Baja Designs Buyers Beware

*RANT WARNING*


I purchased a couple Baja Designs LP 4's and two OnX6+ 10" light bars in May of 2024, which I ended up installing behind the grill of my 4runner towards the end of June.


Let me start by saying that the lights are amazingly bright and provide a lot of usable light. They seem to be well designed (as they should be for how much they cost). That being said, within a week of installing them one of the OnX6+ light bars started to develop a moisture/ condensation problem. Kind of a bummer, but hey, things happen and QC cant always catch everything. I contacted Baja Designs via email using the warranty email provided on their website. I got a response back in 5 days asking me to send in the light bar so they could replace the moisture damaged components. I was a little surprised they did not offer to pay for the shipping seeing as I just dropped $2,000 on lights and harnesses and the lights weren’t even on my truck a week before one of them started to have problems (not to mention one of the harnesses came with busted pins that I had to fix). So anyways, I paid another $25 to ship it to Baja Designs facility. It took about a week to arrive there and arrived on July 26th (According to the UPS tracking). About 2 weeks went by and I didn’t hear anything from them so I sent an email on August 8th asking if they had received my light. I wanted to make sure they actually got it and UPS didn’t just drop it off outside the facility where it could have been stolen. I got no response to my email, and about a week later I ended up calling to make sure they had it. When I called, the customer service rep told me they had it and were finishing up repairs and that he apologized for the lack of a response. He said the customer service rep I was originally dealing with had left the company (sure bud). I inquired about shipping reimbursement and was told that they don’t do that. I then explained how the light was not even on my truck for a week when it started to have problems, not to mention the small fortune I paid for a defective product. The service rep ended up giving me a sob story about how sometimes mistakes are made during manufacturing and O-rings get pinched yada yada yada. I explained to him that I understand people make mistakes, but I think it is ridiculous that the customer is expected to take the burden for their mistakes. I’m a heavy equipment mechanic. I have made mistakes in my career, but when I do, I don’t expect my customer to pay for my gas or parts or time to come out and fix my mistake. We are paying a lot of money for a top tier product that should come with top tier customer service. Anyways, the light took about another 2 weeks to arrive. So I was out a light for about a month and a half on top of having to pay to ship it to them.


Fast forward 4 months and some change, and that same light is showing signs of having moisture / condensation problems again. I sent an email to BD Warranty on 12/31 New years eve. I didn’t expect to receive a response for probably about a week as it was the holidays. Well, as of today, January 21st,2025 I still have not received a response. Over 3 weeks later. Very disappointing to say the least and a good way to lose a customer. I have 6 BD lights on my vehicle, 2x SAE Fogs, 2x LP4s, and 2x 10” OnX6+ lightbars. 5 of the lights have been fantastic, its just the one.


That being said, based on my experience with their customer service I would not recommend Baja Designs products to anyone on the off chance that you do receive a defective product.

 

I can't say I've had the same experience with them as my interactions have been great, but why would you warranty a week-old light and not just return it to the retailer? Almost nobody reimburses for shipping on warranty and it's normally spelled out in the warranty docs.

 

I already had the light longer than 30 days by the time I installed it, which is the period for return. I also had to modify brackets and take a little material off the heat sink fins (nothing that would compromise water tight integrity I might add) to get the light to fit in my upper grill. Kind of hard to do a return like that.

 

Anyways, I’m glad you have had good experiences with them. Wish I could say the same. For the prices paid, the product should be flawless…or have a damn good warranty and customer service. Of which I have not seen so far. Like I mentioned…this is the same light, barely 4 months later, already having issues again. So having to pay for shipping on top of high prices, poor communications, excuses, and a repair that lasted only 4 months is just the icing on the cake