Grimmspeed hood struts from Street Rays
 

For reasons I won't get in to I've avoided dealing with Grimmspeed for the last several years. Unfortunately for the price there isn't really another option I liked more than their hood struts. I ordered from Street Rays on ebay and today they showed up.

When I picked up the box I noticed it wasn't taped shut at all on the ends. One end was open. I don't mean the tape was cut or had fallen off - there was no tape, period. It looked like nothing had fallen out though so I pulled everything out and lined it all up. The plastic containing the hardware was torn open.

It looks like I have all the hardware I need, but I don't know for sure because there are no instructions included in the box. The last photo shows I was missing a lower bracket until I dug through all the packaging and found it at the bottom of a pile. You know, because it was torn open. I'm a read-later kind of guy but these struts aren't obvious enough that I even tried. I looked online and all I've found is the video below that I can't very well reference when I'm in the garage. The video reveals I'll need a 10mm socket and 13mm and a 1/2 wrench. Quite the motley crew. At least I have the 10mm socket in my "have used on my car before" drawer.

I haven't started installing these yet - I imagine it will go alright, but not as well as if I had a printed set of instructions or even a good photo. As simple as these hood struts are, I'm not very happy that they managed to screw it up. I got a good chuckle when I saw the Grimmspeed stickers that go on the struts are left for me to stick on. I don't think so.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5py1C4Q4TD8"]GrimmSpeed BRZ/FR-S Hood Strut Install Guide - YouTube[/ame]

Just got them installed. Functionally they work as expected. The valving is what they claimed they wanted (the hood will fall enough to latch itself if you let go of it low, and holds the hood up when you don't). You don't want to let go if it while its raising or you might end up with the lower M8 bolts breaking. And the extra height it gives is actually pretty nice.

One more pic, this time of a magnet sticking to the "black zinc (not simply painted/powdercoated)." :sigh:

Not understanding the point of this thread...

You purchased the product off of ebay from a random seller. Okay. Not really sure why, since it's not like GS's price is too terrible by itself.

Grimmspeed doesn't include instructions in any of their products and expects the customer to use a really super helpful video walkthru of the installation of their products instead of blurry/out of focus/terribly-photocopied-in-the-1970s-on-a-greased-up-Xerox-machine paper copy that you'll inevitably throw away after installation.

Seems like you just hold your own personal grudge against GS for touching you/your first born improperly in front of the President of Shakemyfististan.

I agree... what's the point of the OP's thread? I didn't have any experience with Grimmspeed prior to the hood struts and after purchasing/installing, I'm more than happy to buy their products again. They seem to have the right approach to keeping customers happy, value their R&D/engineering, and is priced right (and from what I can tell Made in the USA?).

1) Not including instructions is fucking stupid. The video told me what I needed to know but I had to run back in the house twice to remember exact orientations of brackets.

2) Tape your boxes shut.

3) Package your hardware appropriately so it's not all over the place in the box.

4) The point of this thread is the point of this forum. I bought something, wasn't happy, told others. Hard to understand, I'm sure.

5) I don't understand how being fucked over by GS before and being happy once again warrants any implication of being molested. You don't like my thread, go read another.

And I expect magnets not to stick to my zinc.

1. I had my phone (that has internets and youtubes!) with me in the garage when I installed my hood struts. Also, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to install these suckers.
2. Sounds like an issue with the ebay seller, not GS.
3. See 2.
4. Cool story, bro.
5. I have read plenty of other threads this beautiful morning. I was bored and wanted to see what you wanted to say about GS, since they seem to be highly regarded both here and on other forums (NASIOC, IWSTI, etc).

P.S. I don't think you know what zinc hardware means.

1) I had my phone, too. But it was 95 degrees and humid as hell in my garage and my hands were dirty from an oil change and didn't want to touch it. So I went in the house and watched a 4 minute video instead of glancing at a sheet of paper.

The fact is, the instructions aren't included. Now that you have that information, you can decide whether you want to buy these things or not. That's it. I don't care how you feel.

2) Maybe. So maybe someone could read this thread, then one day browse ebay and make an informed decision on a seller. Now that you have this information, you can decide if you want to buy from them.

4) Why are you trolling? You asked what my "point" was, I told you. I've answered all of your implied questions, now please, move along.

5) Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

Honestly you are just giving a biased opinion because "For reasons I won't get in to I've avoided dealing with Grimmspeed" really means your looking to complain about Grimmspeed. You and everyone else knows you made a purchase off EBAY from a third party that did not take care of their inventory. And if you did any research before buying you would have known that paper instructions were not included.

I won't/can't comment on your previous experiences with GrimmSpeed, but if you've been unhappy with a purchase, please feel free to call me directly and we'll sort it out. I'm always around (612-379-0000).

I'll let this thread run its course, since you're entitled to your own opinion, but to clear a few things up, I'd like to add a couple of notes about how the product is packaged.

1. Instructions aren't included because it's a waste of paper and a waste of time. That time and money that we don't waste creating instructions that you probably wouldn't have used anyway is savings that we pass back to our customers. Yourself included. In the future, you can visit our website to simply print the .pdf instructions and avoid having to run back inside to check the video.

2. Every single box that leaves our warehouse with a shipping label on it is thoroughly taped. We've shipped well over 30,000 boxes, all with similar construction and I can't recall a single time that something has left our shipping department and had the box fail in transit. Products shipped as part of a large order (in a larger box or on a pallet) are not taped to allow vendors to display the parts, take pictures, use their own tape, include invoices/packing slips, etc. If the vendor that you purchased from chose not to tape your box before shipping it, there isn't anything that we can do about that, unfortunately. Personally, I'd just leave eBay feedback.

3. All of the hardware that we ship is sealed in plastic. If you received anything different, contact your vendor. In fact, you posted their username, so I'll contact them myself and see what's going on.

As has been mentioned, black zinc refers to the coating on the hardware. I'm not sure if I've ever seen an actual black zinc bolt, nor would I want to be using them on my car (yield strength of mild steel is 5-10x higher than most zinc alloys), but that's not really important. Like I said before, we hate to think that anybody out there feels that we've screwed them over and haven't made the situation right.

Please, contact me directly and we'll sort it out. I'll be around the shop until 6pm CST tonight and again from 8am to 6pm tomorrow. Call 612-379-0000 and ask for Matt in engineering.

Matt Beenen
Engineering and Marketing

that's why i never buy in ebay.....

I disagree. For a lot of things it probably is and I usually don't bother lookin at them. If I'm replacing an exhaust I can see how it fits. The hood damper brackets were not at all obvious and, as I said above, running back and forth to the computer to see how they went was a pain in the ass.

The first reason I even noticed, though, was because my package was opened and I wanted to find a packing slip.

To be fair, the packaging issue was clearly the vendor, not GS. I am biased against GS and I'm sure it's showing more than I intended here. The hood dampers work like they're supposed to, and like I said in the OP, were the best option I could find. FWIW though, I'm not going to bother calling because with my last issue I talked to everyone, including Justin, who basically said "yeah, sucks, but I'm not going to make it right."

I wouldn't even need a video to install these. looks like a great product that I will purchase. and even put the GS stickers on the strut. If you cant pull off the install with a video. Please stop modding your cars.