Grove Gear Contact

I bought an airfoiled landing gear for my -8 which was supposed to be ready by the end of February. I did e-mail them several times with no reply. Does anyone know they are still online or have they changed their contact details?

Talk to Gail

They haven’t changed their contact info at least in the past few months that I have been dealing with them. The phone number is still 619-562-1268 http://www.groveaircraft.com/ and seems to be the best way to contact them. Gail Austin will probably answer the phone – she will know the status of your order. They had some problems with the heat treater and their testing equipment which slowed everything down. I was supposed to get my gear in mid-January but it finally arrived this week. I think things are back on track now but you can call and find out from Gail (she’s a good one!) BTW – the gear is gorgeous, worth the wait!

SuperCubDriver said:

I bought an airfoiled landing gear for my -8 which was supposed to be ready by the end of February. I did e-mail them several times with no reply. Does anyone know they are still online or have they changed their contact details?

Click to expand...

I spoke to them last week to get on the list for the next run of airfoil gear for my -8. I used the contact info on their webpage, very friendly.

I have a pair of the airfoil legs in the current production run as well. When I originally ordered them back in December, they said I'd probably have them in early March. I called again a couple weeks ago to check on the status of the order and the new date I was given was "around the end of the month." Given that Jim just got his pair, presumably from the same production run, I imagine I'll be hearing from them soon to get my final payment and shipping info.

Bottom line, as Jim said, give 'em a call. I've found Gail to be very upfront and helpful.

Thanks all - I did call Gail Austin and she said the gear should be ready mid April. I also got another e-mail address which should work.

Now here is an update for my gear order:
Since my last post I called about 10 times and every time I was given a later delivery date. I paid the balance at the beginnig of May after receiving the invoice. At one day two months ago I was told the gear is there and will probably ship the same evening, but nothing happened. No info, no e-mail, no explanation. Several calls later on 19th June I was told again the gear will ship next Wednesday, 24th June. Again nothing happened. Finally I asked a friend who?s English is better to clarify things. She called on Monday 29th June. The lady at Grove hung up the phone. On the second call she said the gears are presently wrapped and will be shipped. Again nothing happened! My next call was after the holiday on 6th July asking for her boss because I didn?t want to hear any other delivery date. The boss was not available on this day. The next day call he was in a meeting. I said I will call again today which I did and was told he is not at the shop today and tomorow!
I now got a tracking number and hopefully the gears are shipped. I have no confidence that I get what I ordered til I see it in front of me.

I assume that I was pushed back to the next production batch early this year already. I have no problem beeing delayed when there is a reason and when it is communicated. Nothing happened, e-mails were not answered and on the phone I was not told the truth to express it this way. No apology either after so many wrong delivery dates.

This was a very bad experience so far and I don?t know what I did wrong to be treated like this. What if I need any help later or spares?

I still like to talk to Robby to clarify things, so if anybody has his contact details - not the official Grove number - I would be happy to receive it. I really like to know whether he is aware what happened and is standing behind it.

Sorry for the long post.

I am in essentially the same boat and have received more or less the same response when I contact Grove directly by phone.

I called yesterday about the order I placed in December. I was told that my gear legs are done, they are just waiting for the wheels. I was told my order will ship next week. Since I've been told that since March I'm not holding my breath.

Grove . . . maybe not

This is worrying. I was planning on buying Grove products for my -8 at Oshkosh. . . maybe not.
Vans standard gear is better than no light weight gear and lost money.
Does anyone have anything good to say about Grove?

Based on what I've read about Grove and their reputation, I don't personally have any doubts that I'll get my gear...eventually. I have, however, given up on knowing exactly when they'll get here. I guess it's kind of like the second coming of Christ, no man can know the exact day...

I'm not especially bothered that this production run took far longer than expected, but I'm a little disappointed with the lack of proactive notification of the delay. I never knew there were any major delays in the first place until I read this thread, and since then I've only called a couple times.

The most recent call was last week, when Gail told me that my legs were back from heat treat and would "hopefully" be shipped out that Thursday (the 2nd). I assume that didn't happen, since a) I haven't been sent a tracking number and b) I haven't been asked to pay the balance on the legs. Now I'm a little concerned that they're going to ship at the perfect time to show up while I'm gone for a week for Oshkosh. If that's the case, I hope they contact me first so I can have them ship to my office and not my home.

So yeah, I'm a little disappointed too. I was considering wheels and brakes from Grove as well, but I'm second-guessing that now. It's now been over six months since I ordered the gear, four months since the original "you should have them by" date, three months since the second revised "you should have them by" date.

