Buddy Club products, opinions?


Kozy said:
I would not recommend anyone buy Buddyclub products for the road. They are marketed as racing products and so are not designed to cope with the stress of daily driving on pothole ridden roads.

They also have the worst customer services,l bar none, that I have ever experienced. I got branded flat out as a liar and a con artist on a public forum when I attempted to claim for a Buddyclub P1 alloy that had cracked a spoke for no reason.

I will never deal with them again.
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x2!!! I have the buddyclub front and rear camber arms on at the moment but they are coming asap as the bolts have sheared for a 2nd time and the bushes on the rear ones are finito already! changing to some SPC items! Customer Service is very poor!!:angry2:
 
ramboteamjon said:
x2!!! I have the buddyclub front and rear camber arms on at the moment but they are coming asap as the bolts have sheared for a 2nd time and the bushes on the rear ones are finito already! changing to some SPC items! Customer Service is very poor!!:angry2:
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Did you upgrade your bolts? :nerv:
 
ijwhiteman said:
Did you upgrade your bolts? :nerv:
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Should you have to though? Seems like a shoddy product if you have to upgrade it before it is fitted.

As for D2, I have no personal experience with them, but from what I can see they are worse than Buddyclub. At least Buddyclub has had success in Motorsport, and so has some racing heritage behind the development of it's products (even if they are not up to road use) where as D2 does not have this, only a checkered history of product reliability. Plenty of people say they work absolutely fine though, so it's up to you. No idea what customer support is like for D2/KSport/XYZ, although Jerrick at MeisterR suggests that it is not all that great.
 
had a rad cap and oil cap from them......

arrived quickly and fit was fine but TBH a rad cap is simply ...well a rad cap so its not like i know what they're actual motorsport products are like....
and about what KOZY said i actually got the same conclusion from volk.....
one of my volk wheel nuts sheered off and i called them and they said they are for racing and when they are used in racing a fresh set of lugs is used for every race so they are in no way tollerable for Uk roads..... their words not mine...

Opinions i have read about D2 vary far too much for me to be able to feel happy about buying from them...
 
seems all this slating of buddyclub im glad ive bought skunk2/mugen and spoon
 
Topher-EK4 said:
had a rad cap and oil cap from them......

arrived quickly and fit was fine but TBH a rad cap is simply ...well a rad cap so its not like i know what they're actual motorsport products are like....
and about what KOZY said i actually got the same conclusion from volk.....
one of my volk wheel nuts sheered off and i called them and they said they are for racing and when they are used in racing a fresh set of lugs is used for every race so they are in no way tollerable for Uk roads..... their words not mine...

Opinions i have read about D2 vary far too much for me to be able to feel happy about buying from them...
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what i bought lol.
 
D2 and even worse k sport use to have a terrible reputation but in recent years they have sorted a lot of there problems out! I have been using my D2 coilovers for 3 years with track days and regular visits to the grune holle with no issues at all! Even with our pot hole plagued Britain.

I'm sorry though this excuse of they are racing products is bolloxs they should be more capable than road components with the forces and loads from racing. It an excuse and way out of it IMO
 
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ijwhiteman said:
D2 and even worse k sport use to have a terrible reputation but in recent years they have sorted a lot of there problems out! I have been using my D2 coilovers for 3 years with track days and regular visits to the grune holle with no issues at all! Even with our pot hole plagued Britain.

I'm sorry though this excuse of they are racing products is bolloxs they should be more capable than road components with the forces and loads from racing. It an excuse and way out of it IMO
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this is exactly what i thought.. :angry2:
 
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Buddyclub, when it was run by First Inc (the Japanese company), was a very good product. This included the original Spec 1-4 exhausts (not the PRO Spec), the original P1 Racing Coilovers and Alloy wheels. When the company went bust, their Taiwan distributor (AAI Motorsports in Taiwan, Buddyclub US in, well, USA. Same company. Ironic, as this company was actually making "fake" P1 Racing wheels at the time and selling them off as genuine) bought the rights to the product and name, and the manufacturing facilities were changed (i.e the fake product now become the real product).

Suffice to say, although still relatively good quality, it has never been of the same standard as the original First Inc. products. The rest of the "new" Buddyclub product line, almost everything they sell, was introduced via AAI/Buddyclub US, not Japan, and is just the same as Blox and Omnipower, but rebranded. If you are lucky enough to find the original Japanese items, they are very much worth every penny you pay for them, especially the wheels.

D2 has been around for a long long time, got itself a bad rep, released a new brand called KSport, same thing happened. I guess it just comes down to luck; some people are extremely happy with them, some almost end up in hospital.....

Spoon/Mugen, it's all about the image. 90% of their income come from their accessories (bodykits in the case of Mugen), not their performance parts. That's not to say that their performance parts aren't any good. They are reliable and perform as advertised. However, because of the "image" that these brands give out (JDM Yo!), they are very expensive as well, even for their rebranded oem parts. When you think about Spoon/Mugen, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "mind blowing performance", it's "JDM bling bling".

