As some others have indicated on this thread, NE's customer service in terms of personal availability and tech support are great. There was some delay in getting out a lift kit to me, but the quality of the product and support I recieved after getting the kit was worth the wait. How long have some of us been waiting for another 4th gen product from another manufacturer that keeps putting off delivery dates????? I can't speak for anything else that may be going on behind the scenes with NE, just wanted to relay my limited personal experience with NE on the lift kit.

 

I forgot about that, but thanks for jogging my memory.

I guess it doesn't pay to be first sometimes...

 

Go ahead Rocky tell us whats on your mind. Remember, anything said truthfull about NE and does not provide trade secrets is not considered libel (btw slander is spoken, libel is written).

Hey Seahawk, Do you have any pictures of your lifted 4runner? I would like to see how it looks. Gives me something to look forward to! I am glad NE came through for you.

Lee, feel fortunate you didn't jump on it right away.

Finally, and this is just my opinnion here...since the customer service department doesn't work for NE anymore, I am guessing customer service may decline.

 

Lets not forget that Daystar and Revtek were the first to introduce spacers for the 4th gen. Followed by Downey with coilovers. Donahoe is just right behind as I believe their coilovers are now on the shelves (not sure but I'll find out).

NE came into the picture to be the first to release spacers for xreas. Of course we all know spacers are spacers and Daystar or even Revtek spacers will work on xreas (I know as I've done the install myself). I suspect the only reason why the other businesses (who have been in the business for along time - and we're not talking just months) have not sold any xreas compatible parts are due to the liability factor. I'm not a lawyer so I can't personally say anything but that's what I suspect. That said, it'll be along time before anyone comes out with anything xreas compatible (like I have been always stating on all the forums - sux but true). I know that these other spacer manufacturers do their homework so I can personally state that I have more faith in a long established reputable company over a new comer as they are more established. Aftermarket parts takes years to be introduced as suspension related products can not be taken lightly. If the product is junk, it can become a life threatening factor so these things takes time. I believe OME took 3 yrs (correct me if I'm wrong) for the 3rd gen 4runner so do expect a lengthly wait. I suspect OME will have something for the 4th gen sometime this year if not next year so they're right along the same timeline.

The recent comments by other customers regarding irregularities and what not does concern me in terms of quality control as well as their r&d but as a new comer it's really difficult to manage everything. Hopefully NE will turn around and sell quality products as it seems that everyone can agree that their customer service has been great (can't say personally as I don't own any of their products).

Ultimately, it's buyer beware. As we all know, this applies to all vendors.

Good luck

 

yea, i guess i should add that i have no reason to say anything bad about NE, and furthermore, i am not saying anything bad.

everything ive heard from them so far has been great.. theyve been very helpful and responsive to all my communication efforts to them.

 

Hmm, interesting thread. I probably should post some of my experiences with NE as well.

As for the 4th-gen spacers, I don't know for certain, but they look to me to not be made from molds at all. I suspect that they are cut from a long length of the material and then hollowed out and shaped appropriately. You can definately see router marks and/or drill marks. The paint job (still sticky, not sure what paint they used) covers up a lot of the roughness. They appear very roughly made by hand. The XREAS relocators, on the other hand, appear professionally made. Personally, this did not bother me as I'm not into looks, but rather performance.

And, BTW, I'd rather they NOT be made from a mold. I'm familiar with that and know that it's easy to get the mixture wrong and not know about it. I don't mind the method of cutting from a length of material, however they do need to work on the quality.

For various reasons I still have not installed them and can take high-res pics if anyone is interested. Now that I look at them closer though, it does appear as if they are not even. One of the rear spacers varies between 1/8" and 1/4" smaller than the other. One of the front spacers varies up to 1/8" smaller than the other. Maybe this is to level out the truck from side-to-side as it does slant a bit towards the driver's side.

I'll post more later.

 

 

Kickaha,

Sounds like a quality issue to me. You shouldn't have to dremel anything. IMHO, the manufacturer should not be sending this product out PERIOD. And given all the less-than-stellar feedback from some customers, I wouldnt even think about installing this product. In fact, I'd request a refund asap. Let us know how that conversation goes. But do let us know if they sue you for the request

Bob

 

My experience with NE started with their 4th-gen XREAS lift kit. As they were the only company interested in doing mods for XREAS, they got a lot of attention. I ordered their XREAS kit and all communication with them regarding that kit was great. The kit arrived, poorly packed, but that's fine. For multiple reasons, I have not yet installed it. See above about the quality of the spacers. I do have questions about where the rear shock relocators mount to (whether it's strong enough), but haven't yet had the time to get under my truck for a first-hand inspection. Anyway, all experiences with NE up to getting my lift kit were excellent.

