Episode 1: My rant on Stillen's horrible customer service...
 

Well, I’ve wanted to put together a piece on my dreadful experiences with Stillen over the past year and I finally managed to collect my thoughts. Below is my “Stillen Rant”, which outlines a dramatic tale of pain and sorrow that I endured in my dealings with the popular Stillen Sport Cars organization.


<o></o>Stillen: Episode I
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The first section of my rant is an email about the problems I had getting information on two things:
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1. Obtaining a set of tips or replacement cat-back exhaust rear-section (as I was not happy with the look of the slash-cut single wall tips on the exhaust I bought off a fellow G35’er)
2. Finding out the correct bolt lengths for the cat-back exhaust installation (since I didn't buy the exhaust from Stillen I didn't have the bolts reference in the installation instructions)

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Here's an email I sent to Stillen on March 3, 2006 complaining about my inability to get any answers to my questions. Below this email the story continues….
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BEGIN EMAIL==============================
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Hi Stillen,

I wanted to drop you a letter to let you know that I think your products are fabulous. Steve has built quite an impressive operation out of the aftermarket performance automobile industry. Your products have a strong reputation and for good reason. When I just bought my Infiniti G35, I quickly learned about the value of your products and their popularity among the enthusiasts. A few months ago, I picked up the cat-back exhaust from a friend who was selling his car and it sounds great. I also have the Stillen cold air intake, and planned to add a Stillen supercharger kit in the coming year. Though your products are great, I feel that I need to make you aware of some other practices of yours which I've found to be not-so-great.

One is regarding Jason Kang, one of the technicians in your sports cars division. In the past two weeks, I've sent three consecutive emails to Jason, all of which have gone unanswered. I was trying to find out if I can just buy the dual-wall tips for my '03 G35 cat-back exhaust, or if I need to buy the entire back piece (mufflers, tips, etc.). I'm not too hot on the look of the single-wall tips. I just needed some information, and have always seemed to have difficulty getting this type of information from Jason. A month or two ago, I had asked him to fax the installation instructions for the exhaust and I had to call back twice to finally get it.

In another situation just before the weekend of January 13th, I was preparing to do the exhaust installation and needed some confirmation about the length of the screws required. I specifically remember that it was a Friday afternoon, around 4:20pm Pacific time when I first called Jason about this. He told me I needed to call a sales rep (whose name I don't recall) to get this information and gave me the sales rep’s name, then told me that I should wait for about 30 minutes to call him since the rep was apparently busy at that moment. When I called back around 4:50pm, the receptionist - whose name I don't have - mentioned that it was close to closing time and that I may not be able to get through to the sales rep I was looking for. Still, she patched me through to the rep, who then told me that a tech needed to give me the details about the bolt length. So I was sent back to operator to ask for Jason again. By now it was 5 minutes until closing (4:55pm) and she said he probably wasn't there. I asked her to please try since I had just talked to him and it was a simple question that could be answered in one minute or less. She patched me through and I got Jason on the phone. I told him the sales rep sent me back to him and he said "oh, hold on a second". Once again I was put on hold and the time was now about 2 minutes before 5pm. The phone system then seemed to “malfunction” and conveniently routed me back to the receptionist, whom I then told that I had just been put on hold by Jason. She firmly stated that he was probably gone for the day, but I insisted that he had JUST put me on hold and I was waiting for an answer from him. She said she would go check for him. I was on hold again for another 4 minutes, and when she picked up again, she answered "Stillen, can I help you?" or something along those lines. Since she had answered the phone like that, it seems that she had not left her desk and I wasn't convinced that she had actually tried to find him for me. So I asked her once again to please find him because I just spoke with him and he had put me on hold. She again firmly stated that all techs were gone for the day and I would have to call back on Monday. She refused to put me through or try to find him. Frustrated, I asked for her name so I could follow up and let you know about my experience. She refused to give me her name, stating "we're not allowed to give that out". I asked who her manager was and she then proceed to hang up on me. I was shocked that a professional organization with whom I was trying to build a mutually beneficial relationship (a.k.a. give you my money for your products) just essentially slapped me in the face, indifferent to my needs or concerns.

