Budnik Delay

[chr2002ca]

Just wanted to follow-up with the latest update on my Budnik wheels also. I stopped by their place in Huntington on Wednesday and had a chat with Jim. Once again, Jim was friendly and a pleasure to chat with, and he was nice enough to give me a tour of the place. Unfortunately, he didn't really have any information for me on my wheels and told me to call back on Friday(today). I was going to put my foot down, but the darn guy is so nice and I'm not one to hoot and holler so I just said okay and reminded him that it had been 12.5 weeks since I had placed my order with him. So today is Friday and I gave them a call. I actually got to speak to a new person today, Sheila. She was very pleasant and told me she was walking back into the shop to check on my order and would call me back. She did call me back promptly and said that they should be ready for me to pick up on Tuesday. That was a very pleasant surprise for me. She said she'd call on Monday to confirm that things will be ready on Tuesday. She also refered to me as the famous "Chris" and that I need to say nicer things about Budnik! I guess they're reading this forum, which is nice to know because it proves that people can state their case and that their words are read and considered. I stand by every word that I've written so far. None of it has ever been an exaggeration or any of the facts misrepresented, so I will not make a statement like 'sorry for the confusion' because I haven't confused anything. I have given compliments where they were appropriate and complained about the bad parts. At one point there I was exceptionally frustrated with them because of what I was seeing and hearing and I simply tried to describe what I was experiencing to others out there that have projects of their own to finish just like me. If my wheels are truly ready on Tuesday, then it will have taken Budnik just over 13 weeks to have them ready. I would also say that Budnik will have given me some beautiful wheels at an excellent price, and Jim and Sheila were always a pleasure to talk to, but I think Budnik has just fallen way behind in processing their orders and as of last week they weren't very good at providing me accurate info/estimates or calling me back(but they've improved this past week!). It's just as I said in my very first post actually, "Gorgeous rims, Jim was a nice guy, just expect delays." I just hope things get done as mentioned by Sheila and I'm able to pick them up next week. I hope the information I've written in this thread proves to be useful in some way to both the consumers and to Budnik.

I also would like to say that Jon at DriverZ Inc was a pleasure to exchange emails with. He quickly provided me with a very competitive quote for a set of similar wheels(Rushforth) to be delivered in 4 weeks(guaranteed or they're free) and was very knowledgeable about sizing and so forth. I also received a direct message from another member who also gave me some good advice and highly recommended Jon. Thank you to that member who took the time to write me that message. I appreciate that. Jon, if things go bad next week for me, I'll be giving you a call about those wheels.

[DriverzInc]

Hey no problem man, it's my job, and it was a pleasure exchanging emails with you too.

If Budnik is truly reading the forums, I applaud their change...they need to mind their customer satisfaction, and that would be a step in the right direction for them.
Sheila should be someone who can get something done over there... her last name IS Budnik.

I hope we don't have to step in, and you get your wheels, but if they do drop the ball, we're here to help. I would recommend running the sale through Paradise Road Rod & Custom, since they are running a 10% off sale on our Rushforth Wheels, with the chance at 15% if they get more than 5 sales. And after today, they are getting close!

[buickfunnycar.com]

Hey Chris,I for one hope it works out for you...I truly do ...but if it fact it doesn't or there are more empty promises,just keep in mind you do have options available to you.

Best of luck to you.Let us know what happens...

[Budnik212]

I kind of went over this on the lat-g forum, but then I found this one and figured it would be better seeing as how this is more of a direct thread to the situation.

I can honestly understand your frustrations with the long wait for your wheels (I have been there). The situation with the rim outers did put a strain on us when we started running out of them because our manufacturer was not producing them at the time. You guys have every right to be agitated about not being called back, but understand that these guys (Jim and jay), when not taking phone calls, are running around the shop chasing down peoples orders, getting tracking numbers, processing orders, returning calls (I’m sure that you guys will have something to say about that one), handling paperwork.....and so on...point being they are busy running around for people. Someone said something earlier about jay just coming on to make one comment, well he is probably not commenting constantly because he is busy working running down orders for people. As for people not having there calls returned, you are right, it is upsetting and there is not really an excuse for it and we will work towards eliminating that issue.
To those of you that waited or are waiting for your wheels, Thank you. We do appreciate our customers and you guys are what helps make us the company that we are today.
Thankfully the rim outer situation is taken care of, our supplier’s new tooling is done and we are receiving them and working hard to get as many orders out of the door as we can each day.
Some of you mentioned that when you called that the sales guys said that your order was in polish, the thing about this is that Budnik is one of only a few companies that does our polishing in-house. It's true it does take a little more time to do it ourselves, but this way WE have control of how the polish looks and I would pit our polish against any company’s any day of the week, not to mention that we polish the entire outer rim, where as some companies only polish back to the drop center.
Jon, you did use to work here, but that was over two years ago and things have changed a lot since then. You may also “deal with distributors that are 2 to 3 times as big as Budnik” which is no surprise considering that we are not a DISTRIBUTOR we are a MANUFACTURER. Look at it this way. Budnik Wheels manufactures their own wheels and sells them directly to customers or to our distributors. Driversinc gets wheels from the manufacturer and distributes them to the customer. There is a huge difference, most manufacturers are not stuffed with people just waiting to answer the phones (which would actually help our call situation right now), we have two guys and that is where the “volume” comes into play. I am 100% sure that Budnik does more volume that Driversinc, not that your company is bad, I like quite a few of the wheels you have and the cars that you guys work on are freeking sweet, but Budnik has been around a lot longer and is well established and we only have the same two people to answer the phones and Its not usually a problem unless….say………you ran out of rims because the manufacturer stopped producing them for a while and you have tons of people calling ever day wondering where their wheels are.

I am not trying to make excuses for why any ones orders are late. We will do ever thing we can to be better prepared incase the situation ever arises again.
If there are ever any questions please ask. We don’t usually have time to surf the forums over here at Budnik wheels, But it has become apparent that we may need to start keeping an eye on them to aid with any problems that may come up, answer questions and offer help when needed.

[swain]

Chowww

[street3285]

Sounds like Budnik can't handle being both a manufacturer and dealer, maybe they should pick one or the other. Either way you look at it.... other manufacturers are building in 4 weeks, whether it is through a dealer or not. No empty promises and these companies seem to handle their customer service just fine.
There are a lot of other nice wheels out there...... why deal with the hassle?

[Budnik212]

Sounds like Budnik can't handle being both a manufacturer and dealer, maybe they should pick one or the other. Either way you look at it.... other manufacturers are building in 4 weeks, whether it is through a dealer or not. No empty promises and these companies seem to handle their customer service just fine.
There are a lot of other nice wheels out there...... why deal with the hassle?

“Sounds like”? so you are guessing? Speculation is worthless, so please keep it to yourself. All companies have hiccups from time to time, there is not one company that has never had an issues at one point, hopefully your buddy Jon’s company gets big enough to know what some of these problems are like, it may give a different perspective on the situation. But people had questions and now we are aware of this forum to help where we can, so what is the problem? People were wondering about the delays and now they know what happened. Were you buying some of our wheels and are upset about waiting? Or are you just here to make comments about things you have no clue about?