Poor Service at ATS on Pacbrake

[BDunscomb]

I had ATS (Denver) put on a Pacbrake on my 04. 5 Dually last August. The thing did't give much braking help but did run okay. Last week during a snowstorm the brake stuck in "on" and I had to limp to a side street and disconnect the air line to the acutator cylinder. Called ATS, and was told to spray brake free on the linkage. Seemed odd to me since the thing had disengaged immediately upon pulling the air line, but oh well, did that and of course no help. Now it wouldn't come on at all. Called ATS and was told to bring it in on a Friday. Showed up after driving in from 50 miles out and waited 30 minutes at the service counter. Finally got a service writer to take the key. At about 4:00 that day, service writer calls and says they hadn't got to it and needed to keep it. Okay, so Monday about 3:00 p. m. , put in a call to the service writer requesting status. Never got a call. Tuesday morning, called and was told that they had called Pacbrake for help, but would have it done by lunch. At 2:00 p. m. , I called and did receive a call back about 2:30 saying it was done. Had them leave the key inside the locked truck and later in the evening, drove back in 50 miles and started down I-70 to I-25. Had been going about 10 minutes and the *&%$$# thing locked up again. Had to fight through four lanes of fast traffic at idle to pull over.



Called Pacbrake and got a referral to another outfit for repair. Put in a call for Clint Cannon who allegedly runs ATS to register complaint. Haven't got a call back. How *&^%# surprising!



I'm not impressed with ATS and am reserving judgement on Pacbrake!

 

[BPonci]

Lube up your spool valve. I have had a few of them stick.

 

[mediccummin]

Mine did the same thing, passed up all the suppliers and who I bought it from (won't mention) and called straight to Pacbrake, told them I went through there little, how to fix deal for sticking brakes and no luck. 2 days later I had a new brake in the mail, and a return box for the old one. No questions asked. Might call them up and see they can do for you. Return phone calls are sounding common among a place I spent alot of money at also. Later.

 

[TPCDrafting]

The solinoid will get moisture/gunk in there from time to time. I took mine apart after it stuck. Keep careful track of the parts as it comes apart and clean out any foreign objects. It'll only take about 15 mins to do yourself.

 

[aaronisbad]

I drove 500 miles to ATS in Denver a few weeks back. Was scheduled to have an ATS housing and wicked wheel put on my Ford. We had agreed on $300 labor 2 weeks before, this was to include installation of both items. About half way through the install I am told that they will have to pull the turbo to do the wicked wheel. Now they want another $300 to do what they had already agreed upon for $300 total. I refused to pay them $600 for barely three hours worth of work. How very convenient for them.



To make matters worse, they "forgot" to return to me my old turbo housing. I was ****** as I left, so basically I just forgot about the housing. Of course, they didnt leave it in the truck, and now nobody knows what happened to it. I will never be dealing with ATS again, and I sincerely hope they take a long hard look at how unfair they are becoming with their customers.



Make dang sure you have all your ducks in a row with them.

 

[BDunscomb]

Well, the folks at Klam Western Retarder checked out the PacBrake done by ATS and found several wiring errors. After consulting with PacBrake, there is still an issue to resolve regarding the cruise control (which I don't use towing) and activation of the brake. I'm due to take the truck back in next week. Will post the results. So far, Steve and Ron at Klam have been great!!

 

[rblomquist]

I feel your pain. I just had to pay $1,000 to fix ATS's screw up on my transmission (this was after one of their technicians told me on the phone not to worry "they all make that noise, keep driving it"). On top of that they slow-rolled my shop on the warranty parts for about 2 weeks. I sent Clint a cordial email asking for assistance with my transmission and never got a reply from him so I wouldn't hold your breath.



It sure seems like that a company that used to have a good reputation here has quite possibly fallen into the "grew to fast and let it go to their heads" syndrome. Too busy going to trade shows, showing product on TV, making fancy magazine ads, and showing off the new building I guess. I think their concepts are great but from my expereince the customer service flat out stinks and the quality control is suspect (again from my experience).



I've personnally spent over 6 grand on their products within the last 2 years, don't know about you but that's a lot of coin and I personnally expected more. The good news is my shop went back through the trans and made sure it's all good to go now.



If I had to do it all over again/or do it with a new truck I'd be going to the guys you can still continually find a lot of positive feedback on (do a search and you'll find more and more unhappy campers with ATS lately).



There's more to the story than this but out of respect for my shop this is all I'm going to say in a public forum.

 

[Fishin Guide]

Sucks that you guys are having issues with that vendor, hopefully things will improve.



As far as your brake, if it continues to give you fits after fixing the known issues, I would also call the manufacturer. Seems like a good attitude and the willingness to work it out goes a long way.



Reputations that take years to be earned can be pi$$ed away in a day when vendors lose sight of what is important. The good and bad feedback you find here is an invaluable tool in these matters.



Dave

 

[BDunscomb]

Well, the folks at Western Retarder have got the PacBrake working well now. Pacbrake covered 5 hours of labor to fix the things that ATS dorked up, and replaced the compressor on them also. My thanks to Steve and Ron at Klam/Western Retarder!



As to performance, I pulled the fifth wheel (about 8K) over Wolf Creek pass, which is about 8%. The brake won't hold it back in third gear without over-speeding the engine. I had to brake a little about every 15 seconds to bring it back to about 2800, and it would creep up to 3200, more brake etc.



Just to see what effect the brake was having, I turned it off, and immediately started to pick up speed quite a bit. It would take a lot of braking or first or second gear to do that hill without the PacBrake.



Based on my conversation with PacBrake, and given the valve timing overlap that the 325HP engine uses, I'm guessing that this performance is about as good as can be expected in my truck. Anybody got experience with different brand brakes??