Sakebomb Garage review... very disappointed

Old 12-27-17, 12:31 AM
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Sakebomb Garage review... very disappointed

So I have been a customer with Sakebomb for awhile. Spent no less than 6k with them for parts on my RX7. I am here to post a review of my experience with them in the past couple months. I have ordered replacement HID headlights housing from them about 3 months ago when my car was involved in a front end collision. Promised they will be shipped "within 2 weeks" about 3-4 times in the past couple months. Last text message I got from them said I should expect a tracking number on Wed last week Dec 20th. They said they are waiting for paint to dry. Its been almost a week but still nothing. They have always been courteous on email (after contacting them mutiple times) but I am tired of them over promising and under delivering. Sure they make some nice products for our cars, but what good is it when it takes months to get them? Contacting them rarely helps as they only return 1 out of my 4 emails. I am not the type that writes bad reviews on a company but this is more than I am willing to deal with at this point. Hoping to hear a reply from Sakebomb. I also wanted other members to be aware that when you order form them, prepare to wait months for your orders to be filled. As of today I still do not have a tracking number from them for my HID headlights housing.
Old 12-27-17, 07:57 AM
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maybe they were busy opening their presents bought with your money?

and why wouldn't people write bad reviews? if they are deserved they are deserved.

waiting for paint to dry, that's a good one.... sounds more like they've resorted to lying to not lose a sale than just mere honesty. at most any paint takes 24 hours to cure, and that can be expedited with a UV lamp. their excuse will likely be either the supplier took too long or "growing pains" which is about the lamest excuse ever, if they were forced to move to a new facility due to a lease ending or something, fine, just say that. most of the time in business it's just laziness, where other orders have priority over yours as the squeaky wheels get the grease, where once the bad reviews start surfacing it's a sign that there is many more that haven't even been told yet.

Last edited by insightful; 12-27-17 at 08:11 AM.
Old 12-27-17, 09:17 AM
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From my dealings with them they are a standup business.
Given xmas, and that the HIDs are handmade on order outside of bulk-buys, i would cut them some slack.
Tho, they should be honest and respond well on emails if nothing else
Old 12-27-17, 10:19 AM
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Theyre in the middle of moving into a much bigger and better place. Give them time. The Bay Area has NO one else who will work on an FD anymore, so count your blessings.

I have their headlights and car cover (no problems for me in the group buy) and my FD is sitting at their shop right now. I'm exercising my patience though, because I want my car done right and like I said, Not only are they in the middle of moving - they were literally hanging the sign on the new building when my car got there - but it's Christmas time and people have families. Plus, like I mentioned,

Ricks wont touch an FD
Mr Mazda won't touch an FD,
Rotorsport...you guessed it, wont touch an FD.
Old 12-27-17, 11:20 AM
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the main issue is they should be honest, that's not a pretty damn hard propostion to ask.

people around here are ungodly patient, if you answer them and don't just keep feeding them BS excuses, that's how you start a downhill trend. but you don't hear of many shops just simply say "we're extemely busy right now and we haven't gotten the products finished yet and it may take weeks to months longer. we can issue a refund and let you know when they are ready to order and ship if you would prefer that"

it's a niche business, but it still requires that you treat your customers with the respect that they deserve.

Last edited by insightful; 12-27-17 at 11:26 AM.
Old 12-27-17, 09:48 PM
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Originally Posted by insightful
maybe they were busy opening their presents bought with your money?

and why wouldn't people write bad reviews? if they are deserved they are deserved.

waiting for paint to dry, that's a good one.... sounds more like they've resorted to lying to not lose a sale than just mere honesty. at most any paint takes 24 hours to cure, and that can be expedited with a UV lamp. their excuse will likely be either the supplier took too long or "growing pains" which is about the lamest excuse ever, if they were forced to move to a new facility due to a lease ending or something, fine, just say that. most of the time in business it's just laziness, where other orders have priority over yours as the squeaky wheels get the grease, where once the bad reviews start surfacing it's a sign that there is many more that haven't even been told yet.
Probably not. Like Natey said - they were probably busy moving into a new location. A move that they didn't exactly choose and plan for - but was rather forced on them (albeit, works out in the end). No, most customers don't know that... and yes, the customer in question should have probably been made aware... but an unforseen move is the reality here.

