so you won't get burned like I did. I am going to join every car forum that JIC sells products for and let the world know.

If you are interested, here it what happened:

I bought a JIC-Magic FLTA2 coilover suspension kit for my 2002 Acura RSX last June. The front left strut would not stay tight and back out every couple days. After several phone calls, e-mails, and digital photo's to Ben at JIC USA he finally agreed to send me a USED replacement locknut. Getting the replacement locknut was like pulling teeth. I had to pull the entire strut off, disassemble it and have the car re-aligned in order to replace the lock nut.

The strut would still not stay tight so I tried using Lock-Tite Blue. After that failed, Ben asked that I pull the strut off again and send it to them after the Sema trade show. I waited and called right before shipping it FedEx to expedite the process and make sure they could get right on it. Along with the parts I included a letter suggesting the problem appeared to be too much free play between the strut and the lower bracket and that thin locknut could not hold it tight.

After JIC USA received the parts and sat on it for two weeks Ben told me they had fixed it by surfacing the top of the lower bracket so the locknut would seat better. I told him that I was concerned that, that alone would not fix it and if he sent it back to me and it was still loosening up I would be furious and was going to expect a full refund and reimbursement for the three alignments, the shipping, and all the labor. He said we would talk about that later. Three weeks after shipping it to them, I got the parts back.

While installing the “repaired” left strut, I checked the right side. The locknut seemed tight by hand, but when I rocked the wheel I felt it move. I could see the strut rocking in the lower bracket. I used the spanner wrench to tighten it and the nut turned, so I kept tightening it, expecting it to stop turning. It did not stop turning, the nut stripped. Inspection of the stripped locknut revealed that only the tips of the threads were sheared off. This could only happen if either the nut was too big or the strut/damper body was too small. I called Ben with this information and he told me it is impossible to strip the locknut and refused to replace it. He did offer to sell me a replacement, however.

After driving it for a couple days I rechecked the left side, the side they fixed. Sure enough it was loose, I tightened it again, drove the car and it was loose by the next day.

After this much trouble you would think they would be willing to replace them or take them back and refund my money. Well, you would be wrong like I was. They are willing to SELL you replacement parts, but no replacements, no refunds, no returns, no reimbursement for shipping parts back to them, no help, no exceptions...NOTHING.

 

I decided to give John Kaneda, the owner of JIC, a chance to make things right before I through off the gloves and took it to the street, just in case Ben was acting without authority. Here is what happened…

I have been calling JIC and asking to talk to the owner, John Kaneda for the last couple days. Ben has answered the phone every time, recognizes my voice and tells me that John is not in. Today after I said “I’ll call back later” Ben said, and I quote, "I talked to John and told him that you wanted to talk to him and he said you could talk to me, I don't want to talk to customers" end quote. I could not believe what I heard, so I repeated “John said he does not want to talk to customers” and Ben said “yes”.

That is the most amazing display of a lack of customer service or concern I have heard in my life.

 

Ouch! John Kaneda, the owner of JIC and/or employees, you got a very unhappy customer here. I hope you can make him happy.

 

Go Tein

 

That is dispicable. Online forums work great for this kind of stuff

 

damn that sucks, thanks for the heads up.

 

I think you deserve your money back for the coilovers. Thats all. I hope you get this resolved. If all that was said is true I wouldn't be interested in doing any business with them. Do you know if anyone else has had the same trouble with the same kit?

 

A have talked to a couple people that had similar problems and several others with different problems. Some of them got rid of the kits. My set seems to be the most chronic.

 

for almost a $2000 suspension kit, you think you would get damn good service. Tein it seems would be the way to go.

 

Wow. Thanks for the heads up on the bad service. Almost ordered some JIC's and saw on another post somewhere that people were having trouble with customer service at JIC as well.

 

DC5Denver, you're not the only one who has had problems with them.

I ordered my JIC coilovers from Gruppe-S, and I was sent the progressive setup, which at that time didn't even exist (there was no record of them on anybody's website). The only thing listed was the linear setup, which is what I wanted. Since there was no parts manifest or directions in the box, I began to install the rear, and after installing it, I called JIC with a few questions, only to find out at that time that I had the progressive setup.

