The following is my ongoing experience with IPS and just thought I would share how my Black Friday Sale experience has gone. I decided to purchase a set of Megan coilovers which were listed at $749.99 which is a great price and shipping was listed at $0. I thought for $750, I would pull the trigger as IPS is about the only shop I have not dealt with (had a 3S of some sort for 12 years). Below is my timeline of events.

11/26 - Purchased Coilovers

12/3 - Credit card charged $749.99

12/7 - Called for update since my card had been charged and no tracking info received. Spoke with Jeff and without looking up my order, he just said they are just not getting to Black Friday Sales and everything should start shipping out.

12/21 - Jeff called to inform me that their shipment had arrived and my order was shipping out that afternoon.

12/22 - Recived e-mail with an invoice dated 11/30 that showed the coilovers and an additional $55 for shipping. They also stated the coilovers were on back order so it would be another 3 weeks??? I replied stating I was unaware of any shipping charges since the shipping field showed $0 when I was making my purchase. Brandon replied with the following:

Brent,
The shipping is additional to all sale items during the sale. We did not install a shipping module onto our webpage for this one day event, hence in the literature of the sale it says shipping amounts will all be added at a later date on a per quote basis. Sorry for any confusion.

I was upset about not knowing about the additional charges so I asked what my options were and Brandon replied:

Brent I understand your sour taste, your order has not gone to plan in our eyes either. The delay on these sales on item delivery can happen as we liquidate the prices and run out of inventory very fast, and ship it out on a first come first serve basis.

At this point you're just waiting on shipment which should be in 2 weeks or less at this point.

So, at this point I was not very happy, but like Brandon said, I was 2 weeks or less away from getting my order.

1/5 - Called for update and spoke with Brandon. He said their shipment was coming in and I would have a tracking# no later than 1/7.

1/12 - Since I did not receive a call or e-mail, I decided to e-mail Brandon so that he could reply at his convenience as I know those guys stay busy.

1/18 - After receiving no response from Brandon, I decided to call again and spoke with a female (cannot remember her name). She put me on hold and said they had a call into their rep and she would call me back with an update.

1/21 - Decided to call again since I had not heard anything and finally spoke with Jeff. He put me on hold and called the rep. Turns out I am one of two which seemed to be the unlucky ones and my coilovers just shipped from Japan and this is pretty much a blackout period since there is no tracking info. His rep said it usually takes a 1 1/2 weeks once customs is cleared.

So here is where we are out. Today makes two months and a full month after my credit card was charged for both the coilovers and shipping. I will say, that everyone was extremely nice over the phone, but two things about this experience.

1. I would have never ordered if I knew they were going to charge me $55 in shipping.

2. It was going to take more than 2 months to receive a simple set of coilovers that I could have ordered off e-bay and had within 2 weeks of my order for the same money.

I have now dealt with just about every 3S shop including Altered Atmosphere, GT PRO, Dynamic Racing, 3SX, etc. and never had a buying experience like this for an off-the-shelf item. I know IPS is well respected on the boards and like I said, they have been very nice over the phone, but that does not excuse the fact I am still sitting here without my coilovers 2 months later and no idea WHEN I will actually get them?

Good luck to anyone that purchases items from IPS during a sale period because you may be waiting a while. I always try to support our shops which is why I did not get them off e-bay to begin with, but this will be my first and last experince with IPS.