Performance & Value for Money can be had, but you need to look at the other side of the Atlantic for this. The company that put high performance Hondas on the map? Group-A Autosports/Skunkworks/Skunk2. Yes, sometimes they get a bad rep (every company has their share), but there is no denying, they are the originators and real deal :)
 
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Very very well put and some excellent information. Thank you!

MFactory said:
Buddyclub, when it was run by First Inc (the Japanese company), was a very good product. This included the original Spec 1-4 exhausts (not the PRO Spec), the original P1 Racing Coilovers and Alloy wheels. When the company went bust, their Taiwan distributor (AAI Motorsports in Taiwan, Buddyclub US in, well, USA. Same company. Ironic, as this company was actually making "fake" P1 Racing wheels at the time and selling them off as genuine) bought the rights to the product and name, and the manufacturing facilities were changed (i.e the fake product now become the real product).

Suffice to say, although still relatively good quality, it has never been of the same standard as the original First Inc. products. The rest of the "new" Buddyclub product line, almost everything they sell, was introduced via AAI/Buddyclub US, not Japan, and is just the same as Blox and Omnipower, but rebranded. If you are lucky enough to find the original Japanese items, they are very much worth every penny you pay for them, especially the wheels.

D2 has been around for a long long time, got itself a bad rep, released a new brand called KSport, same thing happened. I guess it just comes down to luck; some people are extremely happy with them, some almost end up in hospital.....

Spoon/Mugen, it's all about the image. 90% of their income come from their accessories (bodykits in the case of Mugen), not their performance parts. That's not to say that their performance parts aren't any good. They are reliable and perform as advertised. However, because of the "image" that these brands give out (JDM Yo!), they are very expensive as well, even for their rebranded oem parts. When you think about Spoon/Mugen, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "mind blowing performance", it's "JDM bling bling".

Performance & Value for Money can be had, but you need to look at the other side of the Atlantic for this. The company that put high performance Hondas on the map? Group-A Autosports/Skunkworks/Skunk2. Yes, sometimes they get a bad rep (every company has their share), but there is no denying, they are the originators and real deal :)
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As I tried to put, the Original Buddyclub Japan i.e First Inc, was a very respectable brand with high quality products.

Now, you are just purchasing general rebranded ZSpeed/Henna/Toser products (Buddyclub US, Blox, Omnipower). Don't get me wrong, these products are good quality, just not quite as good as the original (Exhausts, Wheels, Coilovers) or Skunk2 (Everything else) products. Unfortunately, a lot of consumers think they are purchasing a Japanese racing pedigree product due to the marketing, when in reality, they aren't.
 
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MFactory said:
Buddyclub, when it was run by First Inc (the Japanese company), was a very good product. This included the original Spec 1-4 exhausts (not the PRO Spec), the original P1 Racing Coilovers and Alloy wheels. When the company went bust, their Taiwan distributor (AAI Motorsports in Taiwan, Buddyclub US in, well, USA. Same company. Ironic, as this company was actually making "fake" P1 Racing wheels at the time and selling them off as genuine) bought the rights to the product and name, and the manufacturing facilities were changed (i.e the fake product now become the real product).

Suffice to say, although still relatively good quality, it has never been of the same standard as the original First Inc. products. The rest of the "new" Buddyclub product line, almost everything they sell, was introduced via AAI/Buddyclub US, not Japan, and is just the same as Blox and Omnipower, but rebranded. If you are lucky enough to find the original Japanese items, they are very much worth every penny you pay for them, especially the wheels.

D2 has been around for a long long time, got itself a bad rep, released a new brand called KSport, same thing happened. I guess it just comes down to luck; some people are extremely happy with them, some almost end up in hospital.....

Spoon/Mugen, it's all about the image. 90% of their income come from their accessories (bodykits in the case of Mugen), not their performance parts. That's not to say that their performance parts aren't any good. They are reliable and perform as advertised. However, because of the "image" that these brands give out (JDM Yo!), they are very expensive as well, even for their rebranded oem parts. When you think about Spoon/Mugen, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "mind blowing performance", it's "JDM bling bling".

Performance & Value for Money can be had, but you need to look at the other side of the Atlantic for this. The company that put high performance Hondas on the map? Group-A Autosports/Skunkworks/Skunk2. Yes, sometimes they get a bad rep (every company has their share), but there is no denying, they are the originators and real deal :)
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Thanks so much for sharing that information i really enjoy learning about the tuning companies and the history behind them.

BUT *Ahem* "high performance honda's on the map" - "but, there is no denying, they are the originators and the real deal"

..... That would be Feels Honda Twincam Works ...

but i guess when you say value for money yes skunk works and skunk2 definately come to mind..
 
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Although Feels are a respected brand (and mostly known for their outrageous bodykits), they certainly didn't put the high performance (as in Power) Honda on the map. As good as the Japanese powertrain companies such as Toda and JUN were, the current popularity of tuning Hondas would not be what it is if it wasn't for Group-A back in the mid '90's. If they did not exist, a Honda would be like a Mazda. Highly popular, but not the phenomenon that it is just now in the import world.
 
hey mfactory.. how can you determine if your purchasing a buddyclub original japanese product or a cheap us fake buddyclub product?
 
Good reading post , this one Lol. Top info MFactory :nice:
 
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