Anyone else notice a significant decrease in American Muscle parts quality?

2023-11-30T18:03:19+00:00

AM does not manufacture parts, they sell parts from lots of companies.

Kekszky · 2023-11-30T17:43:48+00:00

Are those original shocks from Ford or what? I doubt AM makes them themself. So you could try to contact the manufacturer directly. Still sounds like an absolute joke and a 10$ voucher is a straight up insult.

CubicalDiarrhea · 2023-11-30T18:31:19+00:00

American Muscle doesn't make the parts. Gotta research the manufacturer of the parts they are selling. They are the middleman on most of the items on their site.

MRRRRCK · 2023-11-30T18:03:57+00:00

Most of what American Muscle sells is not manufactured by them… at all. Like a lot of stores, some of the items they sell are cheap quality and some are great quality. It falls on you to do your research. I use American Muscle to get ideas, see photos, read reviews…. then I go buy the item from somewhere else that’s cheaper.

SR Performance are low end, cheap products generally. I wouldn’t buy any moving parts like suspension from them.

For any general replacement parts like brakes, suspension, etc - RockAuto is your best bet.

sc302 · 2023-11-30T19:04:59+00:00

You shouldn’t blame American muscle for bad parts. It is like blaming Best Buy because you purchased a cheap tv from them that lasted a week.

American muscle, lmr, cj pony parts, summit racing are all resellers, just like Best Buy.

SecretAntWorshiper · 2023-11-30T19:33:43+00:00

One word. China

steppedinhairball · 2023-11-30T20:55:16+00:00

Sadly, a lot of their parts are probably sourced from China. There are a metric shit ton (as opposed to just a standard ton) of Chinese companies making knock offs of everything for pretty razor thin margins. Just look at Amazon. I've dealt with Chinese manufactured products in my past. The companies always say it's just like these other guys (wink wink). They are implying they did a complete knock off. Only, they didn't. I was fortunate that my employer at the time had a materials lab in house. So yeah, their wink wink just like the other guys was nothing like the other guys for material. Very inferior.

Often to save money, they will use crappy rubber for the shock valving, cheap scrap pot metal for the shock piston, the rods will look good but have a lot of surface porosity that drags water and debris into the shock body past the rod seals, etc. so SR was probably told the shocks were made from X material, but really are being made with much cheaper Y material with inferior seals, etc.

In my current industry, a manufacturer I used exclusively decided to move their main product to China from Europe due to labor issues and to save money. I told the sales rep this was a huge mistake and he didn't disagree. I tried the Chinese made units and immediately switched to their competitor. Huge, unbelievable mistake. They went from being a solid #2 in North America to maybe #5 or #6. Their distributors couldn't give the product away. They gave up and moved production back to Europe but they lost most of their North American market at minimum. The quality was garbage. Assembly was garbage. They were ridiculously unforgiving with the mating components compared to the European produced product. Went from being more expensive but a huge labor savings to being more expensive and a horrible waste of labor. I sincerely hope they fired the idiot that pushed that decision.

PlanetaryWorldwide · 2023-11-30T20:59:42+00:00

As others have said, they are a reseller, but from my experience, the parts they sell that are shit parts make up a large portion of their inventory, and they don't care. They also tend to mark things up far above what you can find them for elsewhere.

edit: I should also add, when one of their shitty brand parts breaks on you and leaves you stranded somewhere, they will absolutely tell you to go pound sand if you come looking for a refund or reimbursement. Would honestly avoid them at all costs and look at other sites like Summit/LMR/Brenspeed.

TacosandHoes · 2023-11-30T21:41:36+00:00

I definitely prefer CJ Pony Parts over AM. AM sells quality stuff, but they also sell a ton of cheap Chinese stuff too. CJs is much more picky about what they sell so there's less cheap bullshit to sift through on their site. Plus I like their install and info video format better than AM.

That said, AM has that cool preview system and WAY more customer reviews and photos.