As for not wanting to lose a sale over honesty? How do you figure? Does another company sell replacement SakeBomb headlights? If so, please point me in the direction of who they would have lost the sale to? The truth is, their headlight always have been made it batches around Group Buys. They rarely kept kits on the shelf and as for replacement *housings* (bulbs and ballasts are probably another story) I can't imagine ANY floating around. They would have had to get the housings, modify them, paint them, etc - and do this all around a move. They probably should have said "hey, this isn't going to be able to happen for a month" - but I have to imagine their estimate was made with the best intentions. Not dishonesty, not laziness.

Maybe there are other bad reviews. But they've been around for YEARS and things like this are just par for the course. Not every company is gonna bat a thousand.

Originally Posted by insightful
the main issue is they should be honest, that's not a pretty damn hard propostion to ask.

people around here are ungodly patient, if you answer them and don't just keep feeding them BS excuses, that's how you start a downhill trend. but you don't hear of many shops just simply say "we're extemely busy right now and we haven't gotten the products finished yet and it may take weeks to months longer. we can issue a refund and let you know when they are ready to order and ship if you would prefer that"

it's a niche business, but it still requires that you treat your customers with the respect that they deserve.
Correct. But I don't think it's honestly. It's just under delivering.

As for patience. I think the reality is, we're dealing with a 25 year old car that has so few on the road that basing a business around it is almost charity. I'm personally grateful that people are even making products. Trust me, I've been on both sides of it. I'm currently waiting for a hood that was promised MONTHS ago... and although other options are available - I really want to support the current vendor - so I wait. Obviously a different situation from hadokenny, but it's the reality of the situation. I'm sure if I chose a 2015 Mustang, this wouldn't be an issue.
Old 12-28-17, 07:34 AM
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Matt, well said and I agree with all that you're saying. Insightful is Ben/Karack/Rotary Evolution posting under a new username. Once you realize that, his posts make more sense.

Heath from Sakebomb is aware of the negative feedback threads and is going to post up. As you'd expect, he's going to take care of the customer and make things right
Old 12-28-17, 12:20 PM
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you're right, i have not nor have ever been helpful, ever in my life.

there was a time when a push was needed to resolve issues between sellers and buyers, instead of just relying solely on the reputation of the seller to come through eventually. since when was it perfectly acceptable to hold someone's money and not offer customer service or answers in return? i guess if pointing out the obvious makes me a bad guy, i have always been a horrible person. sure it happens in most all businesses but it still doesn't make it right or acceptable, because obviously it bothered the OP enough to come here and spend his own valuable time giving his negative experience.

who know, maybe he just wants to enjoy his car and expected that they would deliver on their word.

as for why i have a new name, i think it's also pretty obvious no one really cares. do i have anything against SBG? none whatsoever. posting a note about moving locations to their webpage or disclaimers on sales takes less time to do than it took for this thread to have existed. when someone tells you your order is going out soon on multiple occasions but it hasn't, you kind of have a hard time defending them.

Last edited by insightful; 12-28-17 at 12:39 PM.
Old 12-28-17, 01:53 PM
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For clarity, check out my dilemma:

Some self proclaimed expert "tuner" on this club blew up my FD nearly 2 years ago. He sent one of my Tripoint turbos through the engine while rallying my car on hwy 9. I have a few spare bucks these days, so I paid over 8gs for a longblock from one of the top builders on this site. Do it once and do it right, right? Wrong. 2 summers later my car is still not on the road. I could keep bumping my "advice about a builder" thread and mention that I'm STILL screwed and how it will NOT pass smog but it's just bashing at this point. Like it's been said, there's no one to work on these cars anymore, so you pretty much bend over and take it unless you know someone who owns a shop that works on rotaries.

Yes I'm pissed, but no, there's literally nothing I can do. I hate to say it because I know I'll miss the **** out of it, but I'll probably sell my FD once I finally get it roadworthy again. Flyin Miata has a new supercharger for the ND and it looks promising. I just wanna go to the track.

