Corbin Nightmare

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Malorie
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Corbin Nightmare

#1 Unread post by Malorie »

I'm sharing this with you guys as a heads-up. You may want to think twice before you buy Corbin. I'm not the only one around having troubles with them.

Please check Corbin's 'F' rating on the BBB website. 36 filed complaints in the last 36 months.

Also note that Corbin states "No Refunds" in their warrentee listing.

In early June of 2008 I purchased a Corbin Dual Tourer seat for my 2006 VTX 1300c in anticipation of a long ride in mid July. I recieved the seat at the end of July, aproximately 6 weeks after ordering it.

After inspecting it, I noticed that the seat cover wasn't on the seat straight. It didn't line up with the hardware for the backrest. It also had some funky wavyness around the area where the driver's seat meets the passanger's seat and where the back of the seat met the seat pan.

I immediately called Corbin. To their credit, they were polite and courteous and said they would have UPS out tomorrow to pick it up and gave me an RMA number for the return. They told me they would push it to the head of the line and get it back to me ASAP. They said it should take about three weeks.

Four weeks later and still no seat. I called and they said they had to check with the factory and they would get back to me later that day. Later that day came and went and about midday the next day I called them. Same answer, they would check with the factory and call me right back. That afternoon came and went and I had to call them a third time the next morning. "Oh, it'll be another two weeks." This is priority service? I think they hadn't worked on it at all untill I called. Whatever, I had no choice but to grin and bear it at this point.

Three weeks later and it finally arrived. It is now early October and I'm finally getting to ride the seat I bought in early June. I'm not happy, but at least they made it right, right?

I only manage to ride the seat a couple hundred miles before winter starts setting in. So I remove the seat from the bike and store it in my clean dry basement.

Now spring arrives and I'm ready to get out and put some miles on this seat. I try to mount it to my bike and to my suprise, it doesn't fit, WTF!!!!

After looking at things extensively, I find that the seat pan shrank over the winter. Yup, you read that right, the seat pan shrank! It looks as though the seat pan is a molded fiberglass or something. Apearently their mix was funky or something and it shrank as it set in my basement through the winter.

Now I'm getting irritated. I bought the darn thing almost a year ago at this point and still haven't gotten to put any apretiable milage on it. In short, I've learned to live without it.

I call Corbin again. They are still pleasant to deal with and I politely ask for a refund as they still haven't delivered a usable product. Their answer, "we don't give refunds". I guess my only choice then is to continue to be saint-like patient and send the darn thing back again. Incidentally the leather at this point was coming loose from the seating area and around the back, probably from the magical shrinking seat pan. I happen to mention that to them as well. They send UPS to pick up the seat and I figure, maybe they'll get it right this time. Third times the charm and all right?

Three weeks later (this past Wednesday) I recieved my seat back, apearently they got things moving in the repair department. I can see they didn't bother to make sure they were doing anything right though. The repair invoice said nothing about the seat pan, which I can see it's the same one that left here with zero alteration to it. The repair order did mention the loose seat cover issue, but they managed to make it all wavy and looser. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!

Now it's over a year and after an extensive ear chewing, I still get the same answer "we don't give refunds". I ask if maybe this is one of those times they could make an acception? "No, we'll send UPS out to pick it up again." So now after more than a year, I still don't have a seat and the POS I do have is in a box waiting to go back for another round of idiocy.

My complaint has been filed with the Better Business Bureau for all the good it'll do me.

So, if you're thinking of going out and buying Corbin, don't say I didn't warn you. I'm still waiting to recieve what I ordered over a year ago.

BTW, the backrest on the Dual Tourer is in the most uncomfortable position possible. It hits you high, like just below your shoulder blades. This causes you to hunch over and in short order causes back problems. It took most of the tools in my machine shop to do it, but I managed to modify mine so that it now hits me in the lumbar area and it works great for the short bit I actually got to ride it.

Here's a picture showing the current state of my wonderful Corbin Product.
Image

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MTexile
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#2 Unread post by MTexile »

Damm, sorry for your troubles. Have been thinking about a LePera or Corbin seat for my FXD. Thanks to you, I'll knock Corbin out of the picture...
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#3 Unread post by mgdavis »

Hello to you too. Plan on contributing to the forum, or are you just here to publicly air your personal vendetta? :roll:
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#4 Unread post by Brackstone »

mgdavis wrote:Hello to you too. Plan on contributing to the forum, or are you just here to publicly air your personal vendetta? :roll:
Can't blame him if he registers for every motorcycle forum and puts this out. I'd rather know because until this I thought everyone in the world was 100% satisfied.
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Malorie
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#5 Unread post by Malorie »

I figure this is a contribution if it saves anyone out there from going through the same headaches I've been dealing with. It may be a bit of a personal vendetta, however I would tend to call it a crusade. I consider other riders my friends and this is my way of watching my friends backs.

Don't you think that a company should live and die by their actions? What ever happenned to customer satisfaction in this world? Have you ever noticed that everywhere you go, once a company has your money, they really couldn't care less what you think of them? We should all demand better. If not we deserve to have to take it up the you know what. I for one am tired of this sort of service everywhere I turn and I'll do my part to try to stop it where I can.

Have a great day,
Malorie

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jstark47
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#6 Unread post by jstark47 »

It's a shame about Corbin, they have a nice product line. But issues with fit of Corbin seats on Triumph new classics bikes have been well documented on the triumprat.net site - mounting lugs on seat pans not mating up with the mounting brackets on the bike. I love the look of their "smuggler" seat for the Bonneville, but the price is way too much for something that apparently has a 50/50 chance of fitting the bike or not.

Malorie's report doesn't surprise me, it fits with a trend of reports from other sources.
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#7 Unread post by dean owens »

that's a shame. hopefully it's new employees that just haven't learned their stuff yet. i hope they get everything sorted out. this is a day and age that you don't want bad press floating through the web.
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#8 Unread post by Nalian »

This is the 5th similar complaint I've seen in recent months. Boo @ Corbin for poor customer service. I'll certainly never spend any $ with them.

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#9 Unread post by koji52 »

While I'll even attest to Corbin's, shall I say, forgetful and unprioritizing customer service practices, I like my seat and it fits fine. I ordered my seat from American Classic motors on ebay for about a third of the price new. American classic said that it didn't come with the mounting hardware (things need to be moved around under the seat for the Corbin to fit) so I called Corbin to have mounting hardware sent to me. The production department guy took down my info and said it would be sent out in the next few days. Never received the hardware. Fortunately, the seat DID in fact come with the hardware so it didn't really matter. I haven't had any troubles with my Corbin (thankfully) so I haven't had to deal with their customer service.

Just had to share because I do like their product.
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#10 Unread post by XB08 »

Too bad to hear it , I had one on a BMW and had now trouble with them. T ey must have went down hill fast... I do no they like to bad mouth Gel seats . The stock seat on my Buell is a Gel seat and it is the best seat I every sat on.

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