[Origineelreclamebord]

Hi Adam,

Please understand: I don't mean to just rant about quality problems. I've enthusiasticly supported Durango as a brand because there is a lot to like about these cars. And to be fair, all parts that were faulty I had replaced by their customer support.

I would love to see Durango's part quality and reputation turn around, However I will not filter out my public opinion to only the good things.

I've driven a DEX210 buggy for a year or so. In that time I've had very frequent contact with your customer support for various reasons:

1. High wear
I've had this on numerous occasions - particularly the outdrives. They should last longer than three to five race events before they are so far worn that the sliding surface are so uneven it affects suspension movement and grip under power. Enough said there I think.

2. Breakage due to manufacturing flaws
I've had this with various plastic parts. The best example I think is the 210V2 rear shock tower: It's injection location on the tower causes a weld line in the area that (probably) carries the highest load in the entire part. Particularly when using fibre-reinforced plastics, weld lines result in weak spots (a sort of break lines if you will). I broke one of these shock towers within 10 minutes of driving in a relatively mild roll and the breakage screams signs that it has broke on the weld line.

3. Damaged parts out of the package.
I've had many driveshafts replaced under warranty - I think about 10 of them, if not more. About a third of all driveshafts that went through my hands - from kits, spares and parts under warranty - had a cracked head on the outdrive side of the driveshaft whilst it was still in the package.

4. Tolerances that deem the part unusable.
With plastics I've found on several occasions that they were so warped that they affected the usability of the part - such as the gear casings and the gears, and in fact even rims that were warped out of the package. With the outdrives I've found on several occasions that bearings did not fit, or driveshaft heads that did not fit into the outdrives.

Like I said, to be fair, all faulty parts were replaced. However, what's so frustrating is that the replacement parts I got had the same issues as the parts I had before. In fact with the driveshafts I just stopped trying at some point: I received replacement parts for faulty replacement parts I was sent two weeks before!

Regardless of the quality itself, if a customer comes back to the customer support several times with new parts showing the same problems as the ones he had before, it would have been tactical to manually check the replacement parts for the issues that are described.

It is this sort of problems that push people's frustration over the edge. I've tried to adress is with patience for over a year and instead of improvements, I experienced the part quality actually became worse.

So to come back to your comment on how I think costs are being cut by your supplier... It is indeed a guess, but as you can read above, that guess doesn't just fall from the sky. On the actual QC and what's considered sufficient quality in that process I can't comment, but by the amount of negative feedback by customers I would say the customer values a higher level of quality than is currently present.

I'd like to ask you to take my comments to heart - If you want we can privately discuss the problems I've encountered - I've got pictures of it and shared these and my experience with the customer support. I would like nothing more than my problems to be of positive use to your company to improve the consistency of your product quality, not just a cause of frustration on my part!