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JBR Performance - do they exist?? (very BAD service)

3K views 31 replies 10 participants last post by  EddyH 
#1 ·
Hi guys

I've heard a lot of people here buying things off JBR Performance's website (www.jbrperformance.co.uk). Last friday I placed an order for all 3 VF Engineering engine mounts, but until now nothing has arrived. I've called them like a million times on (01865 988413) but it's as if the company doesn't exist, the phone just rings forever and nobody got back to any of my messages!!!! The confusing thing is i've already recieved the invoice to my e-mail address.

I just e-mailed them asking what the hell is going on, espesially since i can't drive my car till i get the parts (and the garage isn't gonna hold my car forever without starting to charge me). I mean, its not like this is the first time I place an order on-line, I dont expect 100% efficency everytime but with JBR Performance i'm confused. A lot of people seem to buy things off them but right now there is NOBODY HOME and i'm feeling cheated.

Is it actually a legit company? and should I expect to hear back from them?
 
#2 ·
Strange! I just recieved this:

Dear Mr Saeed,Please accept our sincere apologies for the problems you have had. We have had a new phone system put in and had a few troubles with it.Your order has been placed and we are awaiting it from the USA. We will chase this up for you and give you a estimated delivery date asap.Once again, apologies for any inconvenience caused.Best regards,JBR Performance Ltd"
 
#3 ·
What the?! JBR Are based in Witney, Oxfordshire?! According to their website their address is -

JBR Performance Ltd
5 Chedworth Drive
Witney
United Kingdom
OX285FS
Phone: 01865 988413
Fax: 01865 988261

The phone numbers they list are Oxford numbers (01865...) not Witney numbers (01993...)?

I work in Witney and never knew JBR were so close?!

Jeffers
 
#4 ·
Its been 11 days since i've place my order. All i've got was the e-mail i posted above last friday. I've already e-mailed them twice today as well as trying that number that doesn't work but no luck yet. Since recieving the e-mail I've heard nothing, I think they are just trying to buy themselves sometimes before answering my question but i'm loosing it here.

My garage is calling me up every lil while asking me when the parts are arriving and i have to say "I have no idea" ... what the hell ! these guys are really getting on my nerves. Anyone know somewhere else i can buy the VF Engineering mounts from? I cant keep waiting for JBR till THEY'RE READY!

dame....
 
#5 ·
Best place to get VF Engineering stuff in terms of price is www.nsracing.com - speak to Raj. He and Nik Saran (formerly of NS Racing himself...) at VF work closely together, but the problem still, as I've found when buying the VF anti-roll bar drop links, is that if they've got stock, great, if not, then the wait can be ages. I was lucky when I got two set of ARB links, one for myself and one for a friend, he had stock and/or was ordering stuff from the US anyway so tagged them along to the order. Speak to Raj anyway.
 
#6 ·
Hi mate, thanx for the info. I just got off the phone with Raj, he said he'll be able to get hold of them by the end of the week. I've e-mail JBR Performance (for the third time today) telling them that if I dont recieve information on an estimated delivery time then i'd like to cancel the order by 5pm today. I hope they dont get funny after I cancel it... i mean come on, how much more suffering do i have to go through just to get an answer!

once again, thanx for the link
 
#7 ·
ok, this is weird.... literally 2 min after my last post I got a call from JBR Performance, the parts should be with me end of the week and the reason for their late reply is they are getting a new phone line as well as a new internet service provider. I'm sticking with JBR for now but i'll let you guys know if they do deliver.
 
#8 ·
Mate I know exactly what your on about.. JBR imo are a joke. Their customer service is shocking. Here's my experience:

I ordered some ECS stage 2v2 brakes and 1R setup with hawk pads back mid June, basically £1900 worth.. They promised me I'd have them within a week.. A week goes by no brakes, so I leave a msg on the answer phone system get a call back the next day saying they're expecting them beginning of next week..

Next week and still no brakes, so I leave another answer phone msg asking them to call me back and they did same day and explained that ECS were in the middle of moving premises.. sounded like a convenient excuse, so I said 'look as long as I get them before july 29th (caslte combe trackday) then i don't mind when they come..

Still no sign of the brakes 1 week before the trackday so I left an answer phone msg again but didn't receive a call back, tried e-mailing too but they never replied by e-mail.. I wonder if they even read them!? So I made do with stock brakes on the combe trackday. I couldn't really chase them up afterwards as I went on holiday for 3 weeks the following day, I was hoping to receive a msg on the answer phone or even an e-mail when I got back but quelle surprise nothing!

Not going to bother chasing them up anymore complete timewasters, shame really because Jason sounded like a decent guy on the phone but you really shouldn't be allowed to advertise or even run a company like JBR if you can't deliver the goods or perform the most basic functions of a business .. customer service.
 
