Brad@KoronisParts

[1Hondalover]

Been talking to Brad @ Beard Seats (aka Koronis Parts) via email and the phone for a while now. He seems like the nicest guy ever, but has told me 5 or 6 times during different conversations that the red, black and gray fabric samples we need to make a decision on new seat covers are on their way. Nothing again today. I even asked him if I was bothering him and should go through Kartek, ORW, Poly Performance or whatever, thinking he may not want to deal with the public direct. He said no.

Do any of you know anyone with any juice over there? We need to get these colors and pattern selected, as well as decide on vinyl or suede so we don't end up the butt of jokes in Pismo!

Jim & Paige's Bronco is not happy right now.....

IMG_5515 (Medium).JPG (167.25 KiB) Viewed 950 times

[ChaseTruck754]

you're about 2 y-3 years too late on this post (for knowing anyone with any pull that is). My good buddy used to run that place (all production, etc.) and he left after the above being the norm. He was sick of the owner running it into the ground, being late on bills, etc. Besides, he owed my buddy a good chunk of money for machinery purchased for the shop etc.
That place is a joke & their customer service is a joke. They will lie to your face, and more often over the phone on timeline for things to be done, etc. etc.

My buddy left & at the same time the main welder left (he went with my buddy & they now run a fab shop), and the 2 main guys who did the covers left & started Neristyle and Twisted stitch. All were sick of the crap there.

My suggestion - skip Beard & get some quality seats on time & done right from Mastercraft.

[ChaseTruck754]

Also, Trader Tim (the guy who started & bankrupted Traders) was the owner at the time my buddy left. When he bought Beard he put it under the name Redart (Trader's backwards). Doesn't sound like Tim owns it anymore if you're saying it's now Koronis Parts. Doesn't surprise me though as when my buddy left he said he's give um about 1 more year before Tim sucked all the $ out of that place & bankrupted it too. It's a bummer, but it doesn't sound like their customer service has changed a ton with the new owners.

[robertcrav]

About Mastercraft, I was told they are moving production to Indianapolis and custom seat lead time is now 8wks-ish...

[1Hondalover]

I'm an early riser......looks like old Ed is going to get a call from me tomorrow morning about 5:30AM PST:

http://koronisparts.com/Site/about/

[VintageIronFab]

mastercraft is a joke too if you ask me. If you want anything at all out of the norm they act like you are asking to get something full custom when its not. If another company could build a seat that reclines that had a good quality mech in it I wouldn't even think of the mastercraft. Try not having extra brass grommets in the seats and they want to charge you, not putting the logo on the headrest and its an absolute no go, and try to buy the Rubicon seats without the holes in the headrests and you would think you are trying to land on the moon. Im just one of those people that wants some type of honesty and when a small company makes it sound like they are Boeing it kind of pisses you off to the point of probably never do business with them again pissed. If you are a small company and don't want to do any kind of custom work then just say so-- don't insult the F out of customers and almost double the charge for leaving out items that actually add cost-- and having the salesman make a ticket isn't a 50% upcharge. Hell I even sorta kinda knew someone at MC and still got the go F-yourself treatment if you ask me. Rant over

[philofab]

PRP is where it's at...

[robertcrav]

I was considering PRP, but when I called they confirmed the recline mechanism was plastic and that don't jive with my physique

[ChaseTruck754]

I'm an early riser......looks like old Ed is going to get a call from me tomorrow morning about 5:30AM PST:

http://koronisparts.com/Site/about/

Well???

Hopefully he had some excuses for Brad's lack of customer service. My guess is not much will change though. Brad may be further up the totem pole there now with Tim & my buddy gone. My guess is that hasn't changed how things are done or run by any means.



I've owned pretty much every seat you can think of from Hezco to corbeau to PRP to Beard to Mastercraft to Neristyle, etc. Never had a Twisted stitch seat under that name, but have beards from when he was doing the work there. The only seat I can say that felt "above & beyond" for some reason was my mastercrafts. Had PRPs on order til I made the mistake of sitting in a mastercraft while talking to the guys at Kartek years ago. Had them cancel my PRP order right then & change to mastercrafts. Granted I've never called to custom order mastercrafts, so I don't know what they are like there with customers, so the above may be true. My thought is if you want to order Mastercrafts, shoot Erik Shallbetter a PM on here & see what he can do for you. He's a great guy to deal with & a dealer for them.

Aside from that PRP was easy to deal with & all of my dealings with Beard & Neristyle for custom stuff were through my buddy, so they all we no headaches, on time, done right & darn cheap Unfortunately that ship has sailed for all but Neri though.

[1Hondalover]

[/quote]
Well???

Hopefully he had some excuses for Brad's lack of customer service. My guess is not much will change though. Brad may be further up the totem pole there now with Tim & my buddy gone. My guess is that hasn't changed how things are done or run by any means.[/quote]

I did call Koronis at 5:30 and the receptionist said I needed to speak with "Tom" for our area, but he was in a meeting so to voicemail I went. I described a few things and never got a call back. Later I was on Linkedin for other resons and saw someone else at Koronis, so I sent him a message. Nothing yet. If I hear from either I'll find out the deal and report here.