I never actually got the information I needed to do the exhaust installation that weekend. Luckily, I had a friend who helped me guesstimate the correct size after checking out the clamps. To make a long story short, my experience on January 13th has tarnished my opinion of Stillen Sport Cars. I truly feel that Stillen's employees are not dedicated to customer service and satisfaction. While your products are great, my experiences with your staff over the phone and email have left me second-guessing my choice to give you $6500 or more on a forced induction system for my car. I'm now looking seriously at some competitor systems and believe they would appreciate my business more. Steve Millen should know that some of his employees do have the best interest of his business in mind.

Sincerely,

Brian M.
An unhappy customer

END EMAIL==============================
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Following that email, I got a call from the Stillen sales manager, Jeff Ricciardi, the next day. He expressed concern about my experience and promised that he’d do whatever he could to make it up. I thought, “Wow, these guys actually do give a crap about their customers.” Over the course of the next week, we worked out a deal where they sold me just the rear section of the cat-back dual-wall tip system for $679+shipping. I was very pleased with this prompt attention to my matter and viewed it as a form of conciliation for my ordeal involving their techs and receptionist. But in hindsight, it was just another move by them to get my money. I really don’t think they were concerned about my satisfaction with them as a company. My next experience with them confirmed that for me. See my next post...
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Episode 2: My rant on Stillen's horrible customer service...(cont.)
 

Stillen: Episode II
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My next experience with Stillen started about four weeks ago, right after the holidays. There was some exhaust rattle after my header/cats install, and with some helpful analysis by AAM we determined that one of the Stillen resonators had a loose part inside of it (heard when banging on the resonator with a fist). Now the exhaust rattle may have been somewhere else but I wanted to start with replacing the resonators to see if that cleared it up since we definitely heard something shaking in there when banging on it.
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So I called up Stillen back around the first of the year and got in touch with one of their sales guys, Bob A. (not sure of his last name), who told me he'd get back to me after finding out how to handle a resonator-only transaction. I waited about a week and called him back. He said the guy who normally handled this type of thing was out and he'd get back to me with some information later that week. I waited until the following week and after not hearing from him I finally called (after two emails) and he said again he'd get back to me later that day with pricing - he claimed the holdup all along was the fact that they were deciding how to get that small rod that holds the two resonators in position. He never called that day and the weekend passed.
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Finally, I got a call from Bob two days later and our discussion went something like this. He said that he was finally able to get in touch with the sales manager and that in order for me to get two new resonators I'd have to buy the entire front/midsection pieces of the exhaust for $679+shipping. I asked why I had to buy the whole exhaust when I only needed two resonators worth about $100. He avoided my direct question and said they were trying to "work with me" and that I was the only customer to whom they've ever sold sections only of their exhaust. While I found that to be an interesting piece of Stillen trivia, all I wanted was an explanation why they couldn't sell me the exhaust. I was at AAM earlier that week and Jason, the service manager (who by the way is an awesome guy to work with), offered to sell me resonators off of their AAM-spec 2.5” G35 coupe exhaust. I didn’t see why Stillen should treat me any differently. Anyway, as I probed Bob for an explanation, he continued to give me the runaround, refusing to give a straight, honest answer about why I had to buy the whole front/midsection. All he could say was, “Listen, we’re trying to work with you” and “This is a special case”. I took offense to his avoidance of my question and quite frankly considered it an act of disprespect. Suddenly, at that moment, all of the negative emotions of my prior painful experience in early 2006 came rushing into my system and I became overwhelmed with anger. I told Bob, “You guys are just a pain in the a$$.” He then said, “Go shop somewhere else” and hung up on me.
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Needless to say I was furious with the whole situation. But thinking back and looking at the big picture I was glad it happened. I felt compelled to reflect on my experiences and draw some conclusions.
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My first thought was that they didn’t treat me like a regular customer because I did not buy the exhaust from them. If this is true, then that’s a horrible business practice. IMO, any aftermarket sports car company should encourage and support their fellow enthusiasts especially when any parts that company has sold (to whomever) are faulty and in need of replacement. To me that’s just good business. It’s not like I was asking for a free replacement under warranty, just some small parts that I was willing to pay for. Still, I don’t think profit should be the primary driving force of any customer-centric business; rather, customer satisfaction should be out in front. Sport cars are our passion and these companies are here to enrich our experience along the way, right? Yes, they’re in it for the money, but if they don’t care about our contentedness then I don’t want them to have my money.
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Another thought that came to mind was that these companies don’t typically sell individual parts of their exhaust systems, especially the larger compaines with large production processes. I imagine their processes are highly automated and streamlined for efficiency and cost reduction. I also realize that ordering parts such as resonators would probably be out of their normal sales framework and disturb their typical production cycle. However, why couldn’t they just sell me the resonators they buy when they have their exhausts assembled? Because it goes against their established production methodology? Again, this is just more evidence that they aren’t concerned with their customers if they can’t bend the rules just a bit on occasion to make sure their customers are happy.
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Although I really just wanted the exhaust resonators, I would’ve been more content with not getting them if they had at least given me a logical reason why they couldn’t sell them to me. For the entire two weeks, I felt like they were just trying to get as much money out of me as they could. They weren’t giving me facts. They only wanted to push me to see if I would buy the full front/midsections. They led me on for over fourteen days with empty promises. This further illustrates their selfish ways.
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Despite all of the negativity of these situations, I realized some rather positive points of interest that I’d like to share with my fellow G35’ers.
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• I am now completely and utterly convinced of Stillen’s lack of concern for their customers. I will never do business with them again or even buy any of their parts (used) for any of my cars.
• Because I was forced to buy non-Stillen resonators, my exhaust tone was reduced considerably compared to the Stillen resonators. So much in fact, that I highly recommend anyone with HFC’s, headers, and a Stillen cat-back system who has cabin drone (and doesn’t like it) to go out and get the 14” Magnaflow 4” mufflers and have them welded in to replace the worthless Stillen resonators. The drone will be all but gone and the car will sound a bit more like a V8 too.