#9 ·
ok, this is weird.... literally 2 min after my last post I got a call from JBR Performance, the parts should be with me end of the week and the reason for their late reply is they are getting a new phone line as well as a new internet service provider. I'm sticking with JBR for now but i'll let you guys know if they do deliver.
Strange... Well hope the parts arrive soon for you. Don't hold your breath!
 
#10 ·
Hi mate, the parts finally arrived yesterday and I dashed them off to the garage within 5min... hopefully the car will be ready on monday.
About JBR, i'm really stuck on using them for getting the breaks I'm after. Did they end up sending them after all that trouble or not? I asked jason if they're in stock and he said no but if i ordered them yesterday he would have them ready end of the week... I then read your post and thought "ok this sounds familiar"...

I need to get both front and back brakes so it's not a little bit of money involved and i wouldn't like it stuck between me and JBR doing nothing. I'm thinking of emailing Jason asking him first of all for a contact number that works before I place the order. I'm thinking of also
mentioning your case (if you're ok with that) so at least I get his word that it wont happen this time. I guess that's all I can do really...
 
#11 ·
No I've had nothing through, not going to follow the order up..really stuck deciding wether a VW Golf deserves £2k's worth of Anchors..

Personally I would not buy anything from JBR after their lack of communication, Perhaps order the brakes direct from the States and get them to mark the value down for customs or look at the ttshop.co.uk or vagtech.co.uk as both do the stage5 kits so i'm sure they can order in other ecs brake systems.. I've bought stuff from the TTshop before and it was great service. [Y]

Also checkout these brakes, supposed to be better than ECS kits http://www.wilwood.com/

Goodluck, Keep us posted!
 
#14 ·
Your not the only ones that had problems with the comms if it helps.

http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/thread/637328.aspx
Is their business plan "loose as many customers as possible"??? what I dont get is why everybody point everyone in JBR's direction. It seems like eventhough their service is very bad, we'll still keep ordering !

I just had an idea, i wanna start a poll to see how many other people have had the same problem... any idea how i can do that?
 
#15 ·
As mentioned earlier in this post the address is a Witney address so I've been and found it as I live in the Witney area.

Looks to me like a residential address and not a little office/warehouse as I was expecting.

Sorry to hear so many people have had problems with them - I was hoping that they'd be a good source and somewhere very close for me to order some stuff from!?

Jeffers
 
#16 ·
Hi guys,

Just wanted to respond to this post.

There is not alot i can really say here to make amends other than our sincere apologies for the lack of comms over the last few months. We've made several changes in communications over the last couple of months to ensure that emails and phone calls are not missed and that emails are responded to in a timely fashion.

With regard to products ordered from ECS Tuning, unfortunately, we can only give ETA's based on the information that we are given. Over the last year, this information has got gradually worse. This makes us look like the bad guys as we are permanently giving false information to you guys as to when you can expect delivery of your products. I do realise that our poor communication just compounds the problem and makes it incredibly frustrating.

With regard specifically to products from ECS Tuning, exports are now being looked after solely by a member of staff there, and they have become much more vocal with issue and delays which means we can give much more accurate information.

I realise that we have seriously let ourselves down and that it may be too late to earn back your respect and trust, but if you do ever buy from JBR again, we will make every effort to give you the best service and get your order to you as fast and efficiently as we possibly can.

Once again, my apologies for the very poor service, bad communications and an overall bad experience.

If anyone wants to contact me directly, please email me at richard@jbrperformance.co.uk

Thanks

Rich
 
#17 ·
No I've had nothing through, not going to follow the order up..really stuck deciding wether a VW Golf deserves £2k's worth of Anchors..

Personally I would not buy anything from JBR after their lack of communication, Perhaps order the brakes direct from the States and get them to mark the value down for customs or look at the ttshop.co.uk or vagtech.co.uk as both do the stage5 kits so i'm sure they can order in other ecs brake systems.. I've bought stuff from the TTshop before and it was great service. [Y]
Well i'm back with 312's after having an ECS Stage 2v2 kit and am far from complaining. Having broke hard a few times now on them they seem to hold up pretty well, certainly better than the original 312mm kit I had before fitting the Stage 2v2 kit [:S]
I guess a trackday would seperate the two products by quite a way but for general use I think the asking price of the stage 2v2 kit is too much, luckily when I bought mine they were second hand (3 months old) and only (only??) cost £725.

Regarding ordering from the states....A friend contacted ECS directly regarding a set of discs, they told him to go through JBR Performance.

FWIW I've only ever placed one order with JBR, a set of pads for the 2v2 kit which arrived in the timeframe they said it would but that was 18 months ago.
 
