I went to the powder coater's and the owner and the accountant were in the office. We exchanged greetings and then he said "I'll give you this" and handed me this bill and walked off into the shop to get the wheels.
Ah. $280.00. The exact price of the invoice that I forwarded to him for the second set of wheels. How convenient. I also noticed the date over a week ago, which made me wonder if they held onto the wheels any longer just for fun or why that is. Last time I got wheels done in 2019 the invoice was 6/27. Apparently whenever I take wheels in, I'll get them back in late June or early July.
So, I took my father along. He wasn't doing anything and wanted to ride. Then he wanted to come into the office. I said, just sit in the car. I'm gonna get my wheels, my check and I'm out. I have no desire for conversation or argument unless it goes wrong. So, Dad says fine. He won't say anything, but he wants to hear what the guy has to say. OK, fine... just be cool.
Dad lets out an irritated sigh and says, "Exactly what I figured he'd do", when he sees the price. The accountant gets up and hurries off in the same direction that the owner did.
The accountant comes back and then the owner comes in and hands me the wheels. He said, "they oughta see you coming". I thought "seems like you did" but I said, "I hope so". I then said simply "thanks" and almost made it out the door before Dad asked them "why did it cost so much this time?". Reminder; the same job was done 2 years prior for $43 less and without melted wheels and only a 24 day turnaround.
The owner says the cost of powder has gone up, and wants to look at the receipt. I pulled it out of my pocket and just stated the price and said yeah. I'm still just trying to get out of the door. I don't care. Then the accountant says, "We didn't even upcharge you on the powder. It's our price." My father says OK and then the coater says sorry about melting them and we walk out.
My personal opinion is that the bill was adjusted to match the wheel cost so they didn't have to cut me a check. If you believe what they were basically saying, they had to adjust it down so I didn't have to pay them. I still have the emails where I was told that they would cut me a check for the difference in cost and the owner told me on the phone before that he would just cut a check for whatever the difference was in the wheels and the coating. At one point, they expected to be handing me money. Whatever. There's no point in arguing. It will not go anywhere.
The bill was actually not that far off of last time either, so it's really pointless. $43 more. This time they did do a white base coat for whatever reason. Last time there was no base coat mentioned and I've never seen any sign of one. Still, it's nearly double what some people here have paid... but I have no idea what the particular powder costs so I can only assume or guess.
I suppose the good news is that I do have the wheels back.
As soon as I saw the wheels, they looked different. Then we walked out of the office and my father said, the color isn't the same. I told him it's probably just the white undercoat making them brighter or the light or something. Trying to have some faith that the coater could at least provide the color that I specified two times during this process. Once pointing it out directly in a color book and the second time reminding them via email of the exact name.
Well, I got the wheels home and put one beside T2's wheels. The difference is glaring in person. Pictures never do my Triton wheels justice, so it doesn't show so well here. Still, I think you can at least see that my Triton wheels have more of a green tint. The white undercoat didn't do that. It's the wrong color.
What you really can't pick up in photos is that the older wheels practically glow. If I'm parked on concrete, they will reflect their color down onto the concrete. They are as bright as any color I've ever seen. The Aerox wheels are not likel that. They're just a light/bright yellow.
I considered calling them right then and seeing what they had to say about the color. I quickly realized that it's pointless. I know what I did, but I can't prove for certain that I chose the same color both times. I have it written on the pages of this forum as it all happened this time and 2 years ago. Regardless, they could just tell me it's what I chose and then I'm stuck going to small claims court over it or doing what I'm doing now and living with it. I wouldn't think this about just any shop, but there's too much telling me that they don't really care in this case. Plus, let's say they agree to recoat them. Then what do they do? Keep the wheels for 6 months this time?
There are lots of rough edges and things that I'll have to sand so the coating doesn't start to peel or flake off. There are also wheel centers that will be visible that weren't coated.
Before these wheels went in, I spent hours on them grinding and sanding off all of the writing that's on them. If you haven't seen Aerox wheels before, for some reason there's way too much writing stamped onto them. I also went around both wheels and sanded the parting or casting marks that go around the centers of all spokes and the outer section (like where the valve stems are). They were smoothed out so I could get a really nice product, so I'm less than happy about seeing a bunch of rough edges for me to take care of.
I've had stuff painted before at shops. I don't ever remember having things come back to me needing work. They always delivered a finished product that I didn't have to sand or buff or anything.
94 days from start to finish, 1 pair of Aerox wheels sacrificed and $280 to coat a pair of wheels the wrong color. It sounds childish, but I don't even want to look at the wheels right now. I went back to this shop for basically 2 reasons. They delivered a durable product last time and it was very important to me that I got the exact same color. I was worried that if I took it somewhere else, I wouldn't be able to get the brand and exact color as before.
I'm starting to believe in reincarnation, because I must have been Murphy in a past life (Murphy's Law : Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.)