Wow. Holy broken Batman! That is some scary looking stuff!!!!! Glad to hear that you are fine. Someone could get REALLY hurt with it breaking like that.
Just to update everyone on this situation, RKSport contacted me before I had a chance to call them.
They have been very helpful and have offered to buy and ship to me a set of new GM factory arms, and apply the difference in price between the new arms and what I paid for the old ones ($150) to me as a store credit.
wow thats pretty cool
really suprises me , but glad they are doing something about it
Doesn't suprise me. RK has always acted like a really good company.
Too bad their designs didn't work out. That's was suprises me.
I just got the new RK Sport catalog and I don't see any tubular lower A-Arms for the our cars, are they still making them and if not does anyone else because I sure would like to have a set. I bet they practically eliminate wheel hop don't they.
2000 Z24 5spd header & catback for now.
They haven't made them in about a year. The tub ones break. The square ones are good as far as we know, but nobody sells/makes them.
You guys crack me up with the cut downs and remarks towards companies having third party manufactured products. You people are crazy to think that most companies make their own stuff. Just about EVERYTHING is made by someone else and labeled as they're own. Not backing them up or sticking up for them but come on. Everything we do to our cars is in it's own way dangerous just in the pure factor that we are modifying our cars beyond what they were designed to do. Everyone is so damn sue happy it's pathetic. Those control arms were not meant or designed to be used on a daily driven vehicle. PERIOD! They were designed for closed track where roads are in a sense are perfect. As the guy who owns the control arms said he cant feel everything in the road anymore with the stock ones. Well guess what he cant because the stock ones are not RIGID. Rigid means it takes a hell of a lot more beating and abuse. From the looks of those arms they are pretty beaten up from both weather and road debrey. Mid west roads or even dirt roads. pot holes god knows what. Karos haven't broken because they are being used in an application in which they were designed for. I Don't at all want to get everyone all angry but my god stand back for 2 seconds and think about what you are saying. I just think that people put things on they're vehicles and Don't really think them through and the second something goes wrong lets sue the company who made it. Just like the turbo setups for our cars. When someone blows their engine up from a turbo, it's automatically lets sue them or its the company who made the products fault your engine blew up. Well guess what the engine wasn't EVER designed to be boosted and more than likely you yourself took part in the destruction of your vehicle either because you were not educated in what you were doing or you plain and simply abused the new parts. I'm sure people will get all mad about this post but it's so true if you think about it. As for your troubles with the product, good luck and hope you get it all straightened out. Good thing you are ok. Just pretty bad that people bad mouth comanies before they even are given a chance to defend themselves or the situation. Bad mouthing companies never gets you very far. As a reminder to those who love their J bodies. It wasnt all that long ago when RK Sport was one of the only companies around who even supported our little train that could cars. I think they deserve a little respect personally. They have their issues yes but so does every company.
ASE Master Certified Automotive Technician
^ Dude, where the hell do you see us bashing RK?
You're way out of line lecturing us like that. Take 2 seconds and read the thread.
RK did make the arms themselves. They found out the first design was faulty, that it broke even under normal use conditions. The second design seems good, but they stopped making it anyway.
Nobody is suing, I don't know where you got that from. RK does make some of it's own stuff. We're well aware that many companies don't make their own stuff.
Modifying a car is not
inherently dangerous either. Some of us engineer our modifications, even improve original designs at times. I hope you don't think god designed our car perfectly and humans are screwing up the design.
[quote=CaliforniaDomestics®]As a reminder to those who love their J bodies. It wasnt all that long ago when RK Sport was one of the only companies around who even supported our little train that could cars. I think they deserve a little respect personally. They have their issues yes but so does every company.
RK has been a waste of time for a long, long time. Not since the days of Gregg, Jordan & Tom has that company deserved respect. Hell, who could respect a company that brought Dom on payroll, never mind made him into a key player lmao. As many of us old Rk people have stated for years, RK can go to hell...
rk didnt build the arms , outside vendor did
rk has good stuff bad stuff , their cust service sucks more often then its good
there is alot of times i will bash rk for the stuff they screwed up on , the a arms , cust service , and the c/f quaility , is all below acceptable
[quote=97cavie24ls(JDM&00s/c sedans�)]there is alot of times i will bash rk for the stuff they screwed up on , the a arms , cust service , and the c/f quaility , is all below acceptable
I was going to order the CF trunk bezel from Karo, but RKS wouldn't allow returns if I wasn't happy with the quality of craftsmenship. I've seen their CF work and frankly it scares me to death.
