AAC HID Retrofits: Buyer BEWARE!!!!
 

Hello all,

Just posting this to save any one else from the frustration of dealing with AAC and their custom work when it comes to their HID "retrofit" If you've had no issues with AAC in this regard, I'm glad you have been fortunate enough to avoid this. As for me, I'm done doing business with this company. Any company that requires the customer to pay for shipping on faulty items, sends out defective parts with out proper quality checks, and employs shoddy workmanship is bad enough, but to have the complete audacity to suggest the customer contact the 3rd party company that supplied AAC with the materials for a redesign on said retrofit is absolutely unbelievable. Customer service is not a priority with this company, and any one that does business with them is taking a huge gamble.

Below is an excerp of emails between myself and Jonathan Barber of AAC.

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Date: Thu, October 25, 2012 7:54 am
To: jonathan@aacstyle.com

Good morning Jonathan

I just completed a phone call with Ron/AAC tech asking what he needed sent back to test for issues. He advised he would need the ballast as well as the bulb from the right headlight causing the issue. While he was on the phone he talked me through removing the bulb, and this is when I saw the poor workmanship on the retrofit for these headlights. Ron explained there should be silicone and a retaining clip to hold the bulb in place. Once I chipped through the silicon I noticed that not only was there no retaining clip, but it looked as if the bulb was glued in to keep it in place. I am attaching pics to show what I saw.

I am absolutely appalled by what I've seen. So, am I to assume every time I need to remove the bulb from these retrofits, I need to glue AND silicone this bulb in place? This is unacceptable, and this matter needs to be cleared quickly. If It can not, I would like to be refunded on this purchase. I once held AAC in high esteem, but with this revelation, no more. I can not believe this kind of work would be sent out and deemed professional.

Jonathan, if this is something that you can not fix, please provide the the general manager or owner's name and email. I would like this resolved as quickly as possible. I'm hoping that my faith in your company and customer service can be restored.



===== On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 4:20 PM, <jonathan@aacstyle.com> wrote:
Will,

The reason that we use silicone on the back of the housings is to ensure that you do not get any moisture inside of your headlights; we do this with every Camaro retrofit that is installed here. If you are missing the retaining clips we can replace them here; I am not sure why they were missing though.

Unfortunately we are not able to modify the Morimoto projectors in any way because this is how they come from the factory. If you would like to contact the factory that manufacturers the projectors you may be able to get them to redesign a set projectors specifically for you.

Custom work is not reversible or refundable as is stated on the bottom of your invoice, "Custom work cannot be reversed or refunded. When you ship your lights to AAC, you are authorizing us to complete the custom work as we see fit."




If you would like to send the headlights back to us we will add the retaining clips to the projectors or if you would rather me ship the retaining clips to you I can do that as well.
Please let me know how I can assist you further in the future,

Jonathan Barber
National Sales Manager


===== On Fri, Oct 26 (3 days ago) Will M. wrote:

Jonathan,

I purchased the product from AAC; not Morimoto, so to suggest that I contact Morimoto to request a redesign on a product your company is reselling is absolutely irresponsible. How was the R&D done on this? It is amazing that your company is fine with the notion the customer has to chip through silicone, glue, and deal with the possibility of missing clips to do something as mundane as replace a bulb. And once this is discovered the company line is "contact the factory that manufactures these retrofits"? This is how AAC does business? You dont stand behind your product because of a manufacturing defect that should have been found by you before selling and marketing this product, and the consumer is then stuck with faulty goods due to your "CUSTOM WORK" policy?

I will send the headlights AND bulb back for extensive testing and repair, (and I assume the shipping will be my responsibility YET AGAIN?) since there is no other recourse, but believe me when I say I am truly disappointed in you and the company you represent. On numerous occasions, I have to my co-workers and various clubmates contact AAC for any lighting needs with their vehicles. That will be rectified, as I do not want any of them to deal with the level of frustation and shoddy workmanship that I've had to endure with this mess.

Please respond as soon as possible so we can get this issue dealt with swiftly.

******






Since then, there has been no response from AAC other than an automated email about being away @ Sema. Again, I am posting this so other potential purchasers can steer clear of this company. I don't expect anything to be done by AAC, other than to sit by their policy of no refund for "Custom work" (laughable), and lifetime warranties that require the client to eat the cost of shipping, not to mention the cost of having a professional installer remove and re-install. As I said in the email, at one time I recommended friend and colleages to AAC for custom light work. Never again! AAC just lost another customer here.

