Tom Wood

[Ace!]

Although typically his prices are higher than people should probably need to pay (got my stuff through a group buy, so it was cheaper than local), his shop has always had the highest degree of customer service (when I can get through on the phone) of most any place I've shopped. They've been very fast with shipping stuff too (or explained up front any delay they might expect), much more so than some recent purchases BIG thumbs up.

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom

[Jeff Weston]

Posting anything negative about TW is practically heresy anywhere on the net. Not only do people get in a frenzy but I don't get much satisfaction by trying to hurt one's business based solely on one crappy experience. For this board I'll tell ya' what happened:

Sometime in the last year my brother brought his TJ into the 4XDoctor for a bunch of work, including a JB SYE and CV shaft. The 4XDoc usually uses his own local driveshaft guy because he has been working with him for many, many years, the parts/workmanship are top quality and he's local so it's easy to deal with any hiccups. Anyway, Mike decided that he'd give TW a try with my brother's SYE because TW was a bit cheaper.

He placed an order for TW's top of the line shaft with all Spicer parts, best joints, etc. When I was at the 4XDoc's shop I saw the TW shaft that was delivered and I noted to Mike that it didn't even look to be as stout or good quality as the one originally supplied with my RE lift. Mike said he had to look into a few things (not wanting to share his suspicions with me 'til he got it straightened out.)

Anyway, Mike's driveshaft guy took a look at it and said that it in fact did not have all the quality parts that my brother had paid extra for to specifically get. Mike called up TW's shop and spoke to his assistant with the complaint. Mike asked him to build a new one with the right parts that were paid for and overnight it. The assistant told him that they don't even stock those parts! WTF! Anyway, TW took over the phone and tried to give a spin but Mike would have none of it. What ended up happening is that Mike put on the shaft they originally sent until a new one with all the h.d. parts arrived almost two weeks later. Mike, as a business owner, doesn't bad mouth the guy but doesn't order from there anymore and will certainly tell his inner circle his experience.

The bottom line is that the stuff may be top notch but you better know how to recognize what you ordered. Hopefully this was an isolated incident, but the follow up phone calls between the 4XDoc & TW lead me to believe that it is not.

Caveat emptor!

Jeff

[Ace!]

Heresy! That's what makes the Internet a great place from which to learn. I'll take the drive shaft over to a local place here that is known in the area for building some of the best driveline stuff around. He'll tell me in seconds if I didn't get what I paid for. I know the AA SYE I ordered is heavy duty (that one's easy). I actually placed the order for my stuff months ago (to get in on a better deal), but waited for some other things before calling back with drive shaft measurements. When I gave my measurements I reminded them of the "core" refund that was in place at the time (it's since changed once or twice) and got a "let me check that, oh ok, no problem you'll still get that refund" response. The thing I've liked the most though is that they've told me up front I'm responsible for measurements (not, oh yeah we can probably figure out what you need kind of stuff) and telling me their schedule so I know when I'll get stuff. For my suspension stuff, a couple days passed, my credit card was charged and then I had to send several e-mails before I got my stuff almost two weeks later. With TW, so far so good.

Thanks for the heads up though. I'll definitely make sure to have it looked at when it gets here.

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom

[Ace!]

Just to follow up, I had it looked at and it's what was "advertised", a heavy duty shaft with high quality Spicer joints. I'm impressed with the 241 shaft of the AA kit, makes the 231 look "spindly" and the relative ease of taking the t-case apart and replacing the shaft (it wasn’t that easy because I didn't know what to expect). I think that now I've done it once it would be an easy and much less time consuming job to do in the future (I'm actually considering a SYE kit for my XJ now).

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom

[TJRON]

What's the deal with all those JU guys burning up TW drive shafts with the RE long arms? Some are on their 3rd shaft and one said he pulled out the centering devise on the CV joint to cure the problem. Never made much sense to me.
Ron

[Ace!]

I dunno. I just wanted to make sure I got a high quality piece after what Jeff said. I took it by a local place that's pretty well known around here, just to have him look it over to see if there was anything about it that wasn't high quality. I didn't have him balance it, or put it on any machines or anything, just look it over, and he said it looked like whoever made it used good parts (I hadn't said who made it).

