Rad Motorsports California By rapidjim (Read 1,057 times)

[rapidjim]

This information is being provided with permission from management at Ice Bear, Ca.

Hopefully no one in these forum had dealings with Rad Motorsports in Ca.

These 2 people were employees of Ice Bear, one in sales the other was the parts manager. The sales person would field phone calls from customers wanting parts and send them to Rad Motorsports, who was in fact the parts manager at Ice Bear. They were collecting money from the customers, then stealing parts from the warehouse and ship them out under Ice Bear's UPS account. Evidently this was going on for quite awhile, some folks were not even getting the parts they ordered and these two were just pocketing the money. It was quite a scam. The pats manager had his employment terminated, but he was still trying to order parts from Ice Bear under the name Rad Motorsports to fill old orders. That is when the found out about the sales person. Of course his employment was also terminated. They found out all of this around Christmas time.

Ice Bear has hired a new parts manager and they are just now getting a complete wall to wall warehouse inventory done. This has caused a slow down in dealers getting orders filled and getting the parts out to their customers. They are almost finished with the inventory and at that time will be able to assess the extent of what is missing and reorder from China. They expect to be back in full swing with normal ordering by next week.

I knew of this a few weeks ago and just had to tell my customers that there was a delay in ordering and parts shipping. . Today management asked me to post what was going on so customers were aware. Rest assured that Ice Bear is getting back on track providing customers with parts quickly to avoid customer downtime as much as possible.Customer service and support is still their main concern.

[ellpee]

Thanks for that, since I have a Magnum. Despite your highly-recommended intermediate services, I have not trusted Ice Bear any more than Roketa or Jonway or Tank or any of the other people hyping these Chinese products to US buyers. Caveat emptor, as they say, Despite your ethics and scruples and morals and whatever, you can't make them any better than what they are.

[fflintstone]

Evil is so insidious--some people are just fine until tempted by a large amount of money-- I trust everyone until they prove me wrong--I try to keep my losses small until I find out ...my old Pappy always told me ,"don't believe anything you hear and only half what you see"and you won't get suckered--well,he didn't know about these people in these times--it is buyer beware--that is why we have people on our forum we trust--we know them--happy trails,fflintstone

[Luke]

Thanks for the heads up Jim,, we appreciate it...from now on we'll avoid buying chinese scoots.,,,oh, i mean we will avoid buying from Rad Motorsports Ca....

[ellpee]

Hey, the scoots are what they are, plenty of sage advice here about doing a full PDI, etc. What you can't "program around" is dealers, and here I'm mostly talking about quick-buck, drop-ship distributors who never had the least intention of providing any more after-market support than they absolutely have to.

[rapidjim]

Jan 24, 2014 13:58:32 GMT -6 ellpee said:

Thanks for that, since I have a Magnum. Despite your highly-recommended intermediate services, I have not trusted Ice Bear any more than Roketa or Jonway or Tank or any of the other people hyping these Chinese products to US buyers. Caveat emptor, as they say, Despite your ethics and scruples and morals and whatever, you can't make them any better than what they are.

To each their own opinion.

When I first started dealing in Chinese Scooters I was a Dealer for Tank and Roketa, Tank went out of business years ago and I am still a Roketa Dealer but, have not sold any of their machines in years. Roketa use to have good Dealer support but has lost some of it, I can say they are they still leaps and bounds above Sunny Sports ( or whatever they are called today). Ice Bear on the other hand, has always provided me with top notch service and support. If one of my customers have an issue, they have taken care of the problem right away without argument.

Chinese scooters are not Harleys or BMXs by any means, but they are a good mode of transportation and enjoyment. The price fits a market of people that could not otherwise own a machine.

Jan 25, 2014 18:03:50 GMT -6 ellpee said:

Hey, the scoots are what they are, plenty of sage advice here about doing a full PDI, etc. What you can't "program around" is dealers, and here I'm mostly talking about quick-buck, drop-ship distributors who never had the least intention of providing any more after-market support than they absolutely have to.

