Call Kurtis: Aftermarket Defect

"I love that hood, I mean you see the pictures, how cool that looks" says Doug Drexler with a big grin.

It's not just the looks. That shaker hood rams air down the throat of his 2002 Dodge Durango. At least it did before he had to take it off.

"I went to pick up my newspaper and I go what the hell? I could see daylight."

He bought the hood at Tognotti's Auto World on Fulton Avenue, in January of last year. Shortly after he had the hood painted and installed elsewhere and noticed that apparent defect.

"When you looked at the aftermarket hood, it was bowed out a little bit more, and when it was sitting, it was tweaked; it was like crooked."

Doug returned to Tognotti's where he says a manager named Josh took some photos and recommended Doug send it back to the manufacturer.

Doug wanted to think about that so he took a few months to decide. Meanwhile, he showed the hood to a well respected auto restoration man for advice.

"He opens up the hood and goes 'look at this thing.' it's kinda floppy-like. And he goes 'man could you imagine going down the road at 65, 75 miles an hour and that hood flops up? What are you gonna do? You're gonna go 'sh*&, and hope you don't hit somebody.'"
Doug began dealing with Tognotti's again, leaving messages for another manager named Vince but Doug says very few calls were returned. He resorted to writing letters.

Doug lives in Vacaville; it's quite the drive to Tognotti's in Sacramento. But he says he got little response.

"And I tried, tried, tried and I finally said I'm gonna talk to somebody who might be able to do something for me. And here you are."

We called Vince who at first was talkative, saying Doug voided his warranty the moment he painted the hood. But Doug thought that shouldn't matter if there's a defect. Next, we spoke with the same restoration guy who looked at Doug's hood.

"...and as the hood got hot it started to swell the hood up..."

Mike Gray of Advanced Restorations has three decades of experience building and rebuilding cars, some famous like the car from The Munsters.

Mike had serious safety concerns about Doug's hood.

"I really feared for this customer that the hood would fly up, maybe he couldn't control the vehicle at the time" he said.

We sent that video clip and others to the manufacturer. After several emails Keystone Restyling said they'd take the hood back and investigate.

Meantime, Vince at Tognotti's stopped returning our calls and wouldn't see us during our two trips to the store.

"It needs to be recent," says Sherry Mehl, California Bureau of Automotive Repair chief. The Bureau has a little-known program that may have helped Doug had he gone to them right away.

After you have auto-body work done on your car state investigators will inspect the work for free so you can have piece of mind you got what you paid for.

Mehl says "you can schedule a time for us to come out, we'll send a representative out… and go over the car."

After taking the hood back, Keystone sent us this statement which reads in near-entirety:

Yes, we have inspected the returned hood and found no apparent defects.  We then located a Dodge Durango, installed the hood, and it fit perfectly.  The latch also functioned properly.

At this point, we can find absolutely no defect with this hood.  Vince at Tognotti's Auto contacted Doug Drexler and (at my suggestion) invited him to call me directly to explain his experience.  He did call over the weekend, but I was not able to take the call.  I have tried twice since then to call him back, but he has not responded yet.  Vince also mentioned that he might have Mike Gray at Advanced Restoration (I believe that's the name—the gentleman who removed the hood) contact me to explain his experience, but I have not heard from him.

…We don't know where to turn.  The hood appears to fit and function properly.  I've heard that it warped "three inches," but our resin is a thermoplastic, and thermoplastics do not behave this way (thus my interest in speaking with Doug).  I've been told the latch didn't function—so much a safety issue that the hood had to be removed—and yet, we found no problem with it.  (Latches can be installed backward, though, so we wonder if this occurred?)  I'm concerned that the company who sold the installation—Tognotti's—is not the company who installed it, and the person who removed it is not the person who installed it.

I'm still hoping to speak with Doug.  From our perspective, we have no defect, no warranty claim, no compensation to the buyer required.  As a gesture of good faith, I'd be willing to pay to ship the hood back to someone (it was sent from Tognotti's) at our expense.  At that, I would have more in freight both ways than I have in the hood, but my interest is to get to the bottom of what happened.

That's what I know now.

Terrence J. O'Donovan
Vice President, Marketing and Sales
Keystone Restyling Products Llc
Core Molding Technologies, Inc.
800 Manor Park Drive, Columbus, OH  43228

Doug has thousands of dollars tied up in this hood and he's not about to give up, and is now considering small claims court.

"Most hoods only have that one little latch on there and I'm thinking if that thing latches-up.  Who's gonna be responsible then when that happens?"