I'm about 20K and almost 2 years in with no end in sight. Like I said count your headlight housing blessings.
Old 12-28-17, 02:33 PM
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almost everyone has a horror story about work done on their car, and it's one reason why the whole modified car boom is dying.

i definitely do not agree that you shouldn't share negative experiences with people because today we live in a world of trying to bribe people for positive reviews and having friends wash away negative ones. whatever happened to the dislike button? in this age all there seems to be is facebook pages and like buttons with trick photography that isn't necessarily what you even receive. people should push to maintain the standards of a business.

would there be a negative feedback thread if someone was told their parts might take 3-6 months to arrive up front? possibly, but a lot less likely. and at other times things happen, even though the intent is there to get the parts done and gone, but how many times is dropping the ball on that alright while saying it will be done? no one likes to order a meal at a restaurant and have be told it will be 15 more minutes several times after a few hours have gone by, just because you are the only restaurant within 100 miles, let alone having paid for your meal already.

Last edited by insightful; 12-28-17 at 02:45 PM.
Old 12-28-17, 03:06 PM
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Modified cars are doing fine. Look at the Dodge Demon or the Chevy Colorado ZR2.

Modifying cars with rotary engines is dying in my opinion because there's less supply and demand than ever. I've been in rotaries since the '90s and LOVE them. I'm about to throw in the towel though because I cant find someone to help maintain mine and I don't want to work on my car every single weekend. No fkn way am I gonna bastardize it with anything but a Wankel either. My car's got fresh OEM paint, Zeal coilovers, a new engine and turbos from what my research told me was the best I could buy, it sits on CCW wheels, FEED this, Amemiya that, etc. I'm not stingy when it comes to my car but it's turning into a love/hate thing and I'm not getting much love back anymore. At some point it's just not worth throwing money at.

Every time I see an FD for the rest of my life I'm gonna miss mine, but it is what it is. I'll say a prayer for the guy and I'll admire his car.
Old 12-28-17, 03:40 PM
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Originally Posted by insightful
you're right, i have not nor have ever been helpful, ever in my life.

there was a time when a push was needed to resolve issues between sellers and buyers, instead of just relying solely on the reputation of the seller to come through eventually. since when was it perfectly acceptable to hold someone's money and not offer customer service or answers in return? i guess if pointing out the obvious makes me a bad guy, i have always been a horrible person. sure it happens in most all businesses but it still doesn't make it right or acceptable, because obviously it bothered the OP enough to come here and spend his own valuable time giving his negative experience.

who know, maybe he just wants to enjoy his car and expected that they would deliver on their word.

as for why i have a new name, i think it's also pretty obvious no one really cares. do i have anything against SBG? none whatsoever. posting a note about moving locations to their webpage or disclaimers on sales takes less time to do than it took for this thread to have existed. when someone tells you your order is going out soon on multiple occasions but it hasn't, you kind of have a hard time defending them.
I agree SBG could do a better job of communicating the move / a delay of order processing. Maybe they were going to announce the move as a surprise, maybe they thought it wouldn't impact order processing much, or maybe it's only THIS order that's having the issue due to it's time consuming nature. I really don't know.

But where did the OP say he asked for a refund and was told by SBG he couldn't have one? The worst accusation behind the order taking too long is a delay in e-mail reply's. E-mail probably takes a backseat to moving, fulfilling orders and running the shop. I know that sucks to hear, but I totally get it.


Originally Posted by insightful
almost everyone has a horror story about work done on their car, and it's one reason why the whole modified car boom is dying.

i definitely do not agree that you shouldn't share negative experiences with people because today we live in a world of trying to bribe people for positive reviews and having friends wash away negative ones. whatever happened to the dislike button? in this age all there seems to be is facebook pages and like buttons with trick photography that isn't necessarily what you even receive. people should push to maintain the standards of a business.

would there be a negative feedback thread if someone was told their parts might take 3-6 months to arrive up front? possibly, but a lot less likely. and at other times things happen, even though the intent is there to get the parts done and gone, but how many times is dropping the ball on that alright while saying it will be done? no one likes to order a meal at a restaurant and have be told it will be 15 more minutes several times after a few hours have gone by, just because you are the only restaurant within 100 miles, let alone having paid for your meal already.
Car boom isn't dying. Not in the least.

