Well here it goes. My experience and outcome with TNT. I had a bumper I bought from HikkaDori back when they were in business. I was to busy at the time to get it installed and painted so it sat in my storage for about a year, at the beginning of this year I finally got around to take the car in to a body shop for paint and installation. So after all the hype and reviews I heard of TNT I went with them.... Well they installed my bumper with self taping screws and zip ties. Side markers with caulking, one fell. My hood doesn't even close sometimes.... Paint was good, nothing bad about that. That was late January till this day I was told I was going to get new bumper. that didn't happen. Then a refund. Haven't got that either. When I showed up to pick up the car and saw the work done to the car I was really unsatisfied. So David said he would replace the bumper.
I called 3-4 times a week after that for a month and never can get a hold of David.
The worst part I drove from San Jose to Sac and left my car there for 4 days for them to fit the bumper before they painted it, I even paid extra on top of paint for better fitment and them to take out every pin hole. I understand it was a HikkaDori shitty molds but a good shop would have fitted it first before paint and give me a call saying the fitment is off and doesn't look good. I would of bought a new bumper on the spot and trashed the other one. NEVER excepted that from a shop that is that well known.

The zip tie's recently ripped off on freeway and my skid plate and inner fender wells caught some wind and got caught under wheels completely trashing them.
Ill post pics I took when I find my camera. (probably tomorrow).

 

I have heard stories about TNT from others as well.... With bodyshops they see how much sh it customer can tolerate. If the customer does not have a good eye for they let sh it fly

 

How much did you pay for the paint & labor?

 

Got most of my money back last night thru paypal just waiting for it to clear.

 

wow sorry to hear that.. waiting on pics

 

Weird, I've heard great things about TNT from friends that have gotten work there. David is on here I just sent him a link to this thread.

 

So far David and TNT have done nothing but go above and beyond to take care of small issues I had with my paint. I will post pictures once I get car back and can do a photo shoot. I'm sorry you have not had as good of an experience there Drew.

 

They have always taken care of me, they have worked on 3 of my cars never had any issues. David is good people. Sorry to hear about that.

 

+1 on TNT. they went above and beyond for me n my baby... i even had some wierd requirements w/ my car and they took care of it without a blink of an eye (damn braille battery and needing to be contantly on a battery tender).

I've also experienced other body shops as well and the attention to detail is a night n day difference.

Sorry to hear about your car as i know how stressful handing off your baby can be. Just glad they are still working w/ you.

 

I usually troll the forums but I had to give my opinion about TNT after reading your review. I'm sorry to hear about what happen but I, along with many others, have always had a wonderful experience with TNT. David and Tony have done nothing but gone above and beyond for me as well as many others I know.

I do have to point out that you said they did offer you a refund which is very rare especially in the automotive industry. I have gone to other shops who tried to make my bumper fit and all I got was a "tough luck the mold was wrong we cant do anything about it" end of discussion. To me for David and TNT to give you a refund it shows that they are owning up to their mistakes. It may be unfortunate for you (which I am very sorry for btw) but it does shed a positive light proving that they provide excellent service are an honest business.

 

I've also had nothing but good experiences with all the paint work TNT has provided for me. Sorry to hear about you experience with them Andrew.

Tony and David are some pretty cool dudes too

 

The title of your post is key. This is your 2 cents, meaning your personal opinion and should not be misinterpreted as Fact.

It is unfortunate that you were not satisfied with the work TNT did on your car. Did you make it clear from the very start that if fitment is not 100% perfect that you didn't want them to do any work and you'd want to buy all new parts? If not, your expectation is not realistic and you should not have made assumptions.

Having had just about every hikkatadori body part painted and installed by TNT on my G previously I can attest to the bad fitment/molds that were associated with just about all of their parts. TNT did their best on my car and while fitment was not 100% perfect, it was something I could live with based on what I already knew about fitment on hikkatadori parts. You already acknowledged that you knew their parts did not fit well, but yet you still decided to bring it to TNT to install on your car. Were you expecting a miracle to happen? They (or any other body shop for that matter) can only do so much to improve fitment on a part that wasn't well designed in the first place.

TNT stands by their work, and the numerous positive reviews and feedback from their customers speaks for itself. Your experience while negative in your perception is not the norm for TNT's customers and should not be used to judge their quality of work or customer service. Especially since they rectified your complaint by giving you a refund.

I assume your intent in posting this thread was to vent your frustrations and somehow worsen the shop's reputation, and it is just unnecessary. Your concerns could have been handled appropriately offline.

 

Again its my opinion, I have seen good work from them, that is why I took my car there in the first place.
Yes I made it clear before I went that I couldn't fit it and I'am not expert on body work so thats why I took it to them. I told him before hand to fit the bumper before paint as I had issues installing it. Thats why I left my car there. But they went ahead and painted it before fitting. Also he is the one that said he would replace it. I didn't ask him to. But he never did hold up to his word. I know I got it done around WekFest time and they were slammed but that was months ago and he would always say next week and next week. Work done to my car aside David is cool guy Im just not sure why he kept avoid my calls and texts. So I was trying to take care of it offline for months. It isn't my intent to give the shop a bad rep. Just giving my review on MY situation.

 

+1 on TNT. I too have had, in total, 7 hikattadori parts installed on my G from TNT. from numerous bumpers, sidekirts, and even the Ing+1 hikkatadori fenders (probably the worst fitment of any Hikkata-D parts), TNT still went above and beyond to make them fit as best as possible. I would trust no other shop in the entire bay area to install any parts on my car other than TNT. The fact is, sometimes parts are poor fitment, and with that, you are going to risk the quality of final product, regardless how much a shop tries to make it fit like OEM. Im sorry you had a poor experience, but I would find it challenging to blame the shop, when they are by far one of the most proficient in handling G's and the various kits available for our cars.

 

I think people are overlooking the fact that the OP stated his bumper was installed using zip ties and the side markers with caulking. That's not how parts are to be installed no matter how bad the fitment.

Also, everyone's stating how their hikattadori parts were installed with no problems except the usual fitment issues. Were parts installed on their cars with zip ties and caulking?

I have a part time business repairing G35's and deal with a bodyshops on a daily basis. One thing I know is that bodyshops hire new labor every week it seems. A paint guy might get fed up and just quit and the same with the body repair guys. I'm thinking maybe a new guy, whose work isn't up to par with the rest of the TNT crew, was put to work on fitting the OP's bumper and just did a shiddy job which was overlooked by the owner(s) of TNT.

Either that or the OP is not being totally honest and told TNT to paint and install the bumper at the cheapest price possible, hence the zip ties and caulk.

OP, can you post any pics of the bumper on your car?

Also, is the bumper poly or fiber? I'm not too familiar with poly but I know fiber is fairly easy to rework or add on new material to make it fit a lot better. It's just a matter of how much you want to spend for the extra labor.