Here's some pics of my steering stem after endoing on a 15 ft double in 2nd gear, Not saying this wouldnt of happened with other brands of stems but I thought it was amazing that it bent without my bars bending. I am upset that the stem only lasted be less then 6 months of riding, I have switched to a roll design stem which is heavier but feels more solid compared to the JD. So maybe some more R&D should go into this stem in the future or maybe I just have really crappy luck.

did you call and talk to Dave first?......an often overlooked step in customer service JMO

Yeah I called Dave and he never returned my call... sent him a PM on here with the pictures and told him what happened and the only thing offered was to cut the stem and replace the top portion for $150.00 which with S&H it would be cheaper for me just to buy a whole new stem from another company that offered free shipping.

cool, I wasn't dismissing you but people like to rant without calling first. Sorry to hear about your luck.

I responded to his email right away, I did not recieve a call. And yes I did tell him that I would fix the stem for $150. I told him that there is no warranty on a crash and bend situation. The only thing I can warranty on a stem is the workmanship [thats it]. If he had the same accident on a roll design. laeger or other co's stem, he would have had the same result. [trust me, I know because I built laeger stems for 11 years, and i have also worked with roll design]. The differance is that I try to take care of my customers, and offered to repair it ,[I dont think any other co out there would offer to repair a stem ] but I do have a bus to run, and labor and materials are not free, so I dont think that its unreasonale that he should have to pay to fix damaged parts when he crashed the bike. I also asked him if he went out and bought a new Ford, and ran it into a tree, would they warranty it? To be honest, I think it really sucks that I have to sit here and type this out to defend myself, because he crashed.

I have had many stems in the past from many differant companies.

The longer they are the easier they bend is what I have noticed and so far I haven't seen a brand that really stands out.

The stem I have now is a POS and I honestly can't wait till it bends so I can give JD a shot at it.

I even had a roll design at one time and it bent, and I had a Houser actually snap at the neck.

Don't bash JD because you crashed and a part bent, its part of riding.

Dave I called and left you a very detailed message and included my name and number twice the day before I emailed you on here. I agree I should have to pay to get it fixed but if you replace the top portion thats what 1/2 or 1/3'rd the material yet you charge more then 50% what the stem cost new. Just thought you might offer me a more affordable option seeing as I race motocross and display your products.

The differance is that I try to take care of my customers, and offered to repair it ,[I dont think any other co out there would offer to repair a stem ] but I do have a bus to run, and labor and materials are not free, so I dont think that its unreasonale that he should have to pay to fix damaged parts when he crashed the bike.

My JD stem has a crash on it and its still straight as an arrow. There is nothing wrong with the workmanship on the stem.

In Dave's defense, call Roll or Laeger and they wont offer you anything on a crash. Ten bucks says their responses are we dont repair stems damaged in crashes.

Not cool to come on and bash JD Performace because you crashed and bent the stem.

Just my two cents.

motoman3b just so you know, I deleted your last post.

If you want to come in here and complain or tell Dave that you don't like his policy then be my guest. But this isn't the place to be advertising for other companies.

Personally I think it is ridiculous that you are complaining about his offer and price he set to fix a stem that YOU broke. But that is just my personal opinion, not my opinion as a moderator.

I'm not a consumer reports or anything but I can tell you there is a obvious difference in weight between the roll design and the JD stem they also incorporate stainless steel, chromoly into the upper and lower parts of the stem. I'm not sure if this will make a difference guess I'll find out next time I endo. I know they probably wont repair a stem but for the cost dave wanted to repair it was more (taking S&H into account) then what I could get a new one for, so you see where my problem lies there? And a repaired part is never going to have the integrity of a new part

dont worry about it guys, im sure everyone who reads this understands

ive crashed many times someitmes ive wrecked HARD and not bent or hurt anything (except myself) then other times its dumb little crashes and it completely destroys something that makes you go WTF?

it happens dude, dont come on ehre bashin daves products because everyone on here knows that JD performance is TOP OF THE LINE