As for sharing negative experiences, to each their own. I'm not the type to leave a negative review on Yelp because my dinner wasn't perfect. But it's obvious to see there is a large contingent of people that are perpetually dissatisfied, and vocal, and entitled, and uneducated, and lack empathy, and have a world view much different than me. Not implicating you or OP here, just an observation.

All that said, I've have bad situations turn around due to understanding, reasoning and coming to an amicable solution. Hopefully that's how this will get resolved. I trust it will.
Old 12-28-17, 04:45 PM
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Originally Posted by MattGold
As for sharing negative experiences, to each their own. I'm not the type to leave a negative review on Yelp because my dinner wasn't perfect. But it's obvious to see there is a large contingent of people that are perpetually dissatisfied, and vocal, and entitled, and uneducated, and lack empathy, and have a world view much different than me. Not implicating you or OP here, just an observation.
personally i don't believe that, people should be vocal if they have had a dissatisfying experience or it merely propagates future lacking service expectations, which personally is a growing problem.

SBG always seems to take care of their customers, and i'm sure they will get on it soon.
Old 12-28-17, 04:49 PM
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Originally Posted by MattGold
As for sharing negative experiences, to each their own. I'm not the type to leave a negative review on Yelp because my dinner wasn't perfect. But it's obvious to see there is a large contingent of people that are perpetually dissatisfied, and vocal, and entitled, and uneducated, and lack empathy, and have a world view much different than me. Not implicating you or OP here, just an observation.

All that said, I've have bad situations turn around due to understanding, reasoning and coming to an amicable solution. Hopefully that's how this will get resolved. I trust it will.
Thanks for the responses.

Don't get me wrong. I def understand that I should count my blessings that companies are still making parts for our cars. I am def not the type of leave negative yelp review if my dinner isn't perfect. Review was posted because I felt that may be the the last option to get their attention to the matter.

Heath sent me a text showing packaged headlights promising they will be dropped off at Fedex today. Figured I would give an update.


Originally Posted by Natey
Modifying cars with rotary engines is dying in my opinion because there's less supply and demand than ever. I've been in rotaries since the '90s and LOVE them. I'm about to throw in the towel though because I cant find someone to help maintain mine and I don't want to work on my car every single weekend. No fkn way am I gonna bastardize it with anything but a Wankel either. My car's got fresh OEM paint, Zeal coilovers, a new engine and turbos from what my research told me was the best I could buy, it sits on CCW wheels, FEED this, Amemiya that, etc. I'm not stingy when it comes to my car but it's turning into a love/hate thing and I'm not getting much love back anymore. At some point it's just not worth throwing money at.

Every time I see an FD for the rest of my life I'm gonna miss mine, but it is what it is. I'll say a prayer for the guy and I'll admire his car.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. Have you considered bringing your car to so cal to get some of the major work done? I understand it may be a hassle with transport the car and what not but we have several reputable rotary shops here to choose from. Hate to hear a rotary enthusiast giving up on his FD.
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Old 12-28-17, 05:17 PM
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Unhappy

Originally Posted by hadokenny
So I have been a customer with Sakebomb for awhile. Spent no less than 6k with them for parts on my RX7. I am here to post a review of my experience with them in the past couple months. I have ordered replacement HID headlights housing from them about 3 months ago when my car was involved in a front end collision. Promised they will be shipped "within 2 weeks" about 3-4 times in the past couple months. Last text message I got from them said I should expect a tracking number on Wed last week Dec 20th. They said they are waiting for paint to dry. Its been almost a week but still nothing. They have always been courteous on email (after contacting them mutiple times) but I am tired of them over promising and under delivering. Sure they make some nice products for our cars, but what good is it when it takes months to get them? Contacting them rarely helps as they only return 1 out of my 4 emails. I am not the type that writes bad reviews on a company but this is more than I am willing to deal with at this point. Hoping to hear a reply from Sakebomb. I also wanted other members to be aware that when you order form them, prepare to wait months for your orders to be filled. As of today I still do not have a tracking number from them for my HID headlights housing.

