Kirkham customer service rules!!

[Igofastr]

Many of you may be familiar with the unfortunate saga involving KMP 357 resulting in what I simply call "The Dent.'

[Igofastr]

Well, thanks to Joe and "Sandwich", Kirkham representatives at the 2007 BASH, I no longer need hang my head in shame at Cobra gatherings.

If I may, I'd like to relate the story of my redemption.

About 7:30 pm Thursday, I pulled into a spot on the 5th floor of the Nugget parking structure in Reno. This after just barely getting my car back from major engine work and a tranny rebuild (thanks Tom Lucas, FE Specialties, David Kee, too!). Anyway, as some of you may know, I half jokingly made an attempt to get Tom Kirkham to arrange a repair while at the BASH. But since it was such a last-minute effort, we were never able to set anything up.

Anyway, within 10 minutes of arriving, "Sandwich" walks over from setting up the Kirkham Booth. As he nears the car, I see him looking down at my shame. Before I can even launch into my routine explanation, he introduces himself, and says "we can fix that." At that point I try to tell him that I'd hoped to set something up, but before I could get it out of my mouth, he was on his cell phone to the mothership in Provo, requesting his tools be overnighted to Reno.

I gladly offered to pay them for their efforts, but both he and Joe refused any payment, including an offer to buy lunch. Mind you, I didn't buy the car directly from Kirkham, which I pointed out early on, but that didn't seem to matter in the least.



Anyway, both "Sandwich" and Joe launched into dent repair mode early on Saturday morning, giving me a call before I'd gotten breakfast, and saying that they'd pushed my car across the garage to their booth, and were in the process of taking care of the dent. By the time my dad and I got there, Joe and "Sandwich" had the dent gone, and were tag-teaming the dirty finish sanding. After observing their handywork for a couple of minutes, I told them to relax, and that I'd take care of the sanding myself later. No sooner had they stood up, than "Sandwich" noticed another small dent on the top of my driver's side front fender. While it really didn't bother me, he asked if he could fix that one too....what could I say?



In the end, so miraculous was the repair, that friends who attended the car show Saturday night lamented that while they saw a number of fabulous cars (including the polished one owned by "Sandwich"), they couldn't find mine among the Kirkhams...as none of the cars had the expected dent, even the one that looked just like mine.

Pictured above is "Sandwich" with me replacing the wheel. Joe, I'm very sorry, but I seem to have deleted your picture while trying to transfer images around. He's the one in the red shirt behind "Sandwich." If anyone has a picture of Joe, please post it below. He needs to be recognized for his efforts, too.

[thudmaster]

The really kewl part about this was I got to watch it. Amazing simply amozing bit of work. I even thanked them for you Ron. I learned something knew that day. Not how to do it but that it could be done, TY Kirkham for the lesson.........

[DavidinDurango]

This is very good news. Gotta love any vendor that provides service like that.

This makes me even more sure of my decision!

congrats.

[Greg Haile]

I have a goal to one day own a Kirkham and its stories like this that let me know I'm on the right track. Way to go Kirkham!!

Greg

[maurice19]

Roger that

Maurice

[Lew Ledyard]

I think that dents should be offered by the Kirkhams as an extra cost option. (Fender is offering new guitars with "weathered" finishes as an option.) If you have a few dents, no one will mistake it for fiberglass!

[Jamo]

Hell, I was so impressed, I damn near went over and kicked Ron's fender in just so we could have a replay.

Sandwich and Joe are muy goodo guys...always been that way, either on the road or in Provo. I talked to Tom on the phone (some POS CSX owner was using our friendship to try to get a deal on some real Kirkham parts. ) and let him know what good ambassadors the gents were.

At the track, my kill switch was coming loose (batteries behind the seat) and as I fiddled with it, the damn nut dropped behind the batteries and jammed under the tray...a no man's land for my gorilla hands, and my run group was coming up quick. I jokingly yelled out for someone to find them Kirkham guys, and within a couple of minutes Sandwich wormed his way into the car and moved my fat ass out of there and got-er-done. I think it added 15-20 horsepower!

Later, I was screwing around with the emergency brake button atop the lever, and it launched like an Atlas rocket. Driving over Mt. Rose and stopping for pics meant I became the worlds biggest emergency brake by standing behind my car every time we stopped. Sandwich jumped in again and fixed it at the Squaw Valley while we set up for the shoot (I had no clue how that sucker went together).

It earned him a Gashole hat...the highest acheivement (akin to an Eagle Scout badge). I'll be ordering one for Joe in the next batch.

Well done, Gentlemen...well done indeed.

[saltytri]

Ditto on all the good stuff about Kirkham customer service and Dave Sandwich. When I was at the shop, he jotted down his cell phone number and told me to just give him a call if I had any problems or questions! That's really exceptional and the fact that he likes what he's doing enough to volunteer his own phone number says a lot about how the K boys treat their employees, IMHO.

[sshurts]

Let me also add my thanks to Dave and Joe for their help at the Bash.

I noticed the result of my lack of tightening a throttle linkage nut was it's disappearance. While soliciting help from others to locate some washers (as spacers) or a nut, in jumped the Kmp crew and shared some parts from the roller that they brought to the bash. Within a couple minutes we had removed a piece from the car and I scored the missing part and an extra for good luck.

As always, great thanks to the Kmp family for all they do.

Also, thanks to the other cobra buddies for willing to step up to help before Joe and Dave made available the missing nut.

Jamo, your welcome for rounding up Dave during your moment of distress (ok, profound verbage)

Scott

[Jamo]

Scott...thanks!