Ground Control

[Mystikal]

I called GC today to order some new rear springs, and asked for Dale, since he's the BMW guy. I've never spoken to him before, but a few here have and had very bad experiences. He was busy, so Jay answered the phone and helped me. He was extremely professional, spent a lot of time helping me with my decision, taking time to crunch spring rate numbers and exact ride heights, etc. I spoke to him about 3 times in the day, and he always had the same very helpful attitude. I originally wasn't planning to actually order my springs from them, but after the treatment I got I felt like the company deserved more of my business.

Jay is a really busy guy (he's the owner I believe), but if you can, try to talk to him when you need stuff from GC. I had a great experience, which is very different from what most people have to say when the get off the phone with the company.

Just a friendly word of advice.

[rwh11385]

I had good luck on the phone with GC as well.

[uflnuceng]

Im one of those who had not so good luck. When Jay (and the other owner) are out of the office his "not-quite-so-good-with-English-language" help seems to not be able to distinguish between "over-night the shipment please! I'll pay whatever the cost!" with "ground ship a package all the way from CA to the east coast because I would like to sit on my ass for a week".

They pretty much have a lock on the market though so if they fuck you or don't, if you want the best coil-overs out there you gotta go through them. Just budget your time and sanity appropriately.

[m42technic]

Re: Jay @ Ground Control

I called GC today to order some new rear springs, and asked for Dale, since he's the BMW guy. I've never spoken to him before, but a few here have and had very bad experiences.

You really should feel lucky that you didnt end up talking to Dale, at least from my numerous experiences. Jay is the only person there that I'll talk to.

[e30sd]

if i had the time, i would just do what others have done. like trent has said before, it's not that hard to piece together the collars/adjusters, and some linear springs like the hyperco's he suggested earlier.

oh well, i've found that rob @ mpact is pretty helpful for gc stuff. he's pretty busy fielding a USTCC car (badass), but if you can catch him in the shop, he's glad to help out.

[uflnuceng]

Once again... GC fucks up in spades. Koni shock is leaking oil and needs replacement. After being on hold for about 30 minutes (not an exaggeration) I talked with Josh. He put me on hold a couple times and told me that he definitely had the shock I needed in stock and would 2nd night it to me. That would have arrived Monday. Awesome... GC pulls through!... then no shock on Monday... no shock on Tuesday... call GC... "I though you said you had one in stock?" Josh "Yeah, well, I thought I did".

He has now promised me that one will be in either later today or tomorrow and that he will drop ship it immediately, no charge on shipment.

I'm not holding my breath.

[redcarbon]

same thing happened to me. I called in, asked them to make sure the koni's were in stock, he said they were and I would have them by the end of the week. The weekend came, no dampers, then I called on monday, after calling twice to actually get through, I was put on hold for a bit, they finally got to me and said a shipment was coming in the next day and my dampers were in there. I got them a few days later.

They will come through for you, and they don't lie about stock - more than once. Be a little patient and the parts will come.

[iflytii]

Thumbs Down for GC!!!

Have to give a BIG thumbs down for Ground Control!

After nearly a month of excuses and lies I had to shop elsewhere for coilovers.

The story:

After finally getting hold of someone (3 day process), we discuss and order my setup. I was promised everything was in stock and would ship in approximately 48 hours.

8 days later with no tracking number (promised via email) or charge to my credit card I call to see what's up. They had a delay from Koni (their story, which contradicts the parts being in stock a week prior) and they promised my stuff would ship in the AM.

7 Days later, still no tracking or CC charges, I call again. I made it totally clear that it was okay that it hadn't shipped but I needed to know when it would. I've already sold my suspension and my car was immobile causing me to already miss the first test-and-tune/HPT at the local track. At this point they claim the rear shocks were bad and they were waiting on Koni again, but they had everything else. I asked them to ship everything except the rear shocks and volunteered to pay additional shipping over what they already quoted me (for 2 shipments). They said they would absorb the shipping (such nice guys) and everything would ship in the AM.

7 Days later, still no tracking or CC charges, I call again. With no excuses this time other than they were busy I asked to have my order canceled.

So now I've wasted a month of my time and jeopardized my deal with the person who I sold my suspension to because the guys couldn't be honest with me. Even given the opportunity to make things right they screwed up. It’s unfortunate that their customer service is so poor since their products really are very good. None-the-less, I'll never deal with them again.

On a brighter note, I had tremendous success with TC Kline! Those guys rock!

[Dave]

I got my GCs through Slyder here in the group buy - normal group buy type delays. When they showed up without all of the parts, I contacted him, and he got them to overnight me what I needed.

[whelton70]

Ground control Suspension Systems

I have been satisfied on this matter so go and check my post #7 below


Has anyone else had any problems with these people ? I had not been able to get them to respond to emails prior to making an order with them trying to find out about availibility of their front and rear custom koni adjustable shocks and struts. And no return emails regarding these so I call them up and they check on it and tell me they just came in the past few days. So I tell the guy that I was just checking as I wanted to place an order online with them later that day as I needed to get my list together of what I was going to order from them. So I did well the order has now arrived here to me and there is nothing on the invoice about a backorder but they did not send the rear shocks but sent the fronts and everything else that I ordered. I have sent an email to them and plan on calling them on Friday as it is to late today to make contact with them today.

[rsafier]

Yeah this doesn't suprised me much. I've never heard much good about Ground Controls customer service.
I also never got not talking direction when ordering suspension stuff that is over 1K. I would have recommended getting the setup from TCKline, same or slightly lower price and really great guys to deal with. They have raced E30s, and still have some of the guys at the shop that race them.

[whelton70]

never heard of them? send me there info because if I do not get satisfied tomarrow with the rest of my order it will go back to them tomarrow for a full refund. When you pay $800 you expect to get what you paid for although there is always human error so until I hear what they have to say about this order I will hold off just a bit on slamming them just yet. But send me TCKline's contact info just in case. Thank you

[browntown]

Ground control has some nice stuff, but their web interface is useless. I called them one day for the weld-on strut doohickeys for endlinks, and told them I couldn't find it on their webpage.

"we only have about half our stuff on the website". Then I ordered them, had to call to get them two weeks later when "we can't find your order..." later "we found your order in the shop..."

To top it all off, they double-billed my credit card, and capital one called me suggesting that I had a fraud alert on my card, and mailed me a new card with new numbers.

I really got the impression that some dude took my order on scrap paper, wrote down my cc info on said paper, and it floated around the shop for a couple weeks.

Needless to say if I buy their stuff again, it will be through a retailer and not direct.

[whelton70]

I just hope they dont give me any shit over this because it is my word against their word. But who knows I will find out tomarrow and let you guys know what happens

[M42Technik]

Their service is awful. I needed new perches and they were so not compliant it was just disgusting. Hung up my calls, disregarded e-mails...

Thankfully a member here had what I needed. They suck.