[Adam Skelding]

I'll go through your points one by one.

1. We did have an issue where out-drives were not manufactured correctly. Incorrectly manufactured ones were taken out of circulation as soon as we could and the warehouse stock was replaced with correct items after they were approved by drivers and metrology.

2. The tower. We changed the design and material around the area where certain types of impact cause a breakage by levering the tower against the motor plate.
We can have a look to see if mould improvements can be made to improve material flow. It's certainly not impossible.

3. Cracked driveshafts. This was again found to be a issue and there was a process change. We have replaced any driveshafts (unused) that have had this issue and some with little use FOC.

4. Wheels. Yes, we have seen warped wheels out of the package and a solution was implemented a while ago. However, gears and gearboxes I've not heard or had issues with.

A lot of the solutions are tested in house by 'normal' drivers at club meetings before the solution is released to the public.

If faulty parts are replaced with further faulty parts this can be frustrating. But the Customer service department is not the distribution point and the picker / packer may not be looking for an issue when sending out a replacement part. Sometimes there is some overlap of 'old' stock and 'new' stock when a part is replaced in the distribution cycle. This is hard to avoid but we try to cut it down as much as possible.


In a perfect world we would get perfect parts every-time, but we can't the cost and logistics would make every part made $$$$$$ extra. We don't deliberately design parts to fail easily. We spend a lot of time checking parts are suitable for use.

Our factory doesn't change materials for lower quality ones, they know we have the means to test at any time and we keep reference parts to test against.

If an issue is raised to us via the correct channels then it can be dealt with correctly. We have stressed this right from the start with Team Durango, but it's surprising how few people do this, but would turn to this forum to make their first comment about an issue rather than the company directly.

So to come back to your comment on how I think costs are being cut by your supplier... It doesn't just fall from the sky: I've had parts replaced under warranty until I came across parts that happened to stay in one piece for acceptable amounts of mileage.
[U]

To reply to this comment:
How you think cost are being cut by our supplier. Is not correct.

Costs are not being cut. Issues happen, which lead to a solution being implemented.
This can't happen overnight it's not a software fix that can be uploaded to your phone. We'd love to be able to do it this fast, but we can't.

At Team Durango we mainly come from a racing background and we know the frustrations that people go through. We don't like to see someone not finish a race and we are all approachable at race meetings to help customers out if possible. Even handing out parts from our spares boxes if need be.

If there is a part with a problem, we can then report back on a Monday morning when we chat about the weekends racing.

Originally Posted by Origineelreclamebord

Hi Adam,

Please understandI 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, and the FWD Buggy based on your DEX210 for over 2 years now. 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 again 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 doesn't just fall from the sky: I've had parts replaced under warranty until I came across parts that happened to stay in one piece for acceptable amounts of mileage.

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 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 high blood pressure on my part!