a heads up regarding stroud safety

In Sept I sent in my 2 year old lenco blanket in for recert.

Last month during re assembly of the car we realized we did not have the blanket back, and went on the hunt.

I called Stroud last week to see if they still had it. The lady who answered the phone was able to determine they received it in Sept but that was all she knew. She would look into it and report back.

She didn't, so I called today. The lady put me on hold and Bob Stroud picked up. He told me they tried to get ahold of me , but couldn't so they " threw it out " Bob gruffly told me they get 40 or 50 units a day through the door and cant be expected to store them.

I told Bob nobody called.

Then he told me that the package was received without a letter with contact information.
I live in Canada. when you ship things from Canada, the transport companies often take the packing list for brokerage purposes, so we always put a second set of contact info in the box .
anyways, Bob told me I can buy new one today though.

Here's the deal Bob. I sent you a message stating that I didn't particularly like having to send a blanket with 13 runs on it for sfi recert, and I seriously doubt you tossed a pristine blanket in the garbage.

Problems happen every day in every company, but I don't think your company practiced due diligence in attempting to contact me before throwing my like new blanket " in the garbage" . I suggest if you don't have a letter, perhaps refuse the shipment, perhaps send a letter to the shipper, perhaps wait till the dumb ass that is missing it calls looking for it. Going to need it at some point right?

Bob, one of your staff told me today that you put my blanket back in inventory, and that " you handled the situation poorly" , then they tried to make it right by getting me a blanket at a discount.

Guess what pal, not sure if your crap attitude is directed at me, or at all of your clients, or maybe you thought I was some dumb ass Canadian who would just anti up.

Well I did anti up. I bought another new one from Taylors. Keep my old one as a memoir. I will never in my life allow your name near my race cars. I have been racing for more than 30 years and will be racing whole lot longer, and not a penny of mine you will see.

I don't really like the ways things are going with the SFI crap of late, and your just making my opinion worse.

PS, I need to order some chutes for my cars, who can you refer?

Jay Mageau
Mageau Family racing
Prospector aa/fc, aa/fa
Gil Trouble s/c dragster

 

Jay,

I live in Oklahoma and do not buy anything from Stroud either for just the same reasons you gave. He is rude and thinks he knows everything about everything any treats you like you are an Idiot. I only buy Taylor products. You will see the difference in the quality in the Taylor products over the Stroud. I gave all of my Stroud equipment to the garbage man. I would not even let someone else have to call him on free equipment. I also bought 7 point belts, A New Driving Suite and Chutes from Taylor.

 

I own a small engineering company and we bend over backwards for our clients. We don't always succeed it making everyone happy, but come pretty close most of the time. If something like that happened at our company, I'd have sent you a new blanket no charge and with an apology. To me that's how a company should do business. It absolutely pisses me off when a company acts like it's an imposition or they're doing me a favor taking my $$$ to sell me a product/service. I wouldn't do business with them either....

 

Stroud equipment

I'm in the build process of a front engine dragster and will need a chute , trans blanket , gloves , suit , boots and belts .
Thanks for the heads-up about Stroud .

 

I'm surprised to hear this as I have had great luck with Stroud on re-certing my 3A20 suit and Diaper. Both times the price was right and they turned it around within 3-4 days. Sorry Jay you had a different experience.

 

i think we have all had a bad experience with someone in this industry at one point. Jay, sorry to hear about your troubles....but i have never had any problems what so ever with anything that i have bought from Stroud. it seems like anytime that i called i always got exactly what i needed, when i was supposed to get it, and for the price i was told. as far as the quality goes, i would put there stuff up against anyones. just my 2 cents
Darren

 

Same here I run Stroud chutes (easy to pack) (he did work for the military), diaper, blower bag,and seat belts (six point type). I've always been treated fair and charged a fair price..... but it could be the last name... no really, nice products at a good price with easy re-certs.

 

Buying Stroud for 20 years, no problems.