Unfortunately, their no return policy was in effect, so I was stuck with a suspension that I hadn't originally ordered. To make a long story short, a guy at JIC named Kevin Wentzel said he knew of a customer who had the linear setup and was willing to swap with me. So I paid the $50-60 and shipped it back to CA. After a week, I received a call from JIC saying they had received my coilovers, but didn't know why I had sent the box to them. I explained the situation, and they said that Kevin "no longer worked for them" (in retrospect he probably got fired for trying to make things right), and that they knew nothing of this exchange.

Then the finger pointing began. My point was that I was the customer, and between JIC and Gruppe-S, they needed to make it right and send me the right suspension, that's all I was asking. After several days of heated phone calls, they offered to sell me a second suspension at cost, but I had to sell the one I sent to them, which was somewhere in CA. Luckily, I found a buyer in San Francisco within a two days.

So I had been told that the suspension had been shipped from Zeal (JIC USA) up to Gruppe-S, where my buyer was going to pick up the suspension. He showed up only to find no package, as JIC hadn't sent it! So I called JIC, and they acknowledged they hadn't released the package b/c they had located the customer of theirs who wanted to swap suspensions. Thanks for telling me jerk-offs! I demanded that the suspension be sent up to SF, as I had already accepted the PayPal order, and they complied.

Buyer received his JICs, and I received my new suspension, so I broke even financially (minus shipping costs, time, and mental energy). Upon opening the box, there were no adjustment tools and no rubber grommets for the rear spring. Again, I called JIC to explain to them, and I was told "everything was packaged in Japan, so Gruppe-S must have taken them out." However, I could tell the original tape was still on the box, so it had never been opened and resealed. After two weeks of fighting back and forth between myself and JIC, I finally got notification that the missing parts were being sent to me.

Upon receipt of my new package (which took a week to get here, where's their sense of urgency?), only the rubber perches were present. No tools. At this point, I'd given up.

Don't get me wrong, I love the suspension. But the entire process of getting it right (which took about 10 weeks from when I ordered until when I received my rubber perches) was an absolute nightmare.

 

John

Reading your post makes me angry all over again. Do you want the links to all the other forums I have posted. If they are not brain dead they should get the hint and start taking care of their customers.

 

Sorry to hear about your issues, that sucks. FWIW, I've been very pleased with all my JIC stuff (coilovers, traction rods, strut bar, rear camber kit) but you can bet that the first sign of issue I'll turn to my dealer and let them leverage the service from JIC based on their sales volume. I was a little leary in buying the car 2300 miles away and having the setup installed before I flew out to pick it up, but I'm confident I'd be taken care of.

I think you are doing the right thing here, the service you've recieved is unexcusable you are certainly going to cost them business, I for one would have been turned away by this had I read about it a year ago..........goodluck and keep us informed.

 

Post those links. And if you ever want to link my story, feel free to.

In all fairness, I have heard that Avalon Racing has good relations with JIC USA, and whenever a problem has occurred, they've done their best to correct the situation.

 

Did you buy them from an authorized dealer and were they grey market product initially?

Out of all the sets we have sold and installed we have had only a few problems and were correctly in an expedious manner. Unforyunately I can not get involved as the product was not procured from us. We stand behind our customers and work to resolve all issues as required. I will contact JIC shortly.

regards

 

I don't wanna just add fuel to a what appears to be a forest fire. But all 4 of my JIC shocks are leaking oil out the top. So they are now of no use to anyone.

 

Nismo S-tune

 

I have heard horror stories on plenty o boards about the JIC stuff, which sways me away from there "great" coilover system.

 

My Tanabe RR's arrive very soon. HOWEVER, they will not be available to the public. They could definately sell a ton if they were to market them with all this talk about the JIC suspension. My JIC suspension will make a awesome paperweight.

 

http://www.tanabe-usa.com/coilovers/r-r.asp

Curious, did you happen to get spring rate specs for them?

Tanabe list's several coilover models they entend to market for the Z, however just like your saying the SS model doesn't show as a planned furture offering. Shame, look's like a nice product, but specs would be nice.