[esquire]

A negative experience with LTBMW

I've been a member of these forums for a long time, and I have to say that my experience working with companies on these forums has been pretty amazing. In all my years on these forums, I've had nothing but positive things to say about the many great companies that we're so familiar with here on these forums, many of whom are sponsors. But my experience with LTBMW was so negative, that I think its only right that other people on this forum know my story, so they know what kind of company they're dealing with, if they decide to take a risk on LTBMW.

(For those who don't want to read through the details, the summary is at the very end)

On Friday, I called LTBMW to get a price on KW Clubsports. I got on the phone with Long Tran. He seemed eager to earn my business, which I appreciated. We discussed all the details of my car, and without any haggling, Long offered me a good price: $2500 with installation included. At the time though, I wasn't entirely sure though whether I wanted to go with clubsports, or with something a little more affordable like RDsport springs. So i asked Long if i could take a couple of days before I placed my order. Long replied "yeah, just give me a call anytime before next thursday if you want to have them installed on saturday."

Flash forward to today (wednesday), just 5 days later. I called up LTBMW excited to place my order. I spoke to Long and said "i'm ready to pull the trigger for the clubsports." We discussed the details again - $2500, free installation. Long again confirmed these prices and then transferred me to another guy who was going to take my credit card information and finalize the order. After I was transferred over, and they had taken all my information, including my credit card number,I asked if they could email or call me back to schedule an appointment time for Saturday to come in and get them installed. "Sure no problem" he said.

Three hours later, I got a phone call from Long. "I got some bad news for you..... I can't honor that price anymore." Long then proceeded to tell me that somehow in the 5 day span between my original order and today, (Not to mention the three hour span between his reconfirmation of the price earlier in the day) that KW had somehow hiked prices on the clubsports by over SIX HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS (to $3,150). "Sasan, I swear to you they just increased the prices, I have no control over this." Suffice it to say, I find that more than a little hard to believe. KW has never had a price jump anywhere near that in the entire history of the product. The excuse was more than a little convenient. I'm willing to bet that anyone who sells KW can confirm that there was no $650 price increase in the past 5 days.

As upset as I was over such a huge price jump, I told Long I would still do the deal. Thinking that the deal was done, I got ready to finalize the details with Long.

But believe it or not, that wasn't the worst of it. The part that really set me off happened next. After spiking the price up on me by that much, Long THEN told me "I'll cut you a deal and give you installation for 200 instead of 250." I COULDNT BELIEVE IT !!. In disbelief, I told him, that our deal which we had twice confirmed was 2500 including free installation and "now you're going to charge me 200 on TOP of the 650 price hike??" First Long started off by saying "he had promised me no such thing." But he quickly backed off of that approach, realizing how many times we had gone over the fact that the installation would be free. Instead he said "I just can't do free installation for you anymore."

My response was "Long, I can understand you might have a price hike on parts, and that you're a slave to that price hike, which is why I agreed to do the deal with you even despite the absurd price hike..... But that price hike on the parts has nothing to do with your promise to offer me free installation. There is no outside force causing you to jack the price of installation up. You can claim that the price hike on the clubsports was out of your control, but you can't claim that the price hike on installation is out of your control." It didn't seem to matter to Long, and he offered no rhyme or reason for the price hike on the installation other than that's just how he wanted to do it. Long told me "that's the price, Sasan, I won't go any lower. Take it or leave it."

Out of principal.... I left it.


Summary: To me a good company is one that keeps its word. LTBMW is a company that will back out on its quotes and promises to its customers when it suits them, and manufacture lies in the proces. After quoting me 2500 for a set of KW clubsports they manufactured a phony story to get out of a price they had quoted me, only to jack the price up on me by 33% (850 dollars) and break a few promises in the process.

I'm sorry for the rant guys, but if you want to do business with a company on these forums, I recommend companies like EAS and IND that will stand behind their quotes and promises, and actually go OUT OF THEIR WAY to right their wrongs, in the name of good customer service. Not only did LTBMW not right its wrongs, they made them worse. Customer service matters nothing to them.

- esquire