Pariah
Pariah!
Things have been TOO QUIET...
and I would've started some fireworks long before now just on general principle!
But alas, chronic unemployment has a way of choking-off exuberances at all levels of existence. And just when one thinks things couldn't get any worse, it does: Friday night, I'm off to my weekly nocturnal rendezvous-- the only regular driving I do anymore-- and as I pull out of the driveway and get down the dark drizzly residential street, I notice an ominous BOUNCY, buckboard-type ride that gets my attention real quick. My head is soon bouncing off the roof of the cab as I attempt to jet outta the 'hood at my normal 30mph, so I had to cut speed dramatically to remain conscious... damned washboard roads!
When I got to my destination, I did a quick inspection and immediately saw the problem: The BED OF THE SYCLONE HAD DROPPED TO THE GOUND, and the tires were just a quarter-inch away from the cladding!! Right away, I'm thinking busted bed-supports or some other mystical hole-in-the-floor unlikelihood as I drove back home and made plans to get under the vehicle the next day. The very last thing I ever expected to find was COLLAPSED LEAF-SPRINGS because 10 years ago I had invested in what was surely to have been an ultimate performance upgrade:
However, when I got underneath the Truck the next day that's exactly what it was! BOTH springs internally split... delaminated... in exactly the same spot! AND FOR NO REASON! No high speed travel... no pot-holes... no speed-bumps... no wrecks... no "bat-turns"... NO NOTHING to cause something this dramatic! Once again, virtue (i.e., sober, adult driving habits) is its own reward....
Admittedly, I had installed a set of Roadmaster Active Suspension springs over the top of each rear section (minimally stretched) of each Flex-a-Form spring back in 2000 and drove 'em that way all the way down from Maryland and around Texas for most of the Decade from Hell until July '08, when I finally removed those irritating lowering-blocks. (I did the same thing to ol' Radar-Blue in 2004, just in time to get it up on jackstands, where it remains to date!) The Tail was nicely pointed northward, but for the first few miles, the ride was incredibly BOUNCY as the Bilsteins self-adjusted to their longer strokes. I actually thought that was happening again over the weekend, but even no shocks would not account for that sort of squat. The ride has never been better all this time.
So, how do both leaf-springs fail simultaneously in precisely the same spot for NO discernible cause!?!? Are these merely 10-year Springs and that's the bottom line? You'd think George Smolen at Flex-A-Form would be proud enough of his product to spring (pun intended) to the assistance of a loyal customer with copious sympathy, explanations, and suggestions. You'd expect at least responsiveness comparable with what he showed when I contacted him about purchasing a second set of those composite-wonders. But No-o-o-o-o-o! Ol' George either died or sold the business to some Young Turk who's got all the corporate web-mailing blocked and never answers the phones, as I found out yesterday when I left one of my typically colorful messages. I even filled out a fake order-form with my Inquiry embedded in the remarks box. No dice!
In short, I've got NO ANSWERS TO MY EMERGENCY from Flex-A-Form to date and, although South Carolina may well be snowed-in as DC was or that factory's on a seasonal shutdown, I have a real bad feeling that I'm just never gonna get any satisfaction or even any explanation regarding this clearly DEFECTIVE PRODUCT and piss-poor customer service. Meanwhile, I am hereby counseling all "youse" in the SyTy Community to STEER CLEAR OF FLEX-A-FORM AND ITS HIGH-TECH STUFF! Pull 'em off your recommendation or affiliate webpages and spread the word!! If you think it's just me... karma or whatever... get a load of what I just found; I'm not the only one to have gotten BIT by the high-tech bug:
http://www.syty.net/forums/showthread.php?p=749556#post749556.
I'll guess I'll be adding my own pictures shortly, but don't expect anything as dramatic as those postings. My delaminations are quite clean and nonobvious, but I guess I'd better stop driving around as I did Saturday night.... Materials fatigue is a funny science. Maybe I should have left those Roadmasters on. But, their supplementation occurred at the rear segment of the spring; mine split in the forward segment just ahead of the springpad. Maybe it's time for a class-action...?
But, more importantly...
NOW, who has an old set of stock or equivalent metal leaf-springs lying around that are just taking up space... and which (s)he could sell me cheap? I need to get rolling ASAP.
and I would've started some fireworks long before now just on general principle!
