Bestop stands behind the Sunrider for Hardtop

[Wolf Island Diver]

Sounds like a plan although I'm not sure what you mean by them canceling your prime account. I've returned more items than I've actually purchased all total over the years I've been a prime member and never had them complain ever. I would let that worry you unless you've warned by amazon for some reason unique to your account. In either case my replacement top has already arrived took only about a week from warranty claim to new top and it's perfect no issues now. He'll they didn't want the old one back.

I know a few people who’ve had restrictions put on their account or lost their prime membership. Essentially you’re at the mercy of the algorithm and if it thinks you’re making excessive returns. What the threshold is, I have no idea but just from what I’ve read Amazons policies is a kafkaesque nightmare that people actually have to pay consultants to navigate. I don’t think I have excessive returns but neither did my friends. My concern was over a $950 return without a box.

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[Wolf Island Diver]

+1 for Bestop customer service once I was able to get ahold of them! I was in phone system limbo with them yesterday for some reason and never got through or got a call back. Today when I got them, they asked for videos and lot of pictures. Apparently this is a known issue they’ve seen on their own test vehicles. Some internal rivet in the header is failing and it rattles around. They’re going to provide all of my evidence to their engineering team. They’re also going to send me out a new top and consider mine a field destruction so I don’t have to return it. They also said they would run it through addition QC because of all of the issues with loose and stripped bolts I found.

 

[Gvsukids]

I know a few people who’ve had restrictions put on their account or lost their prime membership. Essentially you’re at the mercy of the algorithm and if it thinks you’re making excessive returns. What the threshold is, I have no idea but just from what I’ve read Amazons policies is a kafkaesque nightmare that people actually have to pay consultants to navigate. I don’t think I have excessive returns but neither did my friends. My concern was over a $950 return without a box.

Sounds like you've been reading too much on the Internet.

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

Sounds like you've been reading too much on the Internet.

Like I said. I actually know people who’ve had their accounts restricted or lost prime for excessive returns or “unusual” return behavior. This is all based on algorithms. One of the data scientists I used to work with has worked on a lot of their projects to automate a lot of these policies based on user behavior. It’s not internet conspiracies that Amazon automates a lot of their policies along with recommendations, pricing, etc. As for dealing with Amazon, it’s been been covered in various publications how difficult it is to deal with them when there’s some conflict. This is especially true for sellers. It’s created a market for a whole industry of consultants to help Amazon sellers deal with these issues. This has been covered in various major publications like WSJ and NYT. The FTC is currently suing them for some of these practices. It’s been the subject of calls to break up the company over competing with their sellers. Amazon even sells consulting services now cashing in on their own bureaucratic mess. I’m not saying that as a consumer you need to hire a consultant. I’m just saying their rules are pernicious and seemingly arbitrary and you absolutely can fall into traps with them. That’s why I don’t really want to attempt a $900 return without a box. It’s moot anyway because I’m getting a new top thanks to Bestop.

 

[Volksparts]

Well let me try my luck then. @Bestop can you help me with this situation? I just bought my Sunrider for Hardtop this week from Amazon and installed it yesterday. So far it’s intolerable. It makes a rattling, popping noise that seems to be coming from inside of the structure itself. This popping is right above my left ear and occasionally verges on an uncomfortable volume level. But there are things I observed when installing this top which don’t give me a lot of confidence in your QC generally.

I’m assuming this was engineered by an attorney. It’s a real joy getting this together. Is this change to the design because older tops were coming apart at speed?

The bolts in yellow were both visibly loose from the factory. The one on the right was threaded in at an angle and is completely stripped out. What I’ve circled in red is the misalignment between the metal and plastic parts. This make attaching the door frame nearly impossible as the bolts bind.

None of the user installed bolts that come with this product screw in well. They all tend to gall going in even off the vehicle under zero tension. Now the picture above is from the passenger side. However it’s the drivers side that makes a continuous popping noise at any speed but particularly above 50MPH. It also randomly stops and starts. The top is installed correctly. I’ve triple checked it. The top sits in the door channels without rubbing. The fore and aft sections make contact with the windshield and top respectively without any apparent issue. The mechanism moves freely and doesn’t bind. The windshield closures work with no issue. There’s no excessive wind noise. It’s not a quiet soft top but there doesn’t appear to be any gaps. The rubber gaskets on the top and window frame appear to be engaged properly. All the owner installed bolts are properly torqued. I’ve even tried loosening and tightening them to see if this affects the popping noise. I also checked every other screw and bolt I could find on the drivers side from the center support bolts to the windshield header. Every single screw and bolt was loose. Snugging them down does not improve the issue.

Here’s a video of the sound. At the end right as I’m cutting the video you can hear one of really loud pops that occasionally happen in addition to the constant noise. The video still doesn’t do justice to just how prominent this sound is inches from your ear when driving. I can’t imagine this is normal. No one would own this thing if it was. I drove with a soft top on my daily driver TJ for 11 years, both with the factory and a replacement Bestop and they never made this kind of noise even at 10 years old.

Let me know if we can get this warrantied. Otherwise I’ll just return it. I threw away the Box but I don’t think Amazon cares

Are you running an aftermarket roof rack or anything mounted behind the sunrider?

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

Are you running an aftermarket roof rack or anything mounted behind the sunrider?

No. But Bestop confirmed several of their test tops have this same issue. It’s supposedly related to a broken rivet or some other part in the windshield header. They past my video on to their engineers and sent me a new top.

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