my expierience with drummond motorsport

[rushmore]

my expierience with drummond motorsport

Hello there, I wanted to let everyone know about my experience with the guys at DMS Wodonga and their street suspension.

Being quite new to club sprint and circuit, having predominantly been involved in drifting for 13 years, I was looking to upgrade my HSD coil over kit for something better suited to racing. Being a local Albury boy I did my research and figured I wanted to spend my money locally with DMS. I noted that the brand is big in 4wd and off-road rally and came highly recommended.

After the sales pitch about how their product is by far superior to competing offerings, I handed over $2100.00 for the Nissan S13 DMS street kit, I also had to supply my own top hats for front and rear.

Once manufactured, the fronts went in without issue, although the ride height was hard to set as you have to keep winding preload into the spring to lift it.

The rear is where the issues began, it would not fit on the first attempt. The body of the shock at the bottom mount hit the hub before even getting over the standard mounting pin. DMS had 2 attempts at correcting this before I had to get the car to the workshop for measure up

After a few days I received a call, “Your roll centres are no good, you need uprights”. The DMS billet uprights were approximately 2k and as I was not prepared to spend 4k for the set, I bought the GKtech front and rear knuckles.

A week later I got my car back and found that the rear knuckles had been modified to suit their coilover. The mounting pin had been moved and was a different size to standard S13 item. The coilover was now inverted with spring at bottom and damper control reservoir at the top. From here, this progressively got worse.

I had to adjust the traction arm forward, so the coil didn’t hit the camber arm, and I needed 20mm spacers so my 18x10+20 rims didn’t hit the reservoir. After complaining I didn’t think this was right I was informed “I have put too many hours into this set up and that’s the way it has to be”. I did insist the mounting block at the bottom be extended 20mm to clear the rear upright, I got my way and they just managed to fit the rears the normal way.

Ride height in the rear adjusted up and down by putting preload into keeper springs. There was  so much droop the knuckles fouled on the suspension arms before the coilover was completely uncompressed - making life tough removing and fitting them to the car.

Performance wise, my car was infinitely more difficult to drive - Understeered, oversteered, body roll it had it all. I made adjustments to ride height best I could, adjusted dampers, and still it handled poorly.  

My previous best at Winton was a 1:36.5 on second hand Nitto nt01 tyres. This was using HSD suspension and roll centres that measured underground. My new PB on the DMS set up was out at 1:44.4 on 1 session old Nitto nt01. I have now I ruined these tyres in 2 sessions, the suspension moving so much the tyres hit the guards and cut grooves into all 4 tyres to the wire.

I contacted DMS to discuss further and after an exchange of words they agreed to come to the track and help with testing. In the mean time I installed an Air Conditioner into their show room for free, including materials (they paid cost for the unit) all in good faith and to prove that there hours trying to make this work didn’t go unnoticed.

At the track we did damper adjustments, spring rate changes, camber adjustments, we took tyre pressures and temps and while the car did improve to a 1:37ish (timed on their phone) we are on a resurfaced track that people claim is 2-3 seconds faster - With that in mind, I’m still way off my first PB. We started with 275 pound springs in the back and 300 in the front and by end of the day we got to 500 pound springs in the rear and 550 in the front yet the car was still soft. Zip ties on the shock shaft are all the way to the top.

I was not satisfied that I had spent my $2100 at the best shop and took them up on one of their previous offers to return the suspension and get a refund. Waiting a week, the refund was put into my account $300 dollars short of the total spend. When I asked why, they informed me that there is a re-stocking fee. I totally lost my cool with this decision which has led me to write this blog so others do not potentially encounter the same poor service and support that I’ve endured.

To recap, I’m $300 down for a restocking fee, plus $800 down for a set of modified GKTECH rear knuckles that are good for nothing but their coilover’s, $700 down on materials and labour for the free split system install I did, and potentially $1400 for the nitto’s I ruined cutting grooves into them on the body work. That’s a total $3200 wasted, no suspension to show for it, and a PB that’s worse on a faster track. I should also add, this was over a 10 month period, so warranty period would have still applied.

I feel that at the very least DMS should have a duty of care to make sure their parts are compatible with OEM components and should provide a performance benefit that warrants the purchase price and the claims. When that’s clearly not the case, more should be done to ensure customer satisfaction and in this case I have been left highly disappointed.

Please do your homework before engaging DMS and hopefully you can avoid the same issues that I’ve encountered.

[Weaselman]

"I've put to many hours into the setup and this is how it's going To be" that's bullshit. That's the excuse of a bloke who doesn't know what he's doing. If he's selling a 'kit' and said kit doesn't fit on your car and needs to be butchered to suit then he says it's basically your fault. f**k that I'd be straight to the ombudsman.

[JGTC]

Thanks for sharing mate, i had the same decision to make not long ago, i was deciding between DMS streets and MCA reds.

DMS had more features ie. 2 way bump and damper adj. and made all their components in house.

Where as MCA uses BC housings but does the valving in house and assigns custom spring rates per application.

The biggest thing people i asked (forums, fb etc) said was that MCAs service stood out much more than DMS', unless you are spending 10s of thousands with DMS, they really don't want anything to do with you.

Josh and Murray at MCA are focused on the customer and their needs hence the custome valving and spring rates to how you use the car.  

When i asked DMS about their take on MCA, they simply said theirs is 2 way adj. And their shocks are made all in house.  Nothing about the development in ride quality or performance on track.  DMS are also renowned for not honoring warranty claims and exhorbitant service charges for maintenance.

IMO for anyone looking to getting into suspension that can be locally serviced, look into MCA in QLD, Bilstein by Heasmans in NSW, Shockworks in VIC and Supashock in SA

All are currently competing on the world stage of motorsport and offer great after sales service.

[rushmore]

here are a few pics of the issues I had over the journey

[hardsteppa]

good on you for posting this up; not dealt with DMS directly but did deal with Jeff Beaumont many years ago in Bayswater who was affiliated with them and wow what a shocker he was. Hope it works out for you in this case.

[KiwiRS4T]

Go them to get your money back. Pity about the air cond but probably won't see a cent for that. Sound like a good outfit to avoid.

[R.3.2.G.T.R]

i'll be in the market for the track spec suspension soon, thanks for the heads up