But alas, chronic unemployment has a way of choking-off exuberances at all levels of existence. And just when one thinks things couldn't get any worse, it does: Friday night, I'm off to my weekly nocturnal rendezvous-- the only regular driving I do anymore-- and as I pull out of the driveway and get down the dark drizzly residential street, I notice an ominous BOUNCY, buckboard-type ride that gets my attention real quick. My head is soon bouncing off the roof of the cab as I attempt to jet outta the 'hood at my normal 30mph, so I had to cut speed dramatically to remain conscious... damned washboard roads!
When I got to my destination, I did a quick inspection and immediately saw the problem: The BED OF THE SYCLONE HAD DROPPED TO THE GOUND, and the tires were just a quarter-inch away from the cladding!! Right away, I'm thinking busted bed-supports or some other mystical hole-in-the-floor unlikelihood as I drove back home and made plans to get under the vehicle the next day. The very last thing I ever expected to find was COLLAPSED LEAF-SPRINGS because 10 years ago I had invested in what was surely to have been an ultimate performance upgrade:
Flex-A-Form Composite-Fiberglass Single-Leaf Springs.
However, when I got underneath the Truck the next day that's exactly what it was! BOTH springs internally split... delaminated... in exactly the same spot! AND FOR NO REASON! No high speed travel... no pot-holes... no speed-bumps... no wrecks... no "bat-turns"... NO NOTHING to cause something this dramatic! Once again, virtue (i.e., sober, adult driving habits) is its own reward....
Admittedly, I had installed a set of Roadmaster Active Suspension springs over the top of each rear section (minimally stretched) of each Flex-a-Form spring back in 2000 and drove 'em that way all the way down from Maryland and around Texas for most of the Decade from Hell until July '08, when I finally removed those irritating lowering-blocks. (I did the same thing to ol' Radar-Blue in 2004, just in time to get it up on jackstands, where it remains to date!) The Tail was nicely pointed northward, but for the first few miles, the ride was incredibly BOUNCY as the Bilsteins self-adjusted to their longer strokes. I actually thought that was happening again over the weekend, but even no shocks would not account for that sort of squat. The ride has never been better all this time.
So, how do both leaf-springs fail simultaneously in precisely the same spot for NO discernible cause!?!? Are these merely 10-year Springs and that's the bottom line? You'd think George Smolen at Flex-A-Form would be proud enough of his product to spring (pun intended) to the assistance of a loyal customer with copious sympathy, explanations, and suggestions. You'd expect at least responsiveness comparable with what he showed when I contacted him about purchasing a second set of those composite-wonders. But No-o-o-o-o-o! Ol' George either died or sold the business to some Young Turk who's got all the corporate web-mailing blocked and never answers the phones, as I found out yesterday when I left one of my typically colorful messages. I even filled out a fake order-form with my Inquiry embedded in the remarks box. No dice!
In short, I've got NO ANSWERS TO MY EMERGENCY from Flex-A-Form to date and, although South Carolina may well be snowed-in as DC was or that factory's on a seasonal shutdown, I have a real bad feeling that I'm just never gonna get any satisfaction or even any explanation regarding this clearly DEFECTIVE PRODUCT and piss-poor customer service. Meanwhile, I am hereby counseling all "youse" in the SyTy Community to STEER CLEAR OF FLEX-A-FORM AND ITS HIGH-TECH STUFF! Pull 'em off your recommendation or affiliate webpages and spread the word!! If you think it's just me... karma or whatever... get a load of what I just found; I'm not the only one to have gotten BIT by the high-tech bug:
http://www.syty.net/forums/showthread.php?p=749556#post749556.
I'll guess I'll be adding my own pictures shortly, but don't expect anything as dramatic as those postings. My delaminations are quite clean and nonobvious, but I guess I'd better stop driving around as I did Saturday night.... Materials fatigue is a funny science. Maybe I should have left those Roadmasters on. But, their supplementation occurred at the rear segment of the spring; mine split in the forward segment just ahead of the springpad. Maybe it's time for a class-action...?
But, more importantly...
NOW, who has an old set of stock or equivalent metal leaf-springs lying around that are just taking up space... and which (s)he could sell me cheap? I need to get rolling ASAP.