Below are pics of the retrofit work. 2 with the silicone chipped away displaying the missing retaining clip, 2 with the silicone still in place on the working headlamp

That's crazy because I use TRS producs all the time and have never needed to use glue to hold a bulb in place or needed back parts to diagnose an issue. People need to realize AAC is not a good company to deal with. They only want their customers money. Once they have it they could care less about after the sale service.

Absolutely how I feel at this point. I've been dealing with issues on this retrofit since August. If they've worked properly for 2 hours total I would be surprised! My installers have vowed to never touch an AAC install again.

Wow, that's terrible. My retrofit from TRS is perfect and I've never had to use silicone to hold a projector up. And from looking at yours, it looks like a D2S projector which is the exact projector I am using.

AAC is not an authorized reseller of TRS products. They are illegally using the Morimoto trademark.

These products are just generic copies.

Those are H1 knockoff projectors for sure. :thumbdown:

That is absolutely not how the projectors fit in, there are a series of screws plates and clips. I used TRS and have not a single problem with my retrofit in over a year they are amazing to work with.

this is what it looks like but once the light is in a clip holds in tightly in place:

heres my thread on how to do a retrofit correctly:
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201133

http://i1191.photobucket.com/albums/...7/IMG_0761.jpg

This right here is how it should be done!! Great work Austin! Looks amazing!

Hmm.... Didn't know that at all! Thanks for the info!

Almost all their stuff is from China. I made a post showing it but it got taken down. I will probably get in trouble for this post.

This is a post from BasAssBumbleBee when he unboxed his AAC installed HID retrofit. It's not the best pic, but if you look at the one that's of the back of the housing you can see that it doesn't look like what's in your OP. Did you say AAC installed them?

The OP is missing the entire bulb holder. AAC used glue instead of a clip because they didn't do the retrofit correctly and glue was the cheapest solution. The pics from the other AAC retro is the same knock off TRS projector. They are profiting by using TRS projectors from the bargin bin. Your basically paying AAC 200 bucks to open your housings. When you can buy another entire set for 150 and do it yourself. Lol.

Thanks for the pic sir.....do you mind if I use this pic in a dispute with AAC? when my set was delivered they looked NOTHING like that? And when I questioned them about the silicone, supposedly it was added byh them to keep moisture out of the housing, which is why I call it shoddy workmanship. I have to chip through that mess to swap a BULB? Ridiculous!!!!

AAC didnt install it, but it performed the retrofit, and as you can see from my pics and the ones you've provided....they look totally different? I absolutely didnt have the bulb holder provided at all. AAC is going to ignore this post, but I am definitely going to hold them to the fire for this. Unacceptable!!!!

Wow...just wow.

Thank u very much

By all means use any pictures you need.

wow OP i cant believe that they sent it out like that. Mine look like austin's def not some silicone holding the light. Hopefully AAC gets their shit together. Lately they been messing up quite a bit. My sidemarkers had to be sent in for moisture problems even thought they stated that this was no longer a problem:iono:. The good things is that they do take care of you. Just make sure to have your receipt and pay shipping :facepalm: lol

Thanks Austin.....I'm going to send yet another email to Jonathan @ AAC to see if this gets things in motion. At this point this needs to be redone, and redone right!



and that last statement is part of what pisses me off. The fact that I have to pay shipping for them to correct this obvious crapfest.....and they seem to think it is fine......speechless.

Sorry to hear about this shaz. Stay strong and don't settle...hope things work out.

Keep in mind. AAC is all at SEMA this week, so you may not hear back from him right away.

Good. More people can see it before it gets deleted.

Why would it get deleted?

It seems any thread talking bad about AAC gets deleted. Or at least posts get removed.

I tend to agree with C586 on this one. Seems as though whenever someone brings up a negative comment about a vendor....poof...thread gone or at least a handful of posts. Even if the comments are 100% true. Theres a lot more politics on this site then there use to be regarding vendors. sad but true.

I'm confused. They performed the retrofit but they didn't install the bulbs and ballast?

They did a incomplete retrofit with cheap knock off parts. They glued the bulb into place instead of doing it the correct way with clips. They didn't install the ballasts because its hard to do that without his car.

Thanks for the info....printing this thread out now as a PDF....just to make sure I have it.

Correct....they performed the retrofit and shipped it to me in AZ. I had professional installers perform the work.


