This is by far the worst business experience I have had with any transaction. What's worse, this purchase was for a custom trailer that was over $250,000.00 1) I feel the projects was months behind schedule : In Jan of 2015, Performance Trailers was asked if they were going to be ready to "finish the trailer" and "install" equipment. The response was "Certainly". That answer can not be interpreted any other way than Performance Trailer being ready when the equipment shows up. Once the equipment did show up at Performance Trailers, Kevin Gerhardt called me and said they were months aways from being finished, and that they needed another progress payment. I was in total shock. That payment was not part of the agreement. Performance Trailers had received a down payment of $72,618.33 in July of 2014 and a progress payment of $91,206.00 in Feb of 2015. Per the contract the next payment was supposed to be the final payment when the project was completed.
Kevin Gerhardt had the audacity to say that he would do me a favor and "not charge over-time" to finish the project faster. They wanted another $45,000.00 Performance Trailers had us hostage; we had already paid them for most of the trailer. 2) They added cost that I feel is bogus: In October I had asked Performance Trailers to quote a generator for our project. The price was quoted at $24,915.00, which we gave the OK for. In November we visited Performance and there was discussion about electrical requirements, which would affect the generator. Right after that meeting I specifically requested Kevin to send me an update on the budget. On January 23rd we received a progress invoice and the price of the generator was $9,000 more. The Problem with this is Kevin said it was already ordered. I did not give authorization to buy a bigger machine, and I would think it would be standard process to clear that by the customer first. On January 29th Kevin Gerhardt informed me that the bigger generator was on order, and the "reinforcement" had already begun. It cost us an additional $5,200 to back out the generator option. What's weird is some of that cost was "an upgrade" to "properly run the equipment" - I gave the power requirements to Kevin before the first Generator was quoted, so I'm not sure why all that electrical wasn't already spec'd into the build. Personally I just think Kevin saw this as an opportunity to increase the budget, so he took it, and I unfortunately should have been more persistent conveying that was not fair. Had Kevin just asked us first before ordering the bigger machine, we would have said that was over budget. 3) They charged me for work I did: Per the quote Performance Trailers was supposed to Install equipment into the trailer. My team, and the technician from the company that sold us the equipment spent many hours installing the equipment. The guys in the shop were involved, which I assumed was part of the deal (see attached a screenshot of the quote). At one point during the install process we had to take some of the railings off my conveyors because they were stock and needed to be modified slightly. Kevin Gerhardt sent me an invoice for the "modifications" that were not kidding a few brackets that I personally watched get fabricated. It took maybe 30 minutes. Attached is photos of the brackets. 4) Even stuff that is under warranty is costing me MORE money to fix: Performance Trailers in Madera CA sold us a trailer that is NOT designed for the Pacific Northwest. Water is literally getting into the INSIDE of the FRAME. Surprisingly Performance Trailers offered to fix the trailer as it is under warranty. It cost me 2 weeks of down time to bring the trailer back to Madera. It cost me all the fuel to bring the trailer there. My employee had to live inside our truck to oversee the various things Performance did to try and fix the trailer. We will admit that some of the issues were fixed, however the water issue was NOT fixed.
Performance Trailers, Inc. Reviews
This is by far the worst business experience I have had with any transaction. What's worse, this purchase was for a custom trailer that was over $250,000.00 1) I feel the projects was months behind schedule : In Jan of 2015, Performance Trailers was asked if they were going to be ready to "finish the trailer" and "install" equipment. The response was "Certainly". That answer can not be interpreted any other way than Performance Trailer being ready when the equipment shows up. Once the equipment did show up at Performance Trailers, Kevin Gerhardt called me and said they were months aways from being finished, and that they needed another progress payment. I was in total shock. That payment was not part of the agreement. Performance Trailers had received a down payment of $72,618.33 in July of 2014 and a progress payment of $91,206.00 in Feb of 2015. Per the contract the next payment was supposed to be the final payment when the project was completed.
Kevin Gerhardt had the audacity to say that he would do me a favor and "not charge over-time" to finish the project faster. They wanted another $45,000.00 Performance Trailers had us hostage; we had already paid them for most of the trailer. 2) They added cost that I feel is bogus: In October I had asked Performance Trailers to quote a generator for our project. The price was quoted at $24,915.00, which we gave the OK for. In November we visited Performance and there was discussion about electrical requirements, which would affect the generator. Right after that meeting I specifically requested Kevin to send me an update on the budget. On January 23rd we received a progress invoice and the price of the generator was $9,000 more. The Problem with this is Kevin said it was already ordered. I did not give authorization to buy a bigger machine, and I would think it would be standard process to clear that by the customer first. On January 29th Kevin Gerhardt informed me that the bigger generator was on order, and the "reinforcement" had already begun. It cost us an additional $5,200 to back out the generator option. What's weird is some of that cost was "an upgrade" to "properly run the equipment" - I gave the power requirements to Kevin before the first Generator was quoted, so I'm not sure why all that electrical wasn't already spec'd into the build. Personally I just think Kevin saw this as an opportunity to increase the budget, so he took it, and I unfortunately should have been more persistent conveying that was not fair. Had Kevin just asked us first before ordering the bigger machine, we would have said that was over budget. 3) They charged me for work I did: Per the quote Performance Trailers was supposed to Install equipment into the trailer. My team, and the technician from the company that sold us the equipment spent many hours installing the equipment. The guys in the shop were involved, which I assumed was part of the deal (see attached a screenshot of the quote). At one point during the install process we had to take some of the railings off my conveyors because they were stock and needed to be modified slightly. Kevin Gerhardt sent me an invoice for the "modifications" that were not kidding a few brackets that I personally watched get fabricated. It took maybe 30 minutes. Attached is photos of the brackets. 4) Even stuff that is under warranty is costing me MORE money to fix: Performance Trailers in Madera CA sold us a trailer that is NOT designed for the Pacific Northwest. Water is literally getting into the INSIDE of the FRAME. Surprisingly Performance Trailers offered to fix the trailer as it is under warranty. It cost me 2 weeks of down time to bring the trailer back to Madera. It cost me all the fuel to bring the trailer there. My employee had to live inside our truck to oversee the various things Performance did to try and fix the trailer. We will admit that some of the issues were fixed, however the water issue was NOT fixed.