<o></o>I guess that’s it for my Stillen rant (for now). My goal was to share my painful experiences with you in hopes that you will think twice before doing business with a vendor such as Stillen. There are just too many aftermarket part manufacturers out there to put up with companies that don’t give a $hit about your satisfaction.
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Hope this has been helpful (and maybe entertaining),
Brian :cool:

I just checked out their website and Boy! I don't know who is setting that thing up but you can't find anything that you neede to lookup
stuff that I know is there, I am currently getting ready to go with a stillen supercharger from one of the memebers on this site and needed to order a couple of things (like the hood) plus plugs and extra belts but I wanted to look these up first, of-course like anyone would do, to price and such

but hell good like fiinding anything on that site, they need to fire whoever maintains that site

I also had a negative experience with Stillen a couple years ago.

I had already installed Stillen's sway bars on my '04 coupe when I called them with some questions about their supercharger kit, valvebody upgrade for the AT, and some general questions about going forced induction.

The receptionist forwarded me to some sales rep. I don't remember the guys name, but he was an arrogant prick and was abrupt with me over the phone, like he had something else more important to do. I asked if the supercharger kit would fit under a factory hood and he advised that it didn't. I told him that I didn't really like the way the Stillen hood looked on the G35 and that it might sway my decision to go with a turbo kit instead. He then proceeded to talk sh@# about the turbo kits available at that time. After finishing that phone call and doing more research on my own, I realized that that sales rep wasn't really knowledgable about everything available out there in the aftermarket for the G/Z and was talking out his a@# about the competitor's turbo kits.

Needless to say, I never called them back. And when I replaced my '04 coupe, I decided to put Cusco sway bars on my '06. I won't consider buying a Stillen product again unless most of the guys out there in the G/Z enthusiast world agree that one of their particular parts/upgrades is absolutley better than all the other brands.

I'm with you
 

I'm glad to hear that. Hopefully others will read this thread and take our experiences to heart!

-B

Thanks for sharing your negative experiences with Stillen. I recently had a negative experience too.

Like shdowflare, I bought a used Stillen exhaust, but for some reason, I didn't have the exhaust gaskets. I called Stillen, thinking gaskets would be an easy thing to get, compared to resonators.