The above is hitting the nail squarely on the head. Your quick buck dealers have caused a lot of bad feelings with people and tend to cause people to get a bad taste in their mouth and begin blaming the machine.

However, despite all of that, this post was meant to serve as information from Ice Bear on what has transpired in there company.

[ellpee]

Well, it frustrates me that once the scoot goes out the California warehouse door -- be it Roketa or Ice Bear or whatever -- the distributor does their best to wash their hands of the whole deal. The only one they will deal with from then on is "their" dealers, AND generally their warranty clearly states that if you didn't pay for a full dealer PDI and -- Heaven forfend! -- actually had any local shop even touch the scoot, your warranty is just so much toilet paper. I get the idea that Rapid Jim has developed something of a relationship with Ice Bear, which is fine if you bought your scoot through Rapid Jim. If, like me, you bought it through another fly-by-night storefront dealer who wants nothing to do with after-market support, then Ice Bear is not going to be nearly as helpful, in my opinion. Sure, I can deal with Jim for parts I might need, all hail Jim for his customer orientation in that regard, and he'll no doubt bust his butt to make me happy. But ... well, like I said, caveat emptor. Who's your dealer, how far is he from where you take delivery, and who's the distributor are all a BIG factor in how satisfied you will be.

All that being said, I've bought two Chinese scoots, paid some Stupid Tax, learned a lot about their innards, and am having a lot of fun. So this is by no means to say don't buy Chinese -- just go in with both eyes open and pay close attention to what you read in this forum.

[rapidjim]

Jan 26, 2014 13:42:12 GMT -6 ellpee said:

Well, it frustrates me that once the scoot goes out the California warehouse door -- be it Roketa or Ice Bear or whatever -- the distributor does their best to wash their hands of the whole deal. The only one they will deal with from then on is "their" dealers, AND generally their warranty clearly states that if you didn't pay for a full dealer PDI and -- Heaven forfend! -- actually had any local shop even touch the scoot, your warranty is just so much toilet paper.

Let me try and clear this up a little if I may.

Both Roketa and Ice Bear are "wholesale" distributors that "normally" does not deal with the consumer, kinda like GM in Detroit, you can't deal directly with Detroit, you must go thru a GM Dealer. As with any company there are good and bad dealers, those that will bend over backwards to help you, those that could care less once they got your money and those in the middle.The way it works is this, customer contacts the dealer whom they bought the product from and explains what is wrong and what is needed, the dealer then is supposed to contact Ice Bear and get whatever the customer needs shipped to them. If the dealer doesn't contact Ice Bear, how the heck are they to know that something is needed?

As far as Ice Bear is concerned, you are misquoting the warranty or the warranty has been misquoted to you or the dealer you bought from lowered the warranty.

From .icebearatv.com/warranty" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">.icebearatv.com/warranty

Additional Warranty Policy for Drop Shippers:

Drop‐shipping Dealers will be required to submit the receipt for PDI and initial assembly from a professional mechanic shop with each warranty claim. Units which are drop shipped directly to the end user in crate without PDI and assembly by a certified/professional mechanics will have a shorter warranty period as follow:

Trike products:
Parts covered under this circumstance to be free from manufacturer defects for 60 days on parts & engine is covered for 3 months or 500 miles, whichever comes first

The only requirement for a full warranty from Ice Bear is that a professional mechanic shop does the PDI and initial inspection. I queried Ice Bear along time ago to define "professional mechanic shop", it is any business that makes their living doing mechanics, including small engine shops. What Ice Bear doesn't want is someone without a clue trying to do the work and breaks something and trys to get a warranty claim.

Now you will notice that I have Ice Bear in bold. This is because this is Ice Bear's policy. This is Ice Bear's warranty to their dealers. Dealers can offer any part of this warranty, no warranty at all, or offer an extended warranty. There are some dealers that only offer a 3 month warranty to their customers period. There are some that offer Ice Bear's standard warranty, some that don't offer any warranty,some that charge extra for warranty for the 6 month warranty, and some that offer extended warranty. Extended warranties are not offered by Ice Bear, so those are between the dealer and the consumer.