#18 ·
My experiences of JBR in the past have been 'ok'. Fortunately I understand the growing pains that small businesses go through especially when business starts booming and the business tries to expand at the same rate as demand. My guess is that JBR started from home which is easy to do when all your doing is mail order and often shipping items directly from your supplier...hence the residential registered address.

I for one have found Rich to be a very helpful guy especially on the Audi forums and I will be ordering from them again...
 
#19 ·
I ordered ECS Rear brakes through Rich @ JBR Performance and everything arrived on time. Rich kept in contact with me the whole time and I didn't have to e-mail him or call him a single time after placing my order (he just kept me updated).

I'll be ordering the front brakes soon and i'm confident enough now to go with JBR..

thought i should let you guys know [;)]
 
#20 ·
I ordered ECS Rear brakes through Rich @ JBR Performance and everything arrived on time. Rich kept in contact with me the whole time and I didn't have to e-mail him or call him a single time after placing my order (he just kept me updated).

I'll be ordering the front brakes soon and i'm confident enough now to go with JBR..

thought i should let you guys know [;)]
Wish I was having the same luck, order the ECS 2 piece R32 OE front discs from ECS via The TT Shop on 21/09. Guess what, still awaiting delivery of said items from the US to the TT Shop [:mad:]

Apparently they decided to send the GTi 288mm upgrade discs over, and not the R32.

Hopefully this order will be arriving at the TT Shop tomorrow, fingers crossed. Otherwise I might just be canceling the order.
 
#21 ·
I ordered ECS Rear brakes through Rich @ JBR Performance and everything arrived on time. Rich kept in contact with me the whole time and I didn't have to e-mail him or call him a single time after placing my order (he just kept me updated).

I'll be ordering the front brakes soon and i'm confident enough now to go with JBR..

thought i should let you guys know [;)]
Wish I was having the same luck, order the ECS 2 piece R32 OE front discs from ECS via The TT Shop on 21/09. Guess what, still awaiting delivery of said items from the US to the TT Shop [:mad:]

Apparently they decided to send the GTi 288mm upgrade discs over, and not the R32.

Hopefully this order will be arriving at the TT Shop tomorrow, fingers crossed. Otherwise I might just be canceling the order.
Dame! good luck with it... let me know if they do send them over [:S]
 
#22 ·
Just seen this thread over the last couple of days. My experience with JBR which includes THIS was that the problem was indeed with ECS, with their move and growth problems. Seems they've made steps to improve but aren't fully there.

Fortunately I was able to stay in touch with Richard whilst I successfully resolved my dispute with ECS.

I hope Richard is back on top of the customer service now as he has never let me down; quite the opposite.
 
#25 ·
I've also recently had a poor experience when ordering ECS products from JBR, some caused by ECS some by JBR.

My order was for a pair of discs and a set of pads. They are arrived a little later than expected but that wasn't really a problem. The pads were for use in a Stage 2v2 kit and require modification which I specifically asked to be done, this wasn't done by ECS and JBR didn't check before sending them out. JBR offered to modify the pads if I returned them but this would mean further cost and delay.

I paid for the order on the 11th October and recieved it around 2-3 weeks ago, however despite several requests I still haven't recieved an invoice/VAT reciept. As I was charged VAT I expect a valid VAT reciept, if I don't get any joy by the end of the week I think I will be forced to take the matter further and will be contacting Consumer Direct or similar for advice on how to proceed which I suspect will mean involving the tax man. [:(]
 
#26 ·
I've also recently had a poor experience when ordering ECS products from JBR, some caused by ECS some by JBR.

My order was for a pair of discs and a set of pads. They are arrived a little later than expected but that wasn't really a problem. The pads were for use in a Stage 2v2 kit and require modification which I specifically asked to be done, this wasn't done by ECS and JBR didn't check before sending them out. JBR offered to modify the pads if I returned them but this would mean further cost and delay.

I paid for the order on the 11th October and recieved it around 2-3 weeks ago, however despite several requests I still haven't recieved an invoice/VAT reciept. As I was charged VAT I expect a valid VAT reciept, if I don't get any joy by the end of the week I think I will be forced to take the matter further and will be contacting Consumer Direct or similar for advice on how to proceed which I suspect will mean involving the tax man. [:(]
Sorry to hear that mate... JBR's service was suffering a lil while ago but they got their act together and i'm surprised they haven't contacted you to sort things out. Try e-mailing Richard (richard@jbrperformance.co.uk or username: richa3turbo), he's helped me out loads since i started this post and I'm sure he'll do the same thing for anybody else that's having problems with JBR.

Let me know how it goes.
 
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