Seeing that I have never worked with SLR before, I decided to give them a try and ordered new tire rods and the steering stabilizer from them last night. It's been one day and the only thing I have received is the email saying they received the order. That is all I really expected in the first day. We'll see. If it goes past two days and I don't hear anything, I will cancel it.

yeah, that's what this was about, that little miraculous invention called the telephone and calmini's lack of etiquette with it.

i mean, in case you neglected to read the thread and all...

david

I've bartered (look it up) products from quite a few vendors, and the only vendor I have had trouble with is SLR.

If I was CALMINI, and you cranky, know-it-all fuckers kept pestering me with stupid product questions, I'd hang up on you too.

Come on Ian. The original question was legitimate.

yeah dudicus maximus, you have to admit that no amount of know-how on the part of anyone can answer the question i had for them right off the bat. what i was really looking for was them to tell me that i could try it and it wouldn't fuck up my steering, that was my main concern, but no, they wouldn't even do that, they just spouted the same old dribble as though i was a clueless individual and didn't even take the time to listen. now, everyone on the board who responded did, as did the local shop which ended-up giving me the knowledge that enabled me to try it without breaking anything. that was all i was looking for, it sucks when you know more about the products than the vendors/sellers/makers give you credit for and you come out feeling like the asshole because you had a good question but because they deal with asses all day, they will not take the time to listen to you.

david
rant off

edit...
oh, and sometimes i come across as a cranky know-it-all-fucker, but that has kept me from getting ripped off more than once and it also shows that the people i want to converse with can talk tech with me if they need to.

Did you ever think of liability issues ?
If CALMINI said "sure, do whatever you want with parts not designed for your Xterra", and then your steering failed and you ended up a quad, do you think they would appreciate that ?
A manufacturer shouldn't be required to talk about anything but the products they make per vehicle. If you want to put Isuzu parts on a Nissan, give it a whirl, but don't ask them for help with it.

I'm good friends with Steve Kramer at CALMINI, (we talk almost daily), and I am shocked at some of the stories I hear about from people on this board calling them. I would just unplug the phone if I had to listen to it all day.

I can't say enough good things about Calmini; especially after my most recent dealings with them getting a Centerforce clutch right away. Dave at Calmini went well beyond what I could have ever expected to get things taken care of, saving me from missing the Nissan Titan release in B.C.

In contrast, while Dave was trying to find a clutch for me right away, I called SLR just to see if they might have one in stock. The guy on the phone told me they didn't carry Centerforce clutches for the Xterra (they are on the website?) and hung up on me. Gee, thanks!

Thanks to Calmini, they were able to get Centerforce to build a clutch for me in one day and overnight it after Centerforce made a mistake and sent me the wrong one the first time.

On top of this, I was a total basket case worrying about getting my truck done on time and Dave was still patient with me and put up with all my calls and FAX's.

DAMN IT, MY COMPUTER FROZE SO YOU GUYS AREN'T GOING TO GET THE VERSION I SPENT 20 MINUTES CRAFTING, HERE'S THE SHORT-SHORT VERSION
I am not trying to bash Calmini, their quality is excellent, they are the first aftermarket company I consider when I consider any modification for my Xterra.
I was not looking for someone to blame when I tried to find out whether or not the Calmini Steering Stabilizer for my Isuzu Trooper had interchangeable parts with some sort of Xterra set-up, namely a set of Rancho Brackets, I figured I would start with a simple question to Calmini, who makes your shocks, if it's Rancho, is it this size... if it's not, then do you see any problem with using it for this...
What I got was cold response on the other end and getting put on hold in mid-sentence two times without explanation, and I hung-up...
Once again, Calmini makes a great product and I am not questioning that, but why not at least entertain a reasonable question? If everyone wanted to answer questions based on whether or not they were time-effective or stupid or whatever... what would you do when someone asks you, oh I don't know 3 times in the same day, "how are you doing?"
I mean, why piss in your own pool? Why take so much time and effort to be rude to the people who give you money for goods and services? Last time I checked, parts suppliers did just that, supplied parts, and who buys them, consumers and who am I, a consumer. Hell, for that matter, I am already a costumer from the past and that should've warranted a little respect on the phone, I mean, I was trying to get the most out of the already $80+ I had spent on my previous Calmini Stabilizer. I didn't call to try to be that little egghead with the impossible question who just wanted to know the other person on the line was squirming under the wrath of my perfectly formulated unanswerable question. Somewhere along the line, everyone needs to drop their ego, suck it up and answer a dumb question or two to make someone happy. It makes the stupid moron worthless, shouldn't-waste-anyone's-time-and-should-shoot-themselves-in-the-kneecaps-instead-of-asking-a-question-they-don't-know-the-answer-to customer happy and more often than not leads to either party benefiting, either directly or indirectly. The CUSTOMER SERVICE personnel feeling good for having helped his fellow man, and the customer for knowing that someone took the time to answer them. Hell, I buy stuff when people are nice to me, I TRY to find something, no matter what it is, to buy when a vendor, shop, mail order company when they are nice to me just to show my appreciation.

Oh and yes Ian, I did think about liability issues, that is why I tried asking locally before I went to the other side of the country with my querry. I had nowhere in my mind the concept of taking any liability route with it either, I simply wanted to know how to check, but I never even got to say that part of my question. So the local shops told me how I could do it after I consulted what everyone had written on the board. I was not looking for someone to take the fall, I was looking for the method with which to test to make sure that I wasn't Fucking Up MY steering not Calmini, I was asking for guidance and got an earful of country and western hold music in reply. BUT SINCE I NEVER EVEN GOT TO ASK THAT, THERE WAS NEVER A QUESTION OF LIABILITY, IT NEVER CAME INTO PLAY.
David

Wait... you hung up on them because they put you on hold ? I thought you said they hung up on you ?

Yeah, that is what I thought as well. They probably were going to find out the information for you. If you can't wait on hold to find out the answer to your question, quit whining and

While everyone's bitching... I'm a little pissed now... got my snorkel in from AC (very excited as it was a day early)... box was quite a bit mangled... TJM hadn't bothered to put the bolts in a bag or anything, just left them barely screwed into the snorkel... needless to say, I'm missing atleast one bolt and nut, who knows what else (no parts list)... bah! Plus was told it was built for Xterra, no, built for Navara, also... oh well... ready to just get the damn thing on... there, now I got mine out... you may resume...

The Navara is the same thing pretty much as far as the fender and airbox are concerned.

when my "helper" thought he heard enough of my question to answer before i was done talking, he spouted out some generic rhetoric i had read myself and then put me on hold while i was in mid-reply. to me, getting slammed on hold while i am talking to someone with not so much as a "hold on one moment," or "could you hold on for a second" is the same as being hung up on.
sorry, should've been more specific, and no i wasn't going to get the answer to my question because after getting interrupted and put on hold two times while talking, i wasn't going to hang around in the hopes of asking anymore, i was going to go somewhere else.
once again, this was a general thread, an "F.Y.I." if you will about how i was annoyed, i didn't mean to sound all that bitchy and apologize to my fellow threadees if i sounded as such, so i will save the fine unicorns now. i am over it, i got my answer and i wanted everyone to know my experience that's why i put it in the alr, it seemed like the place for a quasi-rant.

thanks all,
david

oh, and waiting on hold and being forced on hold are two different things to me, so i don't think i was whining, just bring my opinion into the mix and making it heard, but anyway, back to saving the fine unicorns.

david