I called and reception answered. I told her that I needed to buy some gaskets. She transfered me to either sales or tech support and I told the guy what I needed. He then transferred me to the other department, sales or tech, and I spoke to another guy. That guy told me that they don't really support used Stillen parts, even though they are made by Stillen, because of the problems with selling individual parts. But, he said he would do me this favor and try to help me out because the first guy that I spoke to (for 30 seconds) was a great guy and a good friend, so he would do this for me.

He looked up the stillen exhaust and said it needs two gaskets. It really needs four. I asked if he could ship them to the shop (Performance Factory) that was working on my car, who has an account with Stillen. I gave him the shop's number and he called for the address. Jeremy at Performance Factory also told the guy that he needed FOUR gaskets. The guy at Stillen still sent two gaskets @ $10 each. So I still need two gaskets which I'm going to make. The stock metal gaskets work, but the opening is 1/4 inch smaller than the Stillen.

So anyway, don't buy used Stillen products if you want support for them because they obviously don't want to support them.

Yeah, a good lesson learned I suppose. :)

bottom line? good r&d, good product, poor customer service?

not that unusual these days, unfortunately. i was torn between fastintentions and stillen (both had documented gains and were close to stock, which is what I was looking for).

glad I made the right choice...

This is Jason Kang (ex-employee of Stillen) who you referred to previously. I just wanted to point some things out from my side to help you understand the situation. I was not a technician at Stillen, I was a sales representative. My key duties were sales to existing and new customers. Of course, customer service is inherent in any kind of sales job, and I always tried to help out my customers when they had questions, requests, etc. However, at Stillen, we did have a separate customer service division. That is probably the main misunderstanding between us. Customer service were the people who would’ve helped you in regards to the first two things you needed. (exhaust bolt size and copy of installation instructions) I hope you understand that something like an exhaust bolt size is not something that I would know off the top of my head, and would normally take some time to get an answer to. So even though you called me at 4:20 and 4:50, it wouldn’t make a difference because sometimes certain questions take time to look into and get the pertinent information for. Really, I am sorry that I couldn’t accommodate to your install schedule, but what more could I have done? In regards to the exhaust tips, that also takes time for me to get an answer back, sometimes longer than my customer or I would’ve preferred. I’m not going to go into the structure and policies of Stillen, but I assure you that I went out of my way in order to help you out w/ the things that you requested of me, which were really not things that I was even obligated to do. Basically the requests you asked of me could not have been fulfilled in a short period of time. It was beyond my power. They were customer service issues yet you kept on calling me about it, when they would have been able to help you better; .and I know that I had referred to you customer service multiple times. Either way, I apologize that I could not have helped you in a more efficient manner. I really wish I was able to do so. I worked at Stillen because I was and still am an enthusiast, and helping others to modify their vehicles gave me great personal satisfaction. I stopped working there early last year, and I am just responding to you to let you know things from my side, not for any kind of business interest whatsoever. I hope this helps us both, and please feel free to PM me if there is anything else you wanted to know.

Hey Jason,

Thanks for following up and letting me know your side of the story. I wasn't singling you out so much as your old employer. I've dealt with multiple people there and have never been made to feel that my concerns/questions were important. All of my interactions with Stillen (as a customer service organization) put me in a position where I felt that I needed to let others know what to expect.

Perhaps we did miscommunicate. The fact that I wasn't aware you were not a tech is certainly evidence of that. But quite frankly, I didn't care who helped me get my information - I just wanted to get it. And no one took ownership of my questions.

All else aside, I do appreciate your post and wish you the best of luck in your future positions. And I'm glad to hear you're a fellow G35'er.

Take care,
Brian

I only had to deal with Stillen a couple two times when I had my SC and both times they were very good. The sent me free parts overnight. Looks like I am the odd one here.

If that were me, I wouldn't be upset that I couldn't get an answer...but how I was treated. I would rather the sales rep or cust serv rep just come out and say that they don't know and it would take time to get the correct info. Come out straight and don't give me a run around and keep transferring and hanging up on...thats what would frustrate me...