Why if someone offers better customer service on there products wouldn't you want to know? I understand he sponsors the sight and all but competition is a part of business and if people start buying from the person I posted up because they have a better repair policy maybe it might per sway Dave that he needs to offer some better options. Just MHO, now if Dave said sorry about the stem but send it and for 50 dollars I'll repair it that sounds reasonable so with shipping it would cost me under 100 bucks, but dont try to make money off from my misfortune when you already made it from the original stem purchase. I never was out to get anything for free but whatever no one seems to understand where I'm coming from.

sorry to hear about your stem. good luck with your new one. in my experience with jd its always been a+ service and craftsmanship in his products. look at it this way at least you didnt bend your frame. then that would of been exspensive.

i understand where you are coming from, but you dont understand where your coming from,

YOU crashed dave didnt go out and crash your bike and bend the stem, YOU did

and obviously you have no idea the price of steel now days the materail to fix that stem will cost more then 50 bucks even if he done the work for free

I've bought steel before and I dont think a section to repair that stem would even cost 10 bucks, hell I bought steel to rebuild the whole rear frame on a jeep, bumper and all mostly 1/4" stuff and it only costed 65 bucks and there's a hell of alot less steel in that stem then the rear end of a jeep. So dont try and tell me that

so you bought enough 4130 chromoly hardened steel to rebuild the rear frame of a jeep for 65 bucks? i want to start buying steel from them!! PM from where so i can let my boss know where to get our steel from, save our machine shop some money, hell i might even get a raise for it lol

and 10 bucks? come on dude you know that that stem to be right again the entire stem will have to be replace you cant just weld a straight section back in there and call it good you can re-use the bottom and the antivibe mounts and thats about it

YOUwrecked the bike no one else so its your fault nothing is free...heck id a told ya ohwell buy a new one and stop wrecking..lol

it does suck that it bent

anytime you walk away from a crash, the condition of the bike is insignificant.......

would you rather have a bent steering stem or a broken arm? bent frame or paralyzed?
put it into perspective...........quad parts are cheap. buy a new stem and be glad that you are ok.

Thanks guys for helping in my defense. This will be my last post on this topic as I have exceeded $150 in time dealing with this. I dont know how old he is or how much motoman knows about buisness, sounds like he just wants to argue.
Fisrt of all, its not about the cost of the steel at all, its about how much everything together. I have alot of overhead to keep this buisness running. A couple of thousand in advertising per month, a light bill, welding gasses,welding rod, thousands I have to pay in taxes as a buis. For me to fix your stem for $150 will cost me money, heres why. Your tubing that you are talking about is only $15. A new top section with the tapers for the antivibe is $12 to my machinist , an hour to cut/grind/weld is a modest rate of $60 . Next I have to send it out to be replated, they cost me $22 ea to plate when I have a large quantity to run at once, if not, I have an $90 minimum charged to me just to do your stem. So already the cost is at $177, not to mention the repackaging/invoicing time, and also all of that time I lost fixing it in the first place, I could have spent that time producing products for everyone else.

Like I said, thanks to all of my supporters who understand and chimed in in my defense, I really appreciate it

Dave

Those in the know, ride JD

I'm 25 and run a small business myself and have taken loses to satisfy customers needs because bottom line is customers and word of mouth make or break your reputation, while you still have alot of supporters of your product on here that are brainwashed that it is a great product you have one that is not and now others may steer away from purchasing from you, this was not my intention in bringing up this topic, Its really the way people run their businesses these days seems you cant get quality customer service anywhere and everybody's out to make a killing. The fact you deny ever receiving a call from me pissed me off in the first place I probably wouldn't of ever heard back from you had I not made this post or contacted you on here. So to the rest that support your product thats great but for now I take my business else where. Sorry for wasting all your precious time

daves name is actually jim jones

dude i see your pissed it bent... i would be too. but the thing with you cutting down on his business isnt right. You screwed up not him.

to me it looks like the Steel failed... any stem made by ANYONE with the same quality steel would have done the Exact same thing, the sticker on it dosent make it any stronger or weaker.
Nothing broke, all of his welds held... its the steel that failed when YOU crashed... not Dave's work.
and yes many of the members of this site love his products, including me, and dont see your complaining swaying mine or many other people on this site's oppinion of his products, and i can promise you if i get an aftermarket stem it will be from him.