What he said....to the letter! right now they are sitting in my office in the box awaiting replies from AAC. Asked for Jonathan's manager's email...nothing sent yet. The next time I send a reply ....a copy of this thread is accompanying the email.

WOW for the first time in a long time I am speechless

I have only been on here for a few months and have seen more complaints against AAC thank any other vendor. Mirrors, markers...hell most everything they sell.

Everything on my truck (15k) came from on site vendors on a sister forum and I've never had experiences like those I've seen on here.

On c5 I see more and more of this going on. It's a shame because it hurts the reputable vendors on here. Honestly I'm scared to order from most now.

Customer service is EVERYTHING in business. The one I own would surely fail if I conducted business like these guys. I ate 8k one time to please a customer. Over the last four years they've spent over 20k with me. He can attest to the sole reason being customer service.

I'm a small timer; you'd think they'd KNOW better.

Fired off another email to AAC this morning asking to speak to senior management since the last email sent on Oct 26 was auto responded with a message about limited email at SEMA. Can only guess fixing issues is less important.

Received another round of automated e-mails. Guess I'm not really surprised.


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

Jonathan is the National Sales Manager for AAC, pretty sure the only person above him on the Totem pole is Justin - who owns the company.

They will get back to you, just give them until SEMA is over.

My father was a small business owner as well, and one of the most important things he taught me was customer service is everything. Stand behind your product, make it right with the customer, and do what you can to ensure they are a continued customer. " You aren't doing the customer a favor by them spending money here, they are extending the favor to us! They don't have to spend their money here.", was his slogan. He ran that into the ground with my sister and I, but it stuck.

I guess AAC doesn't share that thought. Another lesson learned.


Thanks for confirming. The email I sent this morning was to Tiffanie, Justin, CC'd Jonathan, and copied a few interested parties. Will let you all know how this goes down.

Thanks again for the support! Definitely means alot!

Definitely keep us informed of how this turns out. I'm curious.

I've been following this thread and I'm a little confused now. Did AAC ship them to you with the shoddy silicone job or did your installers do that? Forgive my ignorance here.

It's hard to imagine they would've let something that pathetic looking slip by if what I'm gathering is correct.

Good luck

AAC shipped them with the glue holding the bulb.

AAC shipped them with the glue holding the bulb in and the silicone job. Supposedly to keep the moisture out. Retaining "clips" were supposed to hold the bulb in. NO retaining clip was found on the right headlamp and the left still has the silicone on it. I assume if I take the silicone off the left one, it's probably a glued in bulb with no retaining clip as well.

Now the interesting thing is, per some of the posters of this thread, there should not be clips on these at all. IF they are true Morimoto D2S projectors as AAC advertised. From what I have researched, my headlamps were NOT retrofitted with Mirimoto projectors.

From AAC's Retrofit thread http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showth...t=HID+retrofit

====

That is RIGHT! We are NOW offering Retrofit Services for Camaro5 Forum Members.

You can now have fully-functional Bi-Xenon Projector Headlights on your non-RS Chevy Camaro with our retrofitting service.

Here is how it works:
1) Ship your factory headlights to Advanced Automotive Concepts.
2) We ship you back retrofitted Xenon Headlights ready to install!

<SNIP>

What do you get for $489?

1) Morimoto D2S true Bi-Xenon HID Projectors:


2) "Gating Gun" Style Projector Bezels:


3) ORACLE D2S Xenon Conversion Kit:

====


So at this time I'm waiting to see what AAC plans to do.

Here you go...email from Jonathan....stating they added the silicone then saying they don't modify the projectors. Hmmmm......a bunch of silicone added would be considered what?

===== On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 4:20 PM, <jonathan@aacstyle.com> wrote:
Will,

The reason that we use silicone on the back of the housings is to ensure that you do not get any moisture inside of your headlights; we do this with every Camaro retrofit that is installed here. If you are missing the retaining clips we can replace them here; I am not sure why they were missing though.

Unfortunately we are not able to modify the Morimoto projectors in any way because this is how they come from the factory. If you would like to contact the factory that manufacturers the projectors you may be able to get them to redesign a set projectors specifically for you.

Well you figure it hurts their business. It is all about politics.:thumbdown::thumbdown:

Sounds like a job for JUDGE JUDY to handle.:clap::clap: They need to just make it right. If it's wrong own up to it, and make right and move on from it.