Kenny, I'm not disagreeing... your headlights took much longer than we anticipated. I'm genuinely sorry about this. I did speak with you early last week and said we could ship them that day but that the paint was still curing, you wanted to wait and I did have them packed and ready to go out Wed evening like I had mentioned. Everything was on the outgoing mail shelf Wednesday night when I left for break, but we only had one employee in Thursday to man the shop.... I thought everything went out smoothly Friday, but my employee said the FedEx driver never showed up for pickup. I just got back to the shop and everything is just how I left it... lots of packages waiting to be picked up on the outgoing shelf.

I get it, everyone is extremely antsy because they've got time to work on their cars now over the holiday break. From our perspective, we've been working 6-7 days a week for the last 4 months without a break. Everyone here including myself has been working overtime every day to move the shop, keep customer communications going, ship everything as quickly as we can... we're only 3.5 people

We normally don't even sell just housings separately but I made an exception because of your situation with the accident. I'm not trying to justify blowing the timeline on getting parts to you, but we're beyond our capacity now without tanking other aspects of the business. We're looking to hire another person full time but they would need months of training... everything we do here is very complicated and requires many process and steps (from our custom Ohlins kits, to brake kits, to headlights, and even service... and the FD is not our only platform, we also make parts for the S2000, Miatas, NSX, etc.)

To be frank, we started out 8 years ago just making headlights and our dual oil cooler kit, but we're light years beyond the hoby shop model we originally started. We've had a lot of internal discussions here... either disappoint people with slow production and shipping times on hand built items like the headlights, or simply drop them. Honestly, the FD market is so small, we do not make even 1/3 of the revenue it takes to pay the bills alone with the FD market (most comes from S2000 market and our sister site MiataSpeed.com), yet we invest the majority of our R/D budget back into the FD because I personally want to keep this car alive and competitive as long as humanly possible.

I do legitimately feel bad about everyone waiting on headlights, and like I said on your next order I'll extend wholesale pricing to you as I do feel really bad about this. Long story short I just got back to the shop, we're still closed until the 1st but I personally dropped all of the pending packages off at FedEx and USPS. They're on the way and I expedited shipping for you, and sent you the tracking number as well.

Sorry man... hopefully we can make it up to you next round. This isn't the way we do business, but it's been very slow here with the handmade parts and I'm legitimately sorry to have made you wait this long.

-Heath
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Old 12-29-17, 10:33 AM
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Originally Posted by insightful
personally i don't believe that, people should be vocal if they have had a dissatisfying experience or it merely propagates future lacking service expectations, which personally is a growing problem.

SBG always seems to take care of their customers, and i'm sure they will get on it soon.
Agree to disagree on every bad experience deserves a mention. The *only* way I think I get on board is if positive experiences are equally shared - but we all know that isn't true... so that leads to a skewing of negative to positive reviews, thus presenting a skewed reality. Businesses live and die by reviews now-a-days, that means families do or do not eat / pay their bills / have health care thanks in large(r) part to reviews. So keep that in mind before you complain on how long it took your waiter to serve your hamburger. As for Olive Garden or Red Lobster, I really don't give a ****. I guess I'm more thinking about mom n pops.

SBG will (has already) made it right. Seems they weren't opening their presents bought with OP's money after all.
Old 12-29-17, 12:11 PM
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Two things: 1st apologies for my little pity party. I know what I'm up against and yeah. Once I hear it run and drive it I'm sure I'll be back in love.

2nd:
Positive review for Sakebomb. My car cover fits perfectly. They even called me to see what model of FD I have, AFTER I paid. Luckily I mentioned that I have a Touring with an R1 lip....a combo that Mazda never made. They customized my cover for me though, and it fits like a glove. Also, I've been through more than one option trying to get some decent lighting for my FD. IMO, Sakebomb's headlights are the best available anywhere as far as light output goes. Sure KS and Amemiya (and plenty others) make kits, but most of the time you have to cut up your car and the lighting still sucks. Plus....pop-ups for the W1N!
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Old 03-06-18, 07:07 PM
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I personally just had dealings with SBG (Heath), and everything went seamless... Parts arrived within two days from payment.
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