NE and I started to go separate ways when someone with the forum name 96redracer made a very negative post about Hanna sliders. For some reason, I did a search on other posts made by 96redracer and found several mentioning that 96redracer was a "good, life-long, very-old", etc., friend of Anthony. I had been informed previously that NE was going to be making sliders. 96redracer was a very good friend of NE. 96redracer made a very negative (and false as he later retracted it) post about the competition. It appeared as if they were trying to interfere with a group by of another product (actually, right now I'm pretty sure they DID interfere with this and that everyone who purchased the Hanna sliders is paying more for them because of their interference). This raised a red flag for me and I shot off a letter to NE about it. There were several interesting letters exchanged (which I might post here), but they never admitted to knowing 96redracer. Next thing I know, however, all of 96redracer's previous posts admitting knowing Anthony were deleted. Interesting....

My last dealing with NE was when they posted a thread talking about their new sliders. They gave very little detail and so I asked a lot of questions. This seemed like an obvious course of action to me. If you make a post with few details on a new product, you probably should expect a lot of questions. Duh. Anyway, my questions (all very legitimate) were taken as an attack on NE. WHOA! I suppose this was because they knew I had ordered the Hanna sliders so how could I possibly be interested in the NE sliders? The validity of the questions didn't seem to matter. (BTW, the reason I was interested is that I may be starting a new project and a small part of that project would be a type of a buyer's guide. Thus, I'm interested in all products from every company.) This little exchange didn't last long as someone deleted the thread in question. They seem to be good at deleting damning evidence.

Conclusion: My opinion of NE has gone from excellent to terrible. I have serious questions about the ethics of NE. I'm also starting to question the quality of their work. The quality of their sliders I'm sure is fine as they're made by another quality vendor (who probably should rethink dealing with NE). I would NOT purchase anything from them until that was all cleared up. I doubt, however, that I would ever purchase anything from them again regardless. Now I'm left with an NE lift kit that I'm not sure I want to install. The installation will have to wait a couple more months anyway....

 

Actually, it's a pretty darn big shame. They had EVERYTHING going for them and they blew it big-time. It's really amazing.

 

rocky,

seems to me from reading all these threads and the praises for online/phone customer service, you were the only positive thing going for NE. well, i hope they paid you a fair wage for your time and effort. didnt you build the website too?

bob

 

All of my dealings with rocky were great. My saying "daming evidence" is really more of the "damaging to NE reputation" variety in regards to that particular thread. I didn't know it was you who deleted the thread or that AK asked you to. It didn't really matter to me. Well, at least AK can't delete this thread.

BTW, I never did reply to your PM about that thread. Just to let you know, I appreciated it, but by that time was so fed-up with NE, that I didn't want to even think about it.

 

I disagree, if you had not been so polite in our conversations and appologetic for AKs poor business practices, I would have lost my cool months ago! And that would have been bad for NE. The only reason NE got off the ground was because of you....he should be kissing your backside.

I also wanted to mention something about Rocky. She felt so bad about what happened that she sent me her own personal Revtek kit that she removed from her truck to install the NE free!! She even paid shipping. I didn't want her to have to give up her kit and I told her that she didn't owe me anything, but she insisted that it would make her feel better.

NE didn't deserve you, you have qualitys such as honesty and integrity that Anthony does not. Those of us that have communicated with you by email or phone appreciate that.

 

I agree. NE built up a GREAT reputation in a very small amount of time because of you rocky. And NE trashed that great reputation in an equally small amount of time. What a waste.

Again, I agree.

 

That's funny. To all customers, post anything you'd like. I'd be happy if they were to sue me. Bring it on!

BTW, rocky is in a different boat. As I told her in email, I personally would not go about publically divulging any internal workings of the company without a legal consultation. If there are any safety issues, I highly urge rocky to see a lawyer about her responsibilities and rights. And, I'll say publically here, I'd be willing to pay for the initial consultation.

 

yea i should point out that i didnt hear from billy for a LONG time, but tracy did get back to me telling me to 'look for the updates to the site' or something.

very nice of her... though no such update occured.

 

He already has.
That vendor built a great reputation and did not want to damage it further by association with NE. If NE is making anything, that particular vendor is not involved.

 

I took these qoutes from the NE site. Thought they were kinda ironic.

When will I receive my kit/order?

Since each kit is made to each order's specifications, we usually estimate that you will see your kit within 10 days of placing an order. During this time, we will keep you updated about the status of your order, and will let you know your tracking number immediately upon shipping.




Are the parts covered by any type of warranty?