 

i bought a fire suit from stroud for my kid's junior dragster. when i got it, it was too big for me. when i tried to return it, they gave me a rash of crap. i never got the suit altered and had to buy another one from another company. i had a trailer fire later and needed chutes, belts, and a diaper for a match race the following weekend. i called stroud and talked to carl (salesman) and told him i wanted to shop locally and give them another chance and he told me he would appreciate the order and have no problem getting my stuff to me. i called wednesday and told carl i'd be in okc that afternoon and pick stuff up if it was ready. he told me they were finishing up and would have it on ups friday (the date of my match race). friday, i got a certified letter from bob stroud canceling my order and said i was unproffessional and he was refusing my order. if he was any kind of man, much less business man, he would have refused the order when it was placed. i'm self employed and do everything possible to please customers, even if they are unproffessional, they're money spends just the same.

 

i hate to keep going on (no i don't) but i've been carrying this around for about 10 years now. the kid's firesuit wasn't my first purchase from stroud. i had bought several sets of belts and chutes from stroud and built my first blown small block . i needed a diaper and called stroud. they made me one and when i went to put it on, you could wrap it around the hat it was so big. i took it back and they told me they would alter it and i could have it back for next week. i picked it up and it was exactly the same. i took it back three other times with the same results and finally took the piece of crap to edward's canvas in pauls valley, ok , who cut it down and sewed it to fit. what a guy...

 

Boy , it make me feel worse when other people post they had good experiances there. Why was I the lucky one?

maybe the people chiming in here with positive comments didnt deal with the owner lol. Theres a guy who does not give a shit.

Jim, like you, thats the Bob I dealt with.

So now I am getting a Taylor unit, and although I hate re-SFIing some things, I will have a little smile knowing its a couple dollars I am not spending at Stroud.

I even pulled his blue decal off the hallowed shop beer fridge. Now thats getting revenge eh!

 

it's a good experience until you have a problem... and that's when you really see a guy's true character. he'll treat you like a king till you question him, then he'll turn on you ; because ; after all; he's never wrong.

 

Boots

I ran there belts for awhile re cert was ok Then I called to talked to them about some -20 Boots they said no problem I gave them my shoe size and told them extra wide double D they said no problem I would have them in 2 weeks 1 month later I called them and they told me they were back ordered.
I thought they built there own stuff so they promissed me they would be here next week I told them I had a race coming up so they better not Bullshit me they will be there next week. So I called them on monday they said there on the way, They showed up on thursday I opened them up and they were the right length but were way to narrow I called them and said what the F--- they told me they only make 1 width and they would take them back if I did not wear them. I left for the track the next day. I wouldn't buy another thing from those people. DT is the MAN are you Busy Dennis can you do my van in shag TREEMAN

 

Blower restraint

I have a Stroud blower restraint 14-2 that I sent in for re-cert. I sent in it 6 weeks ago. I got a call when they got it wanting a cedit card # first, before they would work on it. I never heard another word from them. Last week I looked at my credit card statement and saw that they had billed me. I had to call them to get a tracking #. When I sent it in I wanted the straps shortend. I got it back and all they did was pull the stiching out and re-sew it and install new sfi label. The stiching looks like sh*t, but I guess......It has a new sfi tag. . Not the best comunication, but I got it back.

 

Webbing is supposed to be REPLACED every 2 years for proper SFI recert. I would bring this problem to SFI's attention.

 

me too, 15 years, and nothing but great product and customer service. Sorry to hear of your issue with them. With the Impact fiasco, I have to replace all of my gear and am going all in with Stroud.

 

I have been dealing with Stroud for quite a while and I have had to have things recertified and repaired with NO problems !!!
last year I had a parachute get torn on a guardrail , I sent it back and they repaired it in a more than timely manor at a reasonable cost !

Sorry about your issues but ... I know if I sent a lenco blanket back to get it recertified I wouldn't wait 7 months to ask why I haven't seen it.

P.S. never had a problem with Taylor or Ramjet or Gerardot either.

Bob Frigon