Again, I don't mind delays. I do mind having to keep asking for updates, only to get what seem to be continually inaccurate estimates.

I ordered wheels and brakes from Grove via AC Spruce on 11 June and have been charged but are still on back-order.

Given the disappointments above, I may have to cancel and order elsewhere. Haven't yet ordered the nose wheel and it will likely not be from Grove.

Well speak of the devil...Gail just called to let me know that my gear legs will be shipping out today.

Not defending the lack of communication I can offer that small manufacturers often suffer delays of unknown magnitude. Reticence to communicate if often because the best answer they can give is "I don't know" which is perceived as worse (at least in their perspective).

Having owned a machine/fabrication shop I can't tell you how often outside suppliers screwed up our schedule. Material deliveries, heat treaters, platers, etc. often got slammed and our schedule suffered. Sometimes it was the bounty of good fortune, sometimes a key employee got sick. Not good excuse but real reasons nonetheless.

Most small business are very single threaded in their processes. Not by design but if they had the resources to not be so they wouldn't be small businesses.

Doesn't help I know but offers perspective. Ever consider how small the actual market Grove addresses? Wonder we can even get such high quality stuff at the prices we pay.

My perspective, anyway.

grove data point.

I have Grove gear. Although I purchased them 4-5 yrs ago, they were delivered on time and I had very good customer service.

I also received a call from Grove last Friday saying my order had not made it to them from AC Spruce but she located it and would be shipping that day, along with sending a tracking number, which I haven't yet received.

She mentioned that they monitor VAF for this type of thing so my faith has been restored. I am not yet ready to install gear but wanted to be ready when the time comes.

Today I received my gear legs after the usual delay with customs here. They were very well crated and protected while transported.
From the last posts I can see that Grove did improve their communication with customers and I believe this is more important to us than delays which can happen.

I have / had the same problem. I have ordered and paid a airfoiled RV8 gear but never got a confirmation. So after 5 unanswered mails i called them and Gail said that they have never received the money but they have a credit entry with exact the amount of money I had to pay - but without a name. After sending my bank confirmation they told me that they will ship it immediately.

Vans was already holding back my QB Kit which was ready and they only waited for the gear. Unfortunately over a month (and several mails) nothing happened. I called again and they told me that the production will take some time and that they will send me the gear directly to me instead of shipping it to Vans.. I think also this is very disappointing because I did not want Vans to wait and if Grove would have said something everything would have been ok.

It is also strange that my mails until the payment were all answered in 24hrs and after the payment I have never ever received a answer to a mail.

Cheers Yves

Just my opinion, but there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for poor communication in this day and age. If the product is not available, a vendor has an obligation to explain why, and then it is THEIR responsibility to follow up with the purchaser. Having followed this thread, I would NEVER order from Grove. I have owned 3 sets of their gear and love the product but would never deal with them after this. There are too many unavoidable headaches in life - no need to look for more.

There is simply no excuse for stating that the product "will ship tomorrow" week after week. If you don't have it, just explain. This is not the first time that Grove has done this.

Again, my two cents.

Grove, if you are reading this, you had better listen because you are losing loyal customers simply by being stupid. It's not enough to have a good product...you have to have good customer service.

Just to keep everyone updated, my gear legs arrived today and they are beautiful. I'm tempted to just hang these on my living room wall as modern art.

I have also a update. I was just informed that mine are ready to be shipped as well. I am very happy!

And my wheels and brakes arrive today.

I ordered a standard RV8 gear on May 11th and was told on the phone 8 weeks standard time to ship. That put shipping the week of July 6th.

I called Monday July 13th and was told they were set for shipping on July 28th and they would call and confirm once shipped. There were multiple sets shipping at the same time and I was #2 of 4.

Not hearing anything on July 28th I called today, July 31st. It took a little while for them to track my order down, but they said it was still at the heat treater and would be back Monday or Tuesday, and should ship by the end of next week. I'll call back late next week and keep on it.

I think what's most frustrating would be why not just tell me originally more than 8 weeks if they obviously know they aren't meeting orders in that time frame? Luckily I'm still about a week away from needing them, but it's closing in fast for when I'd need the gear. As well, they did not hesitate to charge me the entire amount up front 11 weeks ago now - it's almost out of range now for me to issue a charge back on my credit card for them not delivering the product.

I'm sure I'll receive them, eventually, and I'm sure they'll be in great shape - but I'm not at all keen on ordering again from them in the future.