Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:14:07 -0400
Reply-To: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: who sells good german chrome new bumpers???
In-Reply-To: <1544d.3742a28f.38d0cfa0@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Chris, chrome bumpers for the Vanagon are one of those parts that has
always been a pain for everyone involved. The customer has the pain of
every time someone brushes up against it or looks at it funny, it bends
or dings. The vendors have the pain of only being able to get
reproductions from Denmark that are decent but not the best quality.
Then they get dented in shipping or they have dings on them when you get
them from your parts supplier. Then they are oversized so they are a
pain and expensive to ship. Then the customer gets it and is unhappy
with either a minor ding or a quality problem. Or UPS trashes it and
doesn't want to pay the insurance. Or the customer wants you to pay to
have it shipped back and send him another one.
When you could get the "awesome" triple chrome VW OE bumpers they
weren't that great either. Yes the chrome would last longer but they
were still just as easy to dent and trash out. Then you have the
price. The last time you could get an OE rear bumper they were close to
$500! I offered them to people and even after I told them about the
quality problems with the aftermarket bumpers they always went with the
aftermarket ones. Now, Chris, let's be honest, there is no way on earth
you would pay $500 for an OE German rear chrome bumper.
Please don't look down on the vendors for selling the rear chrome
bumpers they are selling. They are really only doing it to help
customers out. What little we make on them is lost with these other
issues. When all of the vendors get fed up with them and don't sell
them any more then you are going to post about where have all the
"awesome" aftermarket chrome bumpers gone :-)
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com
JordanVw@AOL.COM wrote:
> just wondering if any vendor out there sells good german chrome bumpers
> for the '80-'87 vanagon.. i know there is alot of JUNK being sold out there
> by vendors.. i have seen some new bumpers sold by some vendors that dont
> last more than a year and they start to rust thru the cheap thin chrome.. i
> have a parts van here that has a 2 year old bumper on it that the PO bought
> new from one of the online vendors and it looks like it was sitting at the
> bottom of the ocean for 50 years.. thin steel, sh*tty chrome job.. holes for
> the trim strip dont even line up with the strip itself.. an all around
> sorry excuse for a bumper...
>
> so...is there any vendors out there who sell good german triple chrome
> bumpers for the vanagon???
>
>
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