All of our parts and products are covered by a lifetime warranty. Our guarantee is much like what other suspension lift companies offer -- we guarantee you will receive the product we've shown, we can't control how you drive your vehicle or how you install the parts, but if anything ever breaks at any time, we will replace it without cost to you. That being said, we can offer it because we are incredibly confident that you're not going to have problems with anything breaking. On the off chance that anything ever DOES break, we will of course replace it for free. We can't control how you operate your vehicle, how you install the parts, or how you run them, but if anything ever breaks, we will take care of you.

 

I'm definitely glad others are speaking up about their experiences. This is one of the reasons why I frequent forums so I can learn from others and make better decisions on what I purchase! Thanks ya'll

Here's my personal opinion on NE's product line: I have no faith and have never had any faith in their products. Read my past posts and it'll be clear on my opinions from the get go. When you read my posts you will notice that I include NE as a viable option as a mean of lifts only because I feel that it is the buyer's choice to decide on what they want. Therefore I will always give all the options available regardless of my opinion. It is not my duty to play a parent figure on what to get and what not to get as modding your rig is your decision and having a mind of your own is crucial. If the product ended like crap then that's you're problem for not properly researching.

Now to my opinions on each product:
1. Spacers: looks like a rip off design between Daystar and Revtek with absolutely no research done in developing their own. It's basically a copy of two different design ideas molded into one. They could have atleast taken a different approach by making spacers that'll just replace the top plate entirely but I guess not. (some food for thought if you're reading). You really can't mess up on spacers one way or another so that's that. It just comes to quality on the product itself. But apparently it looks like the quality is sub par.

2. Relocs: I would never run that on my 4runner. That design just looks so flawed that I would worry that the mount will either shear off or won't be able to sustain the load of the 4runner. I highly doubt that NE has done enough of their research on the actual numbers on what kind of force loads and other factors to build something like this. Yes it may look nice and cool but c'mon now, we're talking about a piece if built incorrectly can have dramatic side effects! I'm utterly surprised that they didn't come up with a more solid design.

3. Sliders: Take a look at this picture and tell me what's wrong.

What happens when you slide across a rock and the rock hits one of the bolts holding the slider? Looks like you'll stop on a dime or quite possibly shift the rig's direction depending on where it hangs up quite possibly causing damage to the body if you are attempting to go around a rock. You really don't want to have anything hanging below on the frame as you want to prevent anything that'll hang you up down under. A smoother belly is always better to get around obstacles as you don't have to worry about things getting hung up.

The other concern is the mounting points. It doesn't look like the forces that can be applied to the slider is capable of distributing the load over a broader area of the frame rather than at 2 vertical lines (c-channel) at each mounting point (looks like 3 attachment points). This means that over time, you'll have 2 vertical line at each point.. Personally speaking, I wouldn't want to dent my frame. I'd much rather find a bigger surface area to mount my sliders so the forces are distributed over a larger area. Some food for thought.

Another concern is that the sliders are missing gussets (looks like triangle reinformed plates on top of the tubing). Some say it's actually bad but personally speaking I'd much rather have it as I don't want the slider to prematurely fail on the trail and cause a rock to crash right into the rig. This is purely a personal call so blah.

Last concern is that the welds at the mounting point looks like crap! Looks like a rookie welder like myself did the job!!! Also, we all know that they're not making these on their own and have a 3rd party shop building them. Why go thru another vendor, just go direct! (save some $ buyers and don't buy from resellers as they always mark up).

4. Diff Drop: Lets not forget that our 4th gens came with awesome cv angles meaning we had alot of room for lift. Personally I wouldn't go over 3" using the stock suspension components. Take a look at this picture and tell me what you think.

It is apparent that the diff bracket/arm sits lower now. Why in the world would you want those two points to sit lower than it already was? I mean c'mon now this just dropped your height clearance by atleast 1" by the photo above. I know that you'd have to modify your skid plate and/or remove it as I'm sure the skid would get in the way. My full belly skid wouldn't work anymore with that diff drop as those two points will sit way too low. That said, this item is useless. I have seen 4th gens cv angles and they look fine w/ 3" so why waste $$.

That pretty much sums of my comments. Take them as it is as I will personally say that I have not see any of their product (except for their version 1 spacer that rusted) so don't flame me for me making my own comments based on photos. If NE sends each of their product for free, I have no problem reviewing it but I will never run their products.

Please do your research on each product you plan to purchase and always remember that it's "buyer beware". As a fellow yotatech member here, I am proud to say that I will always help others make the appropriate decision based on their parameters and limitations. Of course my opinions might not be the correct answer but I have no problems giving my two cents as I am here to learn like everyone else. You can only learn from mistakes that you make and by others. We are all here to learn and have fun. That said, my comments are just comments/opinions so please don't take them like it's the truth.

 

you smell that? somethin' stinks...