You are correct with your statement about my relationship with Ice Bear. I have been with them since 2009 and will say it is a two way street. I have treated them with respect and they do the same with me. No secret how that is accomplished. I will add that Ice Bear is the BEST distributor that I have worked with in my over 20 years operating a business. I have yet to have them not honor a warranty issue. They have even refunded my customer money for something that was missed on a PDI done by them.

[ellpee]

Jan 26, 2014 15:14:17 GMT -6 rapidjim said:

... Units which are drop shipped directly to the end user in crate without PDI and assembly by a certified/professional mechanics will have a shorter warranty period as follow:

Trike products:
Parts covered under this circumstance to be free from manufacturer defects for 60 days on parts & engine is covered for 3 months or 500 miles, whichever comes first

Yup, that would be me. Mine was "dropped" beside the road 1/4 mile or so from my house because some combination of dealer/Ice Bear/Yellow Freight ignored my repeated warnings about narrow road, etc. Under those circumstances I had pretty much zero option except to uncrate it and at least partially assemble it to get it off the road and into my garage, at which point Ice Bear's "full warranty" was no longer in the cards. If life gave do-overs I would've handled all that quite a bit differently, but it's all water under the bridge now. If I need parts for my Magnum that aren't generic enough to be available on the Internet, you'll certainly be hearing from me, Jim, as my "dealer" in Georgia probably never wants to hear my name again. But I'm resigned to the fact that because of the above, I have pretty much zero claim to any warranty coverage from Ice Bear.

[rapidjim]

I wouldn't give up so fast. If you have an issue and still under warranty, I would still give it a shot thru your dealer under the circumstances you went thru.

[ellpee]

Well, I really don't have anything I would consider a warranty issue. Had to install new rear brake pads, but that's a "wear-outable" item, so probably not a warranty claim even though it happened in the first few hundred miles. (Actually lost one entire pad surface, didn't just wear out.) Aside from that and predictable carburetor issues at very high altitude, also not Ice Bear's fault, the Magnum is performing as advertised. Has right at 1000 miles on it now, will see what this next summer brings. I took delivery around July 1st, so even under the best case the time limit will expire not long after we get back to our summer digs. Under the reduced warranty because I assembled it myself, the horse has long since left the barn. Like I said, I'm being as mellow and philosophical as I can; I knew the risks of buying Chinese, I got lured away from you by a lower price (in retrospect, a REALLY bad decision!), and running it in a little town with only one little mom'n'pop ATV shop to call on for repairs is just a fact of life.

[cyborg]

Hi pete here new member,,but i am aware of this from another forum,,,this company took care of a customer above and beyond the norm without complaint and also no charge and in a very timely manner,,this is what i look for in a "dealer",,, i would not hessitate for a second to buy a icebear especially from jim,,,i fortunately do my own service large and small but if the occasion arises where i needed tech support or advice for these machines, i know the help would be there for me,,,

[JR]

Jan 28, 2014 8:54:44 GMT -6 cyborg said:

Hi pete here new member,,but i am aware of this from another forum,,,this company took care of a customer above and beyond the norm without complaint and also no charge and in a very timely manner,,this is what i look for in a "dealer",,, i would not hessitate for a second to buy a icebear especially from jim,,,i fortunately do my own service large and small but if the occasion arises where i needed tech support or advice for these machines, i know the help would be there for me,,,

[cyborg]

Thank you for the welcome JR i hope i can contribute to the forum,,,,,you'll be sick of me in no time at all,,,lol

[fflintstone]

Jan 28, 2014 9:11:31 GMT -6 cyborg said:

Thank you for the welcome JR i hope i can contribute to the forum,,,,,you'll be sick of me in no time at all,,,lol

Don't worry about wearing out your welcome ,cyborg,the rest of us keep JR and alley busy with our questions and ideas for better riding scoots and we try to keep them entertained while we are aggravating them,so ,welcome to the forum,and happy trails,fflintstone