AL Offroad review

Thought I would share this here too in case if saved anyone the headache:

(Edited after the owner contacted me and processed the full refund.)

I placed an order with AL Offroad for a Tacoma tailgate flat panel. It was supposed to take 4-6 weeks. At almost 5 months I have still not received either the product or an unsolicited update from the company. I have emailed and never get a response.

When I called to talk to them, they have said they had some pretty difficult supplier quality problems with this product. I understand and appreciate them wanting to only ship quality products.

However, it has certainly still been a frustrating experience for me as well. Primarily, they never sent any sort of pro-active update about the ongoing delays. They did eventually give me a full refund (waiving their "standard" 20% refund fee). I hope they can figure out their supplier and communication issues for future customers.

 

Man, I ordered the trailgate panel on May 20th with a 2-4 week leadtime, which is what's currently on their website, I'm at 10 weeks now. The only update I've gotten was on June 21st about a bad batch of powdercoat. They stated orders would start shipping out on July 7th. Here we are, Aug 2nd with no shipping notification or response to my countless emails and calls. Going to give it till the 7th then requesting a chargeback. I don't mind waiting a reasonable amount of time but damn some sort of communication would be nice. If they have this big of an issue they should only do batch orders and just open books periodically.

 

Yeah the owner kept telling me he didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep so he was waiting to communication until he “knew” something but for me they would have done a lot better with at least some communication that I didn’t have to elicit. A negative Google review (I was pretty pissed when they told me they would be charging me the 20% refund fee) did get me a call and text message from him and eventually got the refund processed.

 

Guys, I can't even make this up. I received my Trailgate today, almost 11 weeks AFTER the 2-4 week lead time. Box was not in good shape, tape pulling apart from the seams of the box, obviously crushed. There was a fragile sticker on it, but no bubble wrap or any of the packing paper, just an 1/8" thick piece of aluminum and plastic cup holders raw-doggin' in a 3" wide box. Luckily it was not damaged besides some scuffing on the (not so stellar) powder coating. Way back in June (I ordered May 20th) the owner, Scott, sent an email out and said they were sending out a "swag pack" along with everyone's orders when they shipped that was "affected by this terrible batch of powder coat." Apparently this "Powder coating issue" is a common thing for them if you read thru Reddit and Google reviews this happens a suspicious amount of times with people regularly having to wait an unreasonable amount of time along with little to no communication from the company. That swag pack (which I couldn't care less about, but feel I need to point it out) ended up being a plastic cup, like the cheap ones you get at a ball game, that was the same size as the width of the box, maybe larger. So I'm sure you can guess what happened, and a single sticker. For real though, what are these guys even doing? 11 weeks longer than originally stated (almost 14 weeks total), almost no communication from them, and then not even properly packaging the part? These guys just need to sell off their patents (if they have any) and close their doors if this is how they are going to continue to operate. I highly recommend everyone stay away from these guys.

I didn't even take a picture of the Trailgate itself but I'll be installing it upside down and modifying as needed so I won't have to look at the AL Offroad engraving.

Again, stay away from these guys y'all.

 

Wow, good looking out guys. That is ridiculous business practice.

 

I will post my experience as mine just arrived today, I have not installed it yet.
I live up north in Canuckistan. So the package has a reasonable distance, as well as a boarder to cross and change hands. My box came in near perfect condition, some bubble wrap inside, everything appears good as long as it bolts right up as I would expect it too. The cup holders are intact and in perfect condition.

I ordered mine about December 20th. I found this thread in the new year and got concerned as I had not heard anything yet. I gave it one month and on Jan 20th I messaged them on this board and emailed their customer service.
I also realize that yes, Christmas as well as new years knocks off about a week of actual working days.
It took them a couple days to get back to me and stated they were in the process of setting up a new shop or new machines or something and the package would ship in a week. I think about 9 days later I got the shipping notice and it was trackable the whole way.

So my experience with the actual shipping and product arriving is perfectly fine. I would say the damaged box noted above is probably more on the carrier than the shipping packaging as mine had to travel just shy of 2000 miles to get to my house from Greenville TX and arrived pretty intact with just some bubble wrap inside.

I would also say that someone in here also stated concerns about customer service replies and contact/shipping discussions. I would say my experience reflects that. Getting information on the planned shipping date or reasons for unusual delays were not received un-prompted and when asked it took a couple days for them to get back to me.
However that experience would not deter me from ordering from them again.