CF Door sills by Carbon One

[donauker]

I've been in touch with him weekly -- I ordered a lot of parts from him at the end of last year, have so far received door sills, door pulls, gauge bezel, and rear wing. All these parts took longer than promised to arrive, but all were of amazing quality. The rear wing especially is very impressive, really a work of art. A carbon fiber hood (pics he sent me look like it's pretty much done) looks close to shipping. In short, I'm not happy that the parts were later than promised, but I am completely happy with the job he's done on the ones I've received so far. I'd much rather get a part late than a part that was not manufactured properly, that's for sure. I'll post more updates and pics as the other parts arrive.

Well it is certainly a relief to hear that he is still responsive to someone and making parts!

My concern was in not receiving any response to my repeated requests for an update on my order paid for in early Feb.

[benji4]

Well it is certainly a relief to hear that he is still responsive to someone and making parts!

My concern was in not receiving any response to my repeated requests for an update on my order paid for in early Feb.

Yes, I also did not feel great getting the parts late, but when I actually saw them and got them on my car I felt much, much better about the situation. This past weekend I took the car down to the dealer to show them and they were really blown away that someone could hand-make parts like that. My opinion is that despite some lateness and a tendency to sometimes fall out of contact, CarbonOne is a huge asset to the Roadster community because shortly, it will be impossible to get these parts or at least without paying a huge, huge premium. If I had to give grades to CarbonOne, I'd give an A for price, A for quality, and a C for speed. I think sometimes in this society we have a tendency to be very, very impatient as we are used to getting things served up to us right away. Hand-made CF parts unfortunately don't work like that though, these things are seriously tough to make, and often times when a part does not come out correctly it has to be thrown away and completely re-built again. Anyway, that's my two cents on it. John definately has his heart in the right place and I stand by his product and his work ethic. I encourage him to push hard and work on his customer contact skills and make sure he keeps people in the loop better. If he can improve in that area I think that he will be a vital asset in the future for this community. BTW, my Roadster also was 3 months late, so John was not the only one who kept me waiting.

[donauker]

It is certainly great to hear the updates on progress.

Having waited almost 2 years from 50% down payment until delivery of my Roadster I can indeed wait for a quality product when required!

And I will indeed gladly wait the additional time needed to get my parts now that I know there is a good chance of getting quality parts. My concern was in the many weeks of no updates on the forum and the lack of responses to both PM and email requests.

[Nvbob]

We ordered & received door sills from John. They look very nice on our car. I agree with Benji about John. He does very well with the manufacturing and he does want to deliver the best product he can. Unfortunately, he needs to begin to set more realistic delivery goals. Our door sills were ordered in late February and we finally received them about the end of June after many, many, many missed deadlines, excuses, and a bit of help from Benji. We are happy with our sills and the price we paid.

[William3]

Ditto what Nvbob says. That mirrors my experience. I'd order from him again, but this time I'd take a chill pill and just expect a lengthy delivery time. He should just tell people to expect a 4-month delivery time, then no one would get all worked up. Maybe he's worried that quoting such a lengthy delivery time will cause people not to order, but honesty is the best bet. His prices and quality are top notch so I think people will still go for it.

[XSML RKT]

I'm posting here as a word of warning regarding CarbonOne John. You should be aware that he left a number of customers over at LotusTalk with unfilled orders, many after months of waiting. Some of us (myself included) were able to get refunds from our credit card companies, but not everyone. In some cases, John promises to may refunds payments directly, but then failed to do so (I have PMs from other LT members to back this up).

John's pattern here is the same: deliver some products to certain customers to keep others hoping, get favorable feedback, and then after getting pre-paid orders. He makes the same excuses here as elsewhere, about how busy he is, etc. For being so busy, he does not ship a lot of product. Over at LT, his best excuse was not being able to get to the post office--when he lives 1.5 miles from it.

Over at LotusTalk, he's not posted in over month, after many promises to deliver, and several folks still waiting on orders. What explains that?

Please see this thread which was an attempt on LT to track John's pending orders. What it reveals is a repeated pattern of delays and excuses.

In addition, you should know the following:
1) He has been removed as a vendor from all of Vertical Scope's forums.
2) He is no longer in business at the Schoger address, he had to move out by August 1, 2011. I spoke with the landlord there and they indicated that he had missed several rent payments.
3) He has engaged in similar pattern of conduct across many websites. He has operated under multiple different business names: Spawn Aerodynamics, Delta Customs, Ikona. He gets business initially, delays, and skips out. Here is a thread regarding this pattern under the name Ikona, and gives links as well to previous problems.
4) He even started selling on ebay, promising shipment in 3 to 5 days. Odd that he would do that, when he's months behind here and on LT.

There's a line of thinking here, that if we are all just patient enough, John will deliver. I used to subscribe to that, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt; I spoke to him personally about his business practices. He promised to do better, etc. but then repeats the same course of conduct. And as to "hand made parts don't work like that", in fact, I ordered and received "hand made" CF parts in 10 days from another vendor.


I anticipate that John may reply that he's just a small business, and I'm personally trying to destroy him. I leave it to you all to decide based on the facts presented above. If you would like more detailed information I invite you to PM me.

Best of luck,

[bonnie1194]

He now has a facebook page: Carbone One Industries

[dsm363]

Is he still charging your credit card once the order is placed? I learned from ordering my front license plate bracket that when they do that, it can make it tough to get a refund if it isn't shipped right away.

[CarbonOne]

I'm posting right now uust to update the public.

Last week I was mostly unavailable to answer any calls and I did not have any internet access either so I apologize to anybody who tried getting in touch with me. Today I started calling customers to update then on the progress of their order.

The reason why I was unavailable all last week is because I was primarily focused on moving my stuff out of my shop out of naperville and into my friends place. I'll be working out of his place until I catch up and get back on my feet.

If anybody wants to get in touch with me please emailme at carbon.one.John@gmail.com or call me at 630 544 7675. I'll be available every day from 8:30 am till 6 pm.

In response to the post up above. I have no problems with people going from forum to forum posting up my previous problems but I hope no current customers are scared. Some say I should be worried about what those who would like to place orders this k about all of this, but right now I have to put my focus on my current customers. So to anybody who wants to post up anything negative for any reason at all, please do it respectfully so that way my current customers don't get frightened. I will be delevering all orders. Few people realize how difficult carbon fiber work is when you want to mane a quality product, but those few know I wouldn't come this far to just to hide at the sign of trouble. I got a new number a few weeks ago and posted it herein the TMC forums for everybody so people can call me if they need to. I apologize if jot everybody saw it, but as far as I know every customer has my new number. If not, I wrote it earlier in n this reply.

Thanks for all the patience!

[XSML RKT]

Is he still charging your credit card once the order is placed? I learned from ordering my front license plate bracket that when they do that, it can make it tough to get a refund if it isn't shipped right away.

At least for Citibank, you can get your money back after the 60 window if you tell them that vendor promised delivery outside of that time period, and only after that did you realize that the vendor was not going to deliver. As soon as you realized that, you tell them, you asked for the chargeback. That worked for me for a refund of over $1400.