Amazon, Jegs, and Powerstop rant

[Terminator03]

So, after much research on here I decided to go with Powerstop red powder coated calipers, drilled/slotted rotors, and their Z34 Extreme pads when I developed the dreaded frozen caliper syndrome so common with these trucks. I also decided to go with the 5th gen versions since I was going all in anyway. So, long story short, on October 4th I placed the order with Amazon for the calipers, rotors and pads, and stainless lines for the front. I decided to order just the fronts at first since I had a frozen front caliper. Since everything showed “in stock”, I figured I’d have all the front stuff, get that done, then order the rears so as to break up the financial hit a bit. Well, the pads and rotors showed up in a couple of days, and also the lines maybe a day after those, but no calipers. Meanwhile, I ended up having a catastrophic failure of a rear caliper, where I lost all fluid, and obviously pedal pressure. So, suddenly the rears took precedence, and I went on Amazon to order the rear stuff, which luckily also showed “in stock”! Fortunately, all the rear parts came in in 2 days, so I as was able to get it back running the following day. While all this was going on, I received a notification from Amazon that they couldn’t verify the status of my previous caliper order because it was through a 3rd party vendor (Jegs) :gun5: WTF! I only placed the order because they showed “in stock”... as a matter of fact, I checked tonight and they still do! A few weeks ago I called Jegs and they apologized, and said the vendor (Powerstop) said they were back ordered until November 2nd, or something. Here we are at November 15th, and still no calipers while I am forced to drive on a frozen caliper.:mmph: Now, I’m between a rock and a hard place because I’ve already lost like 5 weeks waiting, and in the meantime installed the other brakes, so now even if I were to cancel, I’d end up with mismatched brakes. I’m not sure what to do at this point, but I’d like to make sure no one else gets duped by the “in stock” BS on Amazon if it’s not being sold directly by them! Apparently vendors can falsely advertise having items they don’t actually have in stock. Not a happy camper right now...

 

[Jarheadoo7]

Sorta the same happened to me. I ordered my powerstop kit from Summit Racing. First shipment brought the rears, about two weeks later the front came in but only one rotor. Summit said they don’t know when they will have any in stock as they basically buy them from Powerstop and ship them to the customer and Powerstop was backordered. About two weeks later they sent me a new front kit but the caliper pins were too short. Took two tries to get the pins right but they did send me the correct ones eventually.

Moral of the story, don’t order powerstop kits if you are on any sort of deadline. Or call powerstop and order directly from them.

Other than the shipping and parts mixup the kits went in great and are performing well so far.

 

[Terminator03]

Sorta the same happened to me. I ordered my powerstop kit from Summit Racing. First shipment brought the rears, about two weeks later the front came in but only one rotor. Summit said they don’t know when they will have any in stock as they basically buy them from Powerstop and ship them to the customer and Powerstop was backordered. About two weeks later they sent me a new front kit but the caliper pins were too short. Took two tries to get the pins right but they did send me the correct ones eventually.

Moral of the story, don’t order powerstop kits if you are on any sort of deadline. Or call powerstop and order directly from them.

Other than the shipping and parts mixup the kits went in great and are performing well so far.

Funny thing is, when I placed the order, I wasn’t really in a huge deadline, but knew I was having issues with a front caliper, so I figured it was a good place to start. Now it’s going on a month and a half! I am very happy with the rears so far, but I’m having trouble believing they can’t lay their hands on a single pair of calipers in the whole country, especially given the prolific failure rate of brakes on these trucks. I’m tossing around the idea of just getting some top shelf calipers from Napa or something, and just painting them as close as I can to match the red PC on the rears. Fortunately my truck still stops well, but there is a slight pull to one side because of that frozen caliper. What bugs me most is when I started this project, the weather was still nice. Now I’m going to be dealing with snow, ice, and freezing temps to do the work. I was planning to change wheel bearings, add longer studs, and change out one dust shield “while I was in there”, but now those other things may have to wait until spring because of the weather. I am planning to call Amazon today to complain about the fact that it states the parts are “in stock”. That is the only reason I placed the order in the first place!

 

[djpope09]

Funny thing is, when I placed the order, I wasn’t really in a huge deadline, but knew I was having issues with a front caliper, so I figured it was a good place to start. Now it’s going on a month and a half! I am very happy with the rears so far, but I’m having trouble believing they can’t lay their hands on a single pair of calipers in the whole country, especially given the prolific failure rate of brakes on these trucks. I’m tossing around the idea of just getting some top shelf calipers from Napa or something, and just painting them as close as I can to match the red PC on the rears. Fortunately my truck still stops well, but there is a slight pull to one side because of that frozen caliper. What bugs me most is when I started this project, the weather was still nice. Now I’m going to be dealing with snow, ice, and freezing temps to do the work. I was planning to change wheel bearings, add longer studs, and change out one dust shield “while I was in there”, but now those other things may have to wait until spring because of the weather. I am planning to call Amazon today to complain about the fact that it states the parts are “in stock”. That is the only reason I placed the order in the first place!

I know you want the calipers to be red, but NAPA does carry coated calipers in black. At the very least you could put them on and paint them later without worrying about rust in the meantime.

 

[Terminator03]

I know you want the calipers to be red, but NAPA does carry coated calipers in black. At the very least you could put them on and paint them later without worrying about rust in the meantime.

That’s true. I actually would’ve been happy with black PC, it’s just that the Powerstop came in red, and I already have the rears so I just wanted the fronts to match. That’s a great point though, about running the black until next spring when it would be warm enough to paint them without the rust issue.

 

[Jarheadoo7]

That’s true. running the black until next spring when it would be warm enough to paint them without the rust issue.

Might be the best idea, bang out the brake job so you have good brakes for winter. In the spring pop the rims off to scrub the inner rim and the wheel well from road salt (spring clean up) hit the black calipers with a 3m scuff pad, some primer, paint, clear they can dry up while you do all the other jobs you were going to do before the ice came.

I use amazon chat for my gripes. The chat people are 24/7 and super accommodating.