I don't have a long arm set up, or know the intricacies of them. I don't know if the difference between a standard 4" lift (what I've got) and a RE long arm kit would make any difference, or if those people have belly-ups, different axles, etc that might change the length of the drive shaft or whatever (I haven't read anything on JU about it, so it's news to me). If there are issues with TW's stuff, I sure hope it doesn't happen with mine

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom

[Ace!]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ace!:
...

If there are issues with TW's stuff, I sure hope it doesn't happen with mine

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom[/quote]

Well, it did happen with mine... TW is sending me a new drive shaft tomorrow, which should be here the early part of next week. Didn't "slip" on the spline and burned up. I called and spoke to TW and before I could finish telling him what was wrong he said, "Sounds like we owe you a new shaft. We'll have it built and shipped by tomorrow with a pick-up label to return the other one. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and trouble".


Also,
I did clear some things up (although I don't know how to explain them well). They build their own drive shafts, completely in-house, no outsourced manufacturing, every one. There were some problems with the CV ball part or something burning up with some in the past. They now grease them differently, with some sort of special jig-grease thing through the relief hole before some sort of relief fitting is put on, which completely greases areas that grease misses if just greased through the normal grease fitting. They use whatever Spicer joints they can get, of a certain grade (regardless of where they are made), as Spicer is outsourcing them and US made are hard to get (something about Spicer trying to dump the small u-joint business, not making any US-made serviceable u-joints in the future, and concentrating on larger-sized driveline parts). TW still uses the model/grade, per Spicer, but don't use US only and still feel they are better than anything else. They said they will switch to whatever brand is the best if they find Spicer joints aren't living up to previous standards.

They do outsource the cutting of the splines on their "TW" short-shaft kits (and think that caused people to think they outsourced building of drive shafts). They cut down the output shafts, then have a place re-cut the splines and center-drill them. That's the extent of what they outsource. The place that does it made some that were drilled too deep. 7 of them have broken that they know of so they sent out the JB/AA heavy-duty kits as a replacement and threw the rest of the shafts they had (appox 75 unsold) away.

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom

[Robert J. Yates]

Driveshafts - arrrggg.

My experience is to only deal with a local guy who has lots of experience. I don't have any experience with TW but I do with 4XDoc and it wasn't good. Initally, the shaft that they built for me was way to long, which costed me another day of downtime. Mike was all good about it and cut me a little slack but the over the topper was that a few weeks down the road while trying to find a souce of a vibration I pulled the rear shaft. Apparently what had happened was that they simply cut down the original shaft and then zipped it back together - it wasn't balanced. I took it to JE Reel in Pomona who took right nice care of me. He builds the drivehsafts for most of the hardcore rigs out where I live and also built the shafts for Jason Bunchs ARCA YJ. I haven't had a problem with it since but I won't go anywhere else. They got my business again when I had the front shaft rebuilt. He's local, fair and I can make sure what I am getting is what I paid for and not simply convienent for the builder.

98 TJ Sport
D44ARB/D30Detroit/Teralow/Swampers
www.geocities.com/yatezess/

[Jeff McRae]

Mixed results. I currently have bothe front and rear shafts from Tom Woods (I was one of the first week's customers for Tom when he left Six States)

So far I've had no problems. I did have a local driveline shop (OC Driveline) build my "first" front shaft when I did the 6" Alcans (and discovered I had zero compression left on the stock driveline)

That front driveshaft experienced what happens when you spin both tires and then hook up while having an ARB engaged. Scott Hill has seen it - it's twisted around almost twice. Might have happened with a TW shaft too - who can tell.

I'm hoping that the front Dana 44 (shorten the front shaft) and raised skid plate I'm making (lengthen front drive shaft) cancel out....it works on paper

Jeff
94 YJ, one or three mods

http://jmcrae.rockcrawler.com

[Ace!]

I got a lot of education in the last month about why it failed (hung out at a local drive line place for a couple of lunches), and my Jeep isn't a daily driver, so I'm not as bummed as some people would be. I got a decent deal (TW shaft sells for $10 more than local, which makes the AA HD SYE I got at the same time $175), but it wouldn't mean much if I relied on my Jeep to get to work. His customer service yesterday was excellent in my opinion.

However, a pretty good friend of mine was going to buy a TW shaft, and because of my experience isn't. He's likely to go local just so he doesn't have to worry about UPS and telephone calls if something happens. I'm glad no one is coming up from So Cal to wheel the McGrew with me, as I'm not leading the group anymore because I don't want to do it in 2wheel hi (front wheel drive).

Áron O'Proinntigh is ainm dom