What have you done to your 5th Gen 4Runner today?

Looking much better, nice job! Sucks it came looking rough but with all the elbow grease on it, now you could always reflect and say "damn that looks good and I made it that way".
Ask Victory at least for comp souvenirs, a hat, shirt or whatnot?

 

Looks like a couple more 4Rs squeezed in...

 

Looks so much better. What holds the access panel in place?

 

Looks good. Digging the black flares, nice contrast and makes it just a little different from the rest.

 

Stainless screws and nuts.

 

There was a totally of 3, including mine, in the group of 20ish. Everyone else had a Tacoma.

 

Thanks

 

@LostHusker
Are you from Nebraska originally? I imagine that you are...
It has been in the negative temperatures the last few days here. Enjoy that warm SouthTexas winter!

 

Yes, born in Omaha, lives a couple years in Blair, moved to scottsbluff in 78. Left in 90 as family dragged me to Maine, joined the service and landed I San Antonio area, never left. It’s 64 out today with a damp wind.....got to move further south

 

I don't know why this mystifies me, but how do you access the nuts on the other side?

 

I know, i had the same question. From what a member here said, you can reach them, but it is a bit of a hassle, and why aren’t the screws counter sunk. I’m going to get some sert or riv nuts pressed in. I have been working on this since i got it.

 

Thank you for your service.
Wow! I was also born in Omaha. Around 4yrs old we also moved to Scottsbluff (mid 80's). Then back to Omaha till we moved to Arizona and finally back here. Now I am almost 40 & own a business so I am here for a while longer!
It was 1° this morning & 26° now. Snow coming next two days... You have any extra room? Lol
Ryan

 

There are times I miss seeing snow, ok I’ve had enough...lol.

Got two empty rooms, come on..

Nope still got family in Bridgeport and scattered relatives out in eastern part of the state.

 

Hey Backwoods did you ever order that filler plate? I think I’m going to order it in the mourning. Just wanted to see if you had it or not, thanks.

 

Still can't believe what a hassle this has been for you. Did you ever get a reply from @victoryrunner or anyone from Victory?

 

No I didn't yet... Spent way too much money the last couple months and trying to recoup a little first. It'll likely be a couple more weeks before I order it.

So you'll likely get yours first if you order tomorrow. Keep us updated!!

 

Not a word.

 

That’s bad business, guess my money (eventually) will be going to other companies

 

I just reached out to our tech support team to look for your e-mail. It may have gotten trapped in a spam filter, we do our best to reply to everyone in 24 hours. Sorry if we missed this one!

Our aluminum products are prepped the same whether we powder coat them in-house or ship them out bare. Which is with many of the welds ground smooth and then a DA finish over those. We don't need to DA the whole part to coat these, so that is why you see two surface finishes on there. I can't see from your photo if there are scratches that are too deep for a coating that were missed by QC, but you can certainly discuss that with our tech support team. Because of our design, we can't really leave the raw aluminum surface, and polishing after sanding would be a more expensive step than powder coating. Our $80 aluminum upcharge on that skid really just covers material cost, the extra equipment and tooling we need for aluminum, and extra fab time. Sorry if that wasn't clear on the website, that's on us. We really expect these products to have some kind of coating put on them by us or the end-user. We will do our best to add that information ASAP. That said, that's a nice finish you have on there now, and what you paid for is seems very fair.

If you aren't 100% happy, please bring it up to tech support and they will do their best to figure out a resolution. Sorry for any hassles or misunderstanding!

 

Aluminum will oxidize without upkeep or a coating on it. It's why you sometimes see the oxide layer on old wheels where they are missing clear coat. You can either keep it polished or put some sort of finish on it to keep it from happening.

 

You can reach them pretty easily from the top. Clip nuts don't work great on the thicker material and they space the access plate down the thickness of the clip. Rivnuts are a good option, but be really careful with them in aluminum. If they ever spin in the holes it's going to be a BEAR to get the bolts out.

 

Getting ready to drive back to Austin from Houston. 16.6mpg Not bad ha ha

 

popped out the map light/crawl control ceiling console to access the map light socket that i accidentally pushed up. it was very easy to drop the selector, unhook the plug and then pull the rest of the console down. good thing is that the map light sockets are only held in by tabs with a quarter turn, so the socket actually twisted and popped up instead of being broken like i had originally thought. put the bulb in, which still required some force, then reseated the socket in its housing. pushed the console back in and reconnected the selector. took less than 10 minutes. interior led swap complete!

 

I’m done, you dropped the ball, i have been working on this since i got it. I took it to a powder coat shop, and they said the grind gouging would show, but they could sand blast it. I did not have the money for that, so i took care of it myself. Bottom line is it should not have left the shop in that condition.

 

You're done in that you won't accept customer service or a resolution from us?

 

At this point i do not know what kind of resolution there could be? I am not here to see you lose money on your product, i just wanted a decent product for my money, and i now have that. Let’s just chalk it up to a learning experience for us both.

 

What we can do is apologize for it not being clear on our website what bare aluminum meant and offer you something for that hassle. It's not losing money, it's remedying a situation for you and for future customers.

Anyway, Chris here in CS sent you an e-mail back this morning.

 

I might be missing something here, but isn't that a skid plate? As in, something that will get scratched and beat up if used as intended? And it was ordered with a bare metal finish?

 

O.k. Apology accepted, as far as bare aluminum goes, i understand the meaning, it does not include frankenstein grinding, what it does include is ready for powder coating or finish of my choice. The way to remedy it is quality control.

 

Your not missing anything, i would prefer to make it butt ugly on my own, but thanks.