v8 Miata Forum - Home of the v8 Miata Conversion - Monster clutches from Maryland Speed

As much as a hate to waste forum space on things such as this, not related to the build process you all are interested in, I feel the need to make a recommendation that may save a lot of you significant frustration. If you don’t want to read the full story, please take my advice and resist the urge to order a Monster clutch from MaryLand Speed. Their prices are low, but your order will likely not be handled as quickly as you might expect (this is what gets the price down low). If you’re interested, read on.

As a result of a poorly installed clutch (that’s on me) because I didn't account for clutch slave cylinder to clutch pressure plate clearance, I decided the clutch disc or pressure plate springs were probably not working as designed, and rather then waste time any longer, I decided to replace the clutch and flywheel and start from scratch.

My clutch: Monster Clutches Level 2 Clutch - GM LSx Vehicles (F-Body, Corvette, GTO) [MON-LVLII] - $779.00$654.00 : MarylandSpeed.com- Your First Stop on the Way to Performance!

I had bought my last clutch from them as well, the delivery time was slow, but the car wasn’t together and I wasn’t under any time crunch. It took about two weeks to ship the clutch. I thought that the delay was weird at the time, Maryland Speed takes your money, and sends the order to Monster, who drop ships the clutch after a 3-5 day lead time - which they publish on their web site. Maybe the lead time was extended at the time, maybe because it was the summer, no idea and no big deal at the time.

Fast forward to current events. I ordered the same clutch on June 5th 2017 online from Maryland Speed. I got a $50 flash discount when I visited the site Sunday night, which was nice. Shipping was still free as before, so the price was well below other vendors.

After 10 days (6/15) I decided to check in on the order and the email response was that they would check on the order and get back to me. Heard later that day from the owner “I am expecting tracking next few days”. Cool.

On 6/21 (another week later) I called Monster directly to see about what their current lead time was for shipping out this particular clutch. I was told 5 days. So about 5 days passed since I was first told it would ship and I still hadn’t gotten a notice it shipped.

I emailed MaryLand Speed later on 6/21 why the delay to ship when there is no apparent delay on Monster’s end to build and ship the clutch. I felt it was better to send this in writing, maybe another set of eyeballs would see it, and I'd document my concern. I did not get a response. I’m on vacation overseas from 6/22 - 6/30 so I’m going to lay low and not care, enjoy vacation, and assume it will be on my doorstep when I get home.

I have some free time on my hands while away, so on 6/26 (5 days since last email) I emailed again for an update, asked again why the delay on shipment when there is no delay on the clutch being available. No response.

On 6/27 in the morning, I emailed asking them to please respond the following morning with some answers to my questions. No response.

On 6/28 later in the day, I called and talked to support. In the process of them checking, they mentioned the term “batch order”. I asked what this was and was told it was ordered as part of a batch order and so in order to get competitive pricing, they submit orders in batches to Monster. So my clutch order is waiting in some queue for one or more other clutch orders to come through and when some threshold is reached or someone decides, my order gets processed and built. Ok, that’s not what I understood when I ordered the clutch, despite multiple attempts to email about this very issue. I told them I wanted an update from Monster on the order by end of day. They indicated that would happen.

To make sure the message was documented in writing, I emailed an hour later to confirm my conversation with support, that I was not happy with the fact this order was sitting somewhere with no idea when it would ship, and this was not made clear during the order, or at any point up until now. If they could not ship the order the next day, I asked them to cancel the order with Monster on my behalf.

Later the same day (6/28) my order was updated with the following “I got with purchasing and they are shooting for this to go Friday (6/30). Once we get tracking we will update your account with that information.”

It gets worse. Friday, 6/30, no ship notice. On 7/6 I email if it will ship THE NEXT Friday, which would be 7/7. I was aware of the July 4th holiday, so you could assume they were only open 3 of the possible 5 days that holiday week.

On 7/7 at 5pm I call Monster directly and decide to see if they could look up my order. They say there is nothing in the queue to ship or anything under my name or order number. I happened to mention the delays I’ve been getting and the Monster support person says “Maryland Speed?”. Why yes :eek4:. “Yeah, we get a lot of calls about stuff like this from them”. Ok... I ask if I can order from them directly with the intent to call Maryland Speed back and cancel my order. He takes the order, knocks off $100 for my trouble. Nice.:appl:

I call Maryland Speed after I get off the phone with Monster and ask to cancel. I’m told it might take a few days to process and if the order is about to ship there is nothing they can do to stop it. Hah. At this point I reiterate the issues I’ve had and that if the clutch shows up at my home, I’m not paying for it. I may have used the F word :thumbsdown:. I’m put on hold and get the owner, Branden F. He’s not sure why they don’t have my order, and explains that it could be their fault. I maintain that I don’t buy that, and still want to cancel the order b/c he is not being upfront about the issues, and hasn’t been this whole time. I told him I just want a clutch for my car and that I will be certain to mention this experience on message boards, etc. that I frequent to protect others from this happening.

Branden wants to fix the issue, make things right, get me the clutch and offer me a discount. I said I hate to be a sucker, but I’m going out to dinner with friends and want him to handle it. He can cancel my Monster order, and ensure the one through him gets processed and call me back before end of the day. He does, and explains he sent an email to them to help resolve this, so we may not hear back until Monday. If the Monster order ships then he’ll cancel my order through him. I ask why this couldn’t be done by phone to ensure it gets through, but he tells me that Monster ignores his calls sometimes or doesn’t answer the phone. Wow. :gtfo:

I call back Monday, 7/10, and Branden tells me the order change went through, and the clutch should ship that week. He’ll make sure I get a discount on top of my original discounts.

I call Monster on Thursday 7/13 4pm to ask about tracking and I’m told it may ship that day or next. It should arrive by Wednesday the following week via Fedex. These guys are cool, and the guy (maybe the same one I talked to before) said something like “I talked with Jamie about this, and it was a total Cluster F---”. I laughed and started to get back into it but decided I didn’t need to… I just said “I have no words” and he laughed in agreement.

The clutch arrived eventually, and I installed it. I followed up a few days later with MaryLand speed looking for the refund that was told I would receive. I was told on 7/24 (Monday) that the refund should show that week. I had no contact with them until I checked back on 8/14 (3 weeks later) as I didn’t see the refund come through. That took a few more days to show up on my credit card statement.

That is all.