A while ago I was out on a run across town and took pictures to two auto upholstery dudes that have been around here for a long time. They both said $300 to $350 to rework.......EACH! I told Paige when I got back, and she decided to call Brad herself. Apparently he was in a meeting but called her back shortly after, and acknowledged some troubles of some sort. She asked if we could expect to drop the seats off on the way to Spirit and pick them back up completed on the way back a week or so later, and he said no problem. Somehow I don't think it's going to be that easy, but for the moment I'm keeping my faith in Brad. He gave her the prices.....$180 each for vinyl and $200 each for synthetic suede.

A few minutes after Paige got off the phone with him, I received the first email response from him ever about the fabric samples:

8-14-14 Beard response.JPG (20.11 KiB) Viewed 846 times

Still very reserved, but again faith for the moment.....about two weeks away from the trip now. This is the part I can't stand about the off road industry - flakes everywhere and a tiny handful of folks a guy can count on.

[Wrightracing.net]

I know how you feel. I was real bummed to hear bad report's about MasterCraft, because Robb had been so good to me and custom making my seats. Mine are +4 wider I tested the first seat for a desert season and had a side rail failure. They fixed and reinforced the first seat and did the same to the second seat. They were $550 each but for a big guy like me, it is nice to have comfortable seat, most are not comfortable for me. I dread the next time I have to buy seats.

[ChaseTruck754]

Hopefully things go smooth from here on out & I'd say showing up, dropping off the seats & saying "I need them back in X days" will get you further than phone calls or emails. Plus they should have a ton of samples there at the shop for you to pick colors, etc. On that note the Durasuede sure seems like cool stuff & is on my list for my next seats. Would make for an awesome "luxury" prerunner setup.


The "regular" auto upholstery guys are typically WAY more than beard or the like for recovers o these as they have to take the original covers off to make patterns, etc. Beard and the other already have the patterns & typically do a lot of business with the fabrics in question, so they get the materials at a better rate too. All this ads up to them being much cheaper for a recover.

Based on Brad's new title he's stepped up to take over some of what my buddy did. I could definitely see him being busy! My buddy also designed the whole line of Side by Side products & ran the production side of that. That lineup is I'm sure what made Koronis buy them based on that about me link you posted earlier.

[baja-chris]

For the record, I deal with Mastercraft fairly often and NEVER have an issue regardless of special requests or catalog stuff. My experience with them has been A++ all the way.

[Wrightracing.net]

Same Here Chris. Just bummed when a friend wanted a custom seat like my +4 seats and they said they don't do that.

I will go to MasterCraft in the future and I hope that was just an off day for them. Robby is a Bronco guy also, or he was

[flyinbronco]

For the record, I deal with Mastercraft fairly often and NEVER have an issue regardless of special requests or catalog stuff. My experience with them has been A++ all the way.

Same here. Only had one problem with Mastercraft and Robbie made it right and then some. I would not hesitate to buy from them again. Oh and I don't blame them for moving out of California either.

[shockseals.com]

mastercraft is a joke too if you ask me. If you want anything at all out of the norm they act like you are asking to get something full custom when its not. If another company could build a seat that reclines that had a good quality mech in it I wouldn't even think of the mastercraft. Try not having extra brass grommets in the seats and they want to charge you, not putting the logo on the headrest and its an absolute no go, and try to buy the Rubicon seats without the holes in the headrests and you would think you are trying to land on the moon. Im just one of those people that wants some type of honesty and when a small company makes it sound like they are Boeing it kind of pisses you off to the point of probably never do business with them again pissed. If you are a small company and don't want to do any kind of custom work then just say so-- don't insult the F out of customers and almost double the charge for leaving out items that actually add cost-- and having the salesman make a ticket isn't a 50% upcharge. Hell I even sorta kinda knew someone at MC and still got the go F-yourself treatment if you ask me. Rant over

anything outside of standard production should cost more...you are screwing up standard production which takes paper work and man power. If they have 10000 logo'd headrests in stock that they just slap into the seat and go and you want one without? GUess what? Now somebody has to go make that 1 or 2 pieces in a non production environment costing several times over what a production mass produced piece costs. Reduce the number of grommets? Now the sales guy has to go tell engineering to get the OK, who has to go explain to the production manager who has to tell the guy/gal doing the actual work how to do it so it gets done right. Lots of hands in the fire vs a normal production piece that isn't custom.

This is stuff I deal with on a daily basis being an engineer in a manufacturing environment. The most efficient/profitable company is the one that says no to custom, but a lot of companies in this market cant afford to turn down customers. Any type of custom should start at $100 more and go up from there for a seat if I was a seat manufacturer.

I would only buy MC seats and I think MC is the only MFG using alloy tubing in the seats rather than HREW.

[shockseals.com]

as far as beard...I didn't even know they were still in the offroad seat game! Put them for sale and buy mastercrafts.

[VintageIronFab]

The issue with that is that seats aren't made on an assembly line at 1000 units a hour. Let's not confuse Mastercraft production numbers with a factory building widgets. I don't know -- never was bitching about the quality just think there's ways that you convey we really don't want your business and this is one of them.

[Travisfab]

I don't think the frequency of production makes a difference. Unless you work for the company, you have no idea what it's going to take to do something custom. I think Mr Shockseals hit the nail on the head.

People ask me for custom stuff all the time, perfect example is "can you make me a one piece that is 3 over, instead of 6 over?" Sounds easy enough right?

[Nick]

Maybe some of you are under the assumption that mastercraft only serves the offroad community. They have large contracts with the government to supply seats and safety equipment. So other than the custom features that they offer when ordering, i'd say that wanting something one off would throw a wrench in the works...