FstCavZ24 (Turbo ECO) wrote:[quote=97cavie24ls(JDM&00s/c sedans�)]there is alot of times i will bash rk for the stuff they screwed up on , the a arms , cust service , and the c/f quaility , is all below acceptable
I was going to order the CF trunk bezel from Karo, but RKS wouldn't allow returns if I wasn't happy with the quality of craftsmenship. I've seen their CF work and frankly it scares me to death.
Jim let me exchange the shoddy rear cf bezel.
Jim and Karo would both do this, but honestly they lose money on it and that's NOT fair to them.
-C.T.S.-
I took 4 seconds for you how about that, to read back through the thread for ya. What do you know my statement still stands. Perhaps you should "take 2 seconds" and read through the thread.
Im sorry you have gotten offended by my "statement". I never intended that. I pretty much said that in my post, but listen RK took care of the guy. I've been watching RK bashes on this site for a long time and every time it's comical to me. Fortunently for me I have yet to have had a problem with them as a company. You can engineer your products all you want but just as you said humans will engineer it and of course things can go wrong. Your right about it not "inherently" being dangerous but you and I know that our cars were never intended to do what we make them do. Big part of why we do it, but in the end it can be dangerous because of the things we do to them. I really do not feel that I was out of line at all. Just making a point.
ASE Master Certified Automotive Technician
what ever happened to the square tube a-arms that were supposedly a lot stronger than the previous two versions?
CaliforniaDomestics wrote:When someone blows their engine up from a turbo, it's automatically lets sue them or its the company who made the products fault your engine blew up. Well guess what the engine wasn't EVER designed to be boosted and more than likely you yourself took part in the destruction of your vehicle either because you were not educated in what you were doing or you plain and simply abused the new parts.
Last time I checked blowing up your engine isn't going to put yours or anyone else's life in danger, broken control arm easily could. I don't recall anything from RK regarding the streetability of their a-arms, nor being "off-road/track" use only.
CaliforniaDomestics wrote:Just pretty bad that people bad mouth comanies before they even are given a chance to defend themselves or the situation. Bad mouthing companies never gets you very far. As a reminder to those who love their J bodies. It wasnt all that long ago when RK Sport was one of the only companies around who even supported our little train that could cars. I think they deserve a little respect personally. They have their issues yes but so does every company
You act as if the complaints regarding RK are a new development of sorts, they've been given a chance IMO.
[quote=CaliforniaDomestics®]Everything we do to our cars is in it's own way dangerous just in the pure factor that we are modifying our cars beyond what they were designed to do. Everyone is so damn sue happy it's pathetic. Those control arms were not meant or designed to be used on a daily driven vehicle. PERIOD! They were designed for closed track where roads are in a sense are perfect.
If you've ever been on any kind of a track you'll realize that conditions are NEVER perfect.
Secondly, if a performance part isn't able to handle daily driving, as far as I'm concerened it isn't a performance part. Racing parts are designed to handle much WORSE, and more extreme conditions than regular everyday parts.
Secondly I would argue that your not modifying your car beyond what it's designed to do, but rather modifying it to alter is capabilities, or rather extend its abilities.
Suspension = better handling
Engine Modifaction = more power
We buy the higher quality parts, and pay a premium for them because their supposed to be engineered to be able to handle the extra abuse they'll see.
We all accept the risk that some mods can cause problems, but comparing a bolt on suspension part to a turbo setup, which requires literally hours of time to tune properly is a very weak comparison.
The RK Sport tubular control arms have a massive design problem where they SHEAR OFF. So they stopped producing them.
However they should have kept records on those who ordered them and offered to replace them, or discount the cost of purchasing their box metal control arms when they released them. They knew about the problem, but were not pro-active in making things safer for those who already had them.
-Chris