I'm not upset with the craftsmanship or quality of the product, I question the steel a little bit as the construction of my current stem I'm running seems more heavy duty, guess the only way I'd know this is to cut it in half and I'm not gonna do that. I'm not really upset that it bent and I'm not here to ruin anyones business this topic got blown way out of proportion. Everyones intitiled to their own opinion I stated mine and everyone stated theres. I probably will just find someone with a press and bend the JD one back to keep as a spare.

ya know what ya should do??


u should put ur new stem on then wreck the same u did with this JD one ( not getting hurt of course ) n see what happens too ur new one that would be a good test

Dude, you crashed............Why would you come on here bashing JD performance?? He didn't do anything wrong. Seems ridiculous to me.....

i bent the chit outta my herrmann +3 and i was told there was no warranty on them for crashed and +3

i didnt complain, i just went and had a custom made stem +2 now which i like more than the +3 i had, looks better and bike dont look weird now.

Lol this topic is to funny

when i crashed my car Dodge didnt call me to fix it cause i bent stuff


has nothing to do with customer service your crash your fault... not him to lose money and time

sorry about being a lil harsh earlier... but the thing is these products are made to take abuse through normal riding conditions, not crash type abuse. 4 wheelers arnt crash tested like cars, but are similar in the unavoidable fact that when wrecks happen things do break... or bend in your case.
i guess that covers all my thoughts on this, so good luck with the new stem, and hopefully you dont have a similar experience bringing that one to the same demise as the JD.

can i have the bent jd ill pay shipping?

I dont know about anyone elese but i wold love to have a new stem for $150 if i bent mine thats one hell of a deal. I had a set of jd a-arms on my 250r years ago and rode them once and got ran into and there coustomer support was second to none, i called and debbie said go ahead and send them in and we will check them all out so i did and then a few days later she called and said yes one of your top a-arms is bent and she replaced it for a killer deal and got me back going realy fast. I had a similar thing happen to another set of a-arms and that company said sorry man we on;y build complete sets. I know this has nothing to due with stems but just letting you know how i was treated when i used jd perforance compared to other compaines.

this kid is an idiot for making this post.

he should feel lucky that he was even offered the option to have it fixed when it was his dumb ass that bent it. other companies would have laughed in his face and MAYBE offered him a small discount for a NEW stem.

we have awesome sponsors on here with excellent customer service. i feel bad when retards like this guy waste their time.

AMEN

agreed.......

For one if you would take time to read the whole post you might see my point of view and that I'm 25 and certainly not a kid, with statements like "his dumb ass that bent it" your the one that sounds like the kid here. Second there are multiple companies that offer lifetime warranties on extended axles made for racing so why the hell cant someone stand behind there steering stems?! Well I have found another company that does warranty all its racing products no questions asked.

Please tell us all who that co is. I would like to tell everyone where they could go to get a lifetime warranty on a stem. Plus they will get alot more bus out of the deal.
Thanks

Well I was mistaken they dont warranty the stems but there is lifetime warranty on there arms and swingarms. http://www.smcfabrication.com/warranty.html

Could I get your name so I dont accidently sell you anything? Or could you just remember not to buy from me please.....thanks

Have you ever held a steering stem and an axle in your hands?!?! There isn't much comparing the 2. May explain why there are several companies that warranty their axles for life.

I'm done with this topic its getting me no where, you all buy your stuff from whoever you want I dont care, all I know is that stem bent too easily and the roll design one I'm using now is double walled and built alot better, yet to crash again and when I do I'll let you all know if it bends. I might even cut the JD and my stock in half and I bet there pretty similar cause they both bent pretty easy.

You FLIPPED a 360+lbs machine onto a single piece of tubing. Even if you had a steering stem made of solid steel, it would still bend. Thats a lot of force being applied to something.

How about working on your riding skills instead of spending time b1tching about the quality of a companies product.

think about this... along with the above post.

you flip a 360lb machine over to land on a single piece of tubing.
now, if you had a steering stem that was indistructable whats going to break? because you know usually somthing has to give.
ever heard of a weak link? mabye you should be happy you just bent your stem instead of your frame!
and yea about the lifetime warranty on axles vs. stems? axles are solid steel, stems are hollow. that should answer that question.

I'm no engineer or anything, but if I remember correctly, isn't one tube .25" thick stronger than 2 tubes sleeved together both .125" thick, given the same overall outside diameter? just curious...