Q9

[JakeD]

Well, the 6 month wait is over. The bikes finally came. The boys bike was missing a clamp for the handlebars, so that’s on the way. It also got some love taps in transit and the front tire is about 1/2 inch in wobble town. Not sure how to deal with that. He is dying for spring....and his parts.

Mine is missing the rear brake attachment equipment and associated adjustment stuff. Mine was significantly less assembled than any YouTube videos, so this is going to be a two day project, plus the wait for the replacement brake parts. All in all we are excited for the bikes. I have a little wrenching and tuning to do, but we’re excited to get out riding.

Now... Q9Powersports. I am not wholly disappointed, but they definitely need some professional folks in there to help them get their act together.
The good:
1. They were mostly professional on the phone. Each interaction was at least friendly, though I am not very impressed with the way the owner responded to Google reviews..
2. They finally got me the bikes, so they did what they said they were going to do.
3. They responded well, so far, for the service issues in have had.

The bad:
1. They don’t have a handle on their business. A good company would know how many products are coming in and where on the list customers would be. My suspicion is that they oversold, because they increased prices and sent out other bikes that were ordered later... poor order management.
2. Their communication is terrible. If you hold someone’s money for 6 months, you should have at least some auto-updates going out via mailchimp or something. It may not be much to them, but for some people, like my son who mowed laws for two summers to buy his, that sucked.
3. Their delivery process has a little to be desired. The Manager emailed me and said that it would be an extra $160 for my free delivery... it felt like a cash grab. The reason was that I was supposedly a rural delivery. I live 20 minutes outside my state’s largest city... I wasn’t impressed, I almost cancelled. It was close. And after they held my money for 6 months, it didn’t feel like they were in a hurry to get me my stuff.

All in all, I would order from them again, but only if the products were in stock. There is NO way I would pre-order. My son missed most of his summer because of bad delivery speculation. It got to the point where I called my State’s attorney general... the business practices were concerning enough for them to want to start the process of opening a case... but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt... so,I held back. It worked itself out, there could however be some irreparable harm to their reputation if they can’t get some things sorted out. It’s not that hard to fix... I do these things for a living.

So... yeah, give it a shot. They are good at answering the phone. Just confirm the stuff is not on back order. If it turns out on back order. Don’t be afraid to cancel your order and pay a little more somewhere else.

[Deckard_Cain]

Wholly agree here. I missed out on an entire riding season on the bike I wanted from them. What's worse is that when I ordered, their inventory said it was in stock, and the guy I spoke to on the phone not 1 week earlier said they had tons of them in stock and ready to ship.

All in all, I'm glad my Hellcat pre-order was cancelled and ultimately I got my Vader gen 2 from Pete at Kronik Racing. I wish I had done it sooner knowing that I would have had to wait so long for the hellkitty.

On the other hand, I do with I had just gotten the bike I ordered within a couple weeks of ordering the darned thing.

The way my pre-order was cancelled was BS too. Q9 cancelled it because they didn't think that the inventory was going to come in soon enough. Except that I was fine waiting for it.. at least until April or so of this year (which would have been 11 months since ordering).

A pre-order was supposed to lock in my price and position in the order queue.. .but then they cite the price increasing 4x as a reason for cancelling my order. So sorry so sad that Tao Motors is charging Q9 $1300 for a bike they pre-sold at $1099. I don't care, I locked my price in by "pre-order now!" as their website says.

BS business practice.

If I go for another bike, it won't be from Q9. They were always polite and friendly, butnot forthcoming with information, never even stating that they were just speculating. Only concession they offered - if you can call it that- was to offer me an in-stock Icebear Fuerza for more money. Fuerza isn't at all what I want. Lots of reasons why I think it's not as good as a Hellcat or Vader.

Jake, Was it Hellcats that you ordered too?

[TxTaoRider]

Fyi, the front tire on my tbr was best described as out of round. I deflated it put soapy water on the bead moved it around, reinflated it and deflated it a couple times. It helped but not was still noticeable. I ended up buying a new tire and that fixed it.

[Ixj159]

I received my preorder last week after ordering in June. They charged me 25% more on a baseless claim they were sending me a 2021 model but I ordered a 2020 - however nothing in my invoice states a model year or variable pricing terms.

I also have marketing emails from the company in June that the DOES state a pre-order is in fact a price lock.

I have active disputes with the Secretary of State and BBB on the matter. They refuse to give me a refund.

Once I prevail I will communicate the appropriate protocol to file a claim because I suspect they have several other customers they are scamming on pre-order up charges. I’m happy to share my email correspondence with Tao supporting all models are the same and that the new model years were release mid-2020 (ie around June).

[Jtsonisdc]

I pre-ordered a rhino and Boulder from then in the beginning of January and they said 4-6 weeks. They ended up getting the dozer in stock and yesterday I emailed them and asked to change my order from the Boulder to the dozer and pay the difference. I paid the difference and they said I would receive an email with the tracking number in a few days, well today I got a call from the shipping company and the dozer will be here on Tuesday. As far as the Rhino goes, I’m not expecting it until at least March. All in all they have been good to me responding to emails promptly. We’ll see how it goes after I receive both mg ATV’s.