TheSamba.com :: View topic - Harrington Group

Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:16 am

has anyone dealt or order from harrington group?are they legit newbies?i would like to order a pair of stainless steel euro bumper blades but need info or feddback about harrington group in vietnam.input would be GREATLY APPRECIATED for all of thesamba folks. :D

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Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:46 am

Check out: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168618

I bought a set for my ghia; they sucked, and I sent them back.

Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:51 am

Actually they are known as GroupHarrington. I was going to buy a set of bumpers for my Bus from them but decided to have my bumpers triple chrome plated and save myself about $450 in the process.

Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:17 pm

For anyone who wishes to purchase a set of these bumpers, please contact me and i'll be more than happy to fill you in on the experience gained from installing these stainless pieces on my '62 VW.. If you look through my pictures, you'll come to the pictures showing the struggles to get these bumpers fitted to my '62 sedan. Here is my main list of complaints, and compliments.

The Good-
-Great polish and seemingly hand built blades

The Bad-
-Awful fit (not pre-built, you recieve them in pieces)
-No matter how loosely you assemble initially, parts will not align
-Brazed nutserts and bracketry in bumperettes and overrider ends
(they will break or crack when tigtening)
-Very thin 'sheetmetal' gauge construction for bumpers not square cut holes for carriage/bumper bolts (tightening blades to bumper brackets will dimple the blades)
-Bends in over riders are not like stock VW overriders (see pics)
-holes in blades/overriders will not line up(will need to oval, or enlarge
-Distance between overrider and blades is not even close to stock
-Radius of blades is no match to radius cut into bumperettes (will need to be reshaped)

I thought i'd posted in here before my thoughts and complaints about these bumpers, but i think it was mainly to other people in PM's and their experiences. If you have first hand experience in your Ghia, Type 1 or 2 VW's, post it here and pictures if possible to show to the rest of the community what needs to be dealt with. For the cost of these bumpers being greater than the well made WW bumpers. Thanks for listening.

Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:29 pm

Very long story short. I purchased a set of Group Harrington ss bumpers for my 64 Beetle in 01/08. Opened package and attempted to install in may. They did not fit at all. After some comparison and research I discovered that the bumpers had been miss-drilled making correct fit impossible. It took almost 4 months and about a dozen emails to get Harrington to agree to send me a replacement set. During this whole process they kept telling me that their bumpers were perfect and that, A. My car had been in a front end collision, B. I bought the wrong brackets or my brackets were bent or upside down. (I used my og VW brackets just media cleaned and painted silver) C. I didn't understand how to install VW bumpers. D. After selling over 2000 sets that have recieved ZERO complaints like mine.
I included multiple pics showing the incorrect hole placement as well as emails from other customers as well as measurments and specs.
Their emails eventually became personally insulting telling me that I and American's in general were rude and did not know how to do business.
They finally agreed to send me a replacement set of bumpers. By the time they arrived (I had to pay for shipping) I had become so disgusted with Harrington I had purchased a set of WW bumpers (these fit perfectly, look correct and have a top notch black chrome shine) and sold the unopened Harringtons to a buddy in CA for his project. He found that this set only had 2 holes drilled in each blade!
I contacted Harrington again and they again claimed both sets are perfect and that they intentionally left the blades undrilled so I could custom fit them. This is hogwash since two were drilled and two left and had the intended to leave it to the buyer they would not have drilled ANY. This is just more poor quality control.
The good:
1. SS rust resistance.
2. Decent shine but duller than good chrome

The bad:
1. Dismal quality control.
2. Poor fit.
3. Innacurate upright profile.
4. Thin material with numerous hammer marks on back. Poorly detailed edges.
5. Insulting, defensive customer service.

Although I think these bumpers look good when installed and I don't think everyones experience has been as unpleasant as mine, I cannot recommend Group Harrington's products.I spoke with a gentleman who is a parts distributer and was considering offering Harrington bumpers but after seeing and handeling mine in person, declined to carry them fearing too many returns / complaints.
Bottom line: I payed almost $600. I recieved 2 sets of their bumpers. Neither fit. 1 set is not usable, 1 required drilling. This is not what I paid for or what they advertise.
I feel that Harrington should be avoided.

Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:56 am

I can and will agree with the above.
Although they have the potential to be an excellent product, and apparently initially were, their quality control is obviously non existent.

In my case, it was bumpers for a 1963 Beetle.
First set delivered earlier in 2008 had the holes drilled in the wrong place.
Harrington's claimed I didn't know what I was doing (I'm starting my 3rd body-off restoration soon).
I'm assuming they were getting a lot of complaints, so after weeks of arguing and photos, they suddenly changed their tune and sent a replacement set.
The second set arrived, and there were NO HOLES drilled in them, except for the overrider tube holes on one of them.

After several hours of drilling (stainless steel is very hard material!) and filing the holes square, we got a good result, but for the price, these things should already be done.

My suggestion is that Harrington's send someone to the overseas manufacturer and find out what the problem is.

Laundry list of complaints.
1. Poor to no quality control.
2. Extremely poor attitude from employees.
3. Hardware supplied is long enough to assemble the bumpers on the floor of your living room, but not long enough to accommodate actually attaching to the bumper brackets.
4. Threaded attachment points on the overrider uprights is of a soft metal and easily pulled out of place. My buddy has an earlier set of Harrington's bumpers on his car and this was not the case with his, so I assume it's a cost cutting measure. Not a good one.

Do the bumpers look good? After a LOT of work (3+ hours and replacing all the bolts with longer ones), yes, my particular set looks fine.
Would I recommend them to anyone else? At this point, a resounding "No."

Early reviews were promising for these as of 2 years ago, but the recent complete lack of quality control and the poor attitude of the employees (who never see the product, it's shipped direct) are enough for me to steer others clear.

Wed Aug 19, 2009 1:54 am

Here as well another negative experience with harrington group bumpers.

Convinced by the only positive feedback on ebay I bought a set. Sadly enough I discovered only to late this feedback thread about them.

As other buyers alredy mention, the shine is nice.

However :

- The blades are thin and bend too easily. Hammer marks at the end of
the blades as they don't have a machining process to form the ends ;

- Ugly black paint in the inner side of the bumpers ;

- Bend of the blades and radius of the edges are not correct, therefore it is not possible to fit OG reinforcement plates properly. This is partly due to the fact that the holes are not drilled at the correct location.

- Overriders don't have the correct shape and don't fit properly on the blades. the edges don't have a regular cut and you get an ugly gap between blades and overriders. Harrington said that originaly VW fitted rubbers between the two parts :roll: . Concerning the incorrect shape of the edges of the overriders the say you can grind them to the correct shape :shock: ! Very nice attitude ;

- Finally they, of course, keep on telling you they sold thousands of their bumpers to the satisfaction of the dealers/customers ! Hard to believe..

So basically, don't ever even think about buying their stuff !

Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:46 pm

Feedback on interior and bumpers :
http://www.volkszone.com/VZi/showthread.php?t=738478

Tue Jul 16, 2013 8:39 pm

I bought a set of their stainless bumpers, the parts don't fit as others have said. I had problems with the curvature of the towel bars, they weren't even close to being bent the same and the left would not line up to the guard . There is no way to make it work without another towel bar. I sent many emails, pictures with no response after a while, they try to make it sound like you don't know how to bolt a simple set of bumpers together. They have been back in the box in the attic., a total waste of hundreds of dollars. Also, the backsides are rough from being hammered and painted with a cheap black paint to try and cover up the hammer marks. I had much rather have a set of rusty original vw bumpers anyday than this junk. Its good they are in Viet Nam and not in driving distance where I could reach them. I'm posting this so YOU don't WASTE your money as I did. Wade Davis :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:39 pm

Hmmmm... Interesting. I'm not posting this to argue with any of the above, but Harrington is well respected in the Mercedes community and their bumpers are great- I've installed a couple sets, and will be ordering a set for a 1971 280SE 3,5 Coupe soon.

One thing I've noticed is that the Eurospec stuff seems to fit better than U.S. spec stuff. the U.S. Spec bumpers I've installed required more "finesse", but still looked great once done, where Euros seem to be a cleaner direct bolt on operation.

The difference, though, is that you can buy Harrington bumpers for a M-B cheaper than you can buy OEM rusty "core" units that still need to be rechromed.