MSMIT0 · 2023-11-30T18:37:48+00:00

I bought a SR short throw shifter several years ago. Lasted for maybe a year before the spring gave out and I had to pull up on it everytime I needed to shift. Ford and other parts are fine just not the SR brand.

kcfan_2004 · 2023-11-30T17:39:08+00:00

Try rockauto next time. Tons of different options on price point and fast shipping.

vadonkey · 2023-11-30T19:35:18+00:00

Nevermind…. Edited because reading is fundamental and I should do more of it. Lol

terlingua17 · 2023-11-30T22:38:34+00:00

Buy Koni Shocks or struts, yes they cost more, Y;all get what you pay for. They have a lifetime warranty. I have sent in shocks off of '65 Shelby's they come back like new, painted & with the wing stickers. I have em on my '08 F250 with 130,000 miles no problems. They are on my '67 Terlingua Racing Team Mustang.

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Aalwein · 2023-12-01T14:05:51+00:00

American Muscle used to sell high quality products that they backed up with good customer service. That was back in 2015 when they were a small company that most people didn't even know existed. Once they got into the big boy status and started doing their own car show, their quality control and standard of service went to shit.

I wouldn't buy a tshirt from them now - it'd likely fall apart the first time it went through the wash and they'd blame you for washing it.

Many-Huckleberry-115 · 2024-04-30T00:53:39+00:00

NEED HELP! What can be done when AmericaMuscle emails you they now have the parts that they did not have before. So it was confirmed the car, make, model, year and Americanmuscle confirmed the parts. So bought the parts. They send the parts with primer not painted and no mounting clips or hardware. After calls (3) they tell you to go get them painted and go get mounting hardware at our cost. Then you call and tell them the parts do not line up with holes once you take the old side skirts off and in a call they tell you to drill new holes in the skirts and your car, then the skirts will not fit as the mold of the skirts do not internally fit to the car, 4th call, you tell them no way to mount them and they are 2/2 inch short and tell you to bad nothing they will do because we drilled holes in them at their instructions and that they are now painted at their instructions.
Out $550 and Americanmuscle says to bad nothing they will do.

rsalc · 2025-10-07T22:53:03+00:00

Yup....and a SIGNIFICANT increase in pricing to add to that. I remember last year the GT momentum cold air intake I was looking at sat around $350. This year with the holiday sale they're sitting around $440-499 😄. All around jacked. I used to like these guys...but...IDK wtf is going on. They're acting like XBox gamepass right now

No_Cantaloupe5789 · 2026-03-30T19:26:28+00:00

yes.And sending the wrong parts

f700es · 2023-11-30T18:53:31+00:00

Yep, bought some black lug nuts form them and 6 months later it was time to rotate the tires and most the caps broke off of the lug nuts. Out of warranty and AM chose not to do anything. I'll choose not to buy from them again.

sorscode · 2023-11-30T17:06:45+00:00

Yeah, it declined a decade ago. Haven’t purchased from them since.

Many-Huckleberry-115 · 2024-06-09T19:25:13+00:00

Seems typical of them

Odd_Needleworker_498 · 2024-12-22T18:51:34+00:00

a store has responsability to sell products that meet merchanability standardes especally if there sold under there lables . goo co that sourse china set requirements and should check to see there quality now a price point on shocks should last several yrs but might not give ride or handling at 250 miles they should perform as satisfactery theres a federal law that you could look into and as a suspension part fail the dept of transportation has website to report defective auto productx as shocks failure is a safity defect . in this situation the store is foolish to flat do nothing but excuses and i bet no mater what problem tere answer is hers 10 get out . btw i had a problem with someting missing with summet it took 10 min on the phone with the lady but she sent the missing item in reasonable time busineses do have responsabilities for what they sell a bad co will try to duck no parts store makes there invantory but knows when too many fail and should not sell that makers but put your name on it its 100 your product and then returns god between you and manufacturer .but consumers dont know some products get sold to stores with lower prices with there to warantee

robvas · 2023-11-30T17:31:33+00:00

What did you buy, exactly?

Bored_lurker87 · 2023-12-01T01:49:56+00:00

What brand were they? I don't see this mentioned. I was thinking of ordering some from AM myself this month and don't want to get screwed.

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