Sponsored by The Tire Rack

[gap]

They need to have a certain number of wheels ordered to make a production run profitable and that number hasn't been reached. Finite number of 1's and many that wanted Apex wheels have already bought them. The market for them is getting smaller. I placed my order and payed for them in January and David is saying the wheels should be here at the end of May. So if you are wanting wheels place a order and pay for them to help the process along.

[02rsxpilot]

You can't even place an order right now, gap. Everything says "sold out."

FWIW, if anyone has a set of AERO-7s in any color other than black that they want to sell, PM me.

[gap]

Originally Posted by 02rsxpilot

You can't even place an order right now, gap. Everything says "sold out."

FWIW, if anyone has a set of AERO-7s in any color other than black that they want to sell, PM me.

Unless something has changed you can send David at Apex a email and place a order.

[Solo_M_Tech]

I wouldn't bother. I searched for 2 months, emails after emails, searching for a set of Apex wheels. Those vendors that had them, had incomplete sets, and the multiple emails with Apex continuously pushed the ETA to the right, as of now they are telling me "maybe the end of summer". No need to drop 1300 on a set of wheels im going to get, maybe, by next season. I just spent my money elsewhere.

[dtla1]

One of the vendors of these wheels said their ETA was end of May, and that I should put a deposit down if I wanted a set. I just let them know to keep me updated when they get them. Don't need my money gaining interest for someone else in the mean time.

[dtla1]

Bimmerworld just sent me an email notification letting me know the wheels are back in stock.

[Newguy123]

the arc 8?

[dtla1]

Originally Posted by Newguy123

the arc 8?

Yes sir
http://store.bimmerworld.com/apex-ar...els-p1894.aspx

[klick]

According to Apex's site, they seemed to have just restocked on the Arc 8s in the 1 series offsets in the hyper silver color. I noticed the anthracite color has been in stock since last week.

[gap]

Got tracking numbers today for my 18" Hyper Black ARC 8's. Will order Michelin PSS on Monday, 235/40/18 F and 265/35/18 R. Was considering 245/35/18 fronts but have decided to play it safe with the 235's.

[Newguy123]

Originally Posted by gap

Got tracking numbers today for my 18" Hyper Black ARC 8's. Will order Michelin PSS on Monday, 235/40/18 F and 265/35/18 R. Was considering 245/35/18 fronts but have decided to play it safe with the 235's.

Arc8 in hyper silver just showed up

[Tchao]

Ordered Wednesday.
Got my wheels last night.
Tires mounting today.

[Eddy@ApexWheels]

This thread just came to my attention and I wanted to publicly respond and apologize for the inconvenient delays we’ve created for 1Addicts members. As someone one who founded a company on the principle of providing exceptional customer service, I don’t feel we have any excuse for how we’ve handled these delays. The 1 series sizes experienced a compounding of external delays and internal mistakes that resulted in the low levels we’re experiencing today. The port strikes did significantly impact us, but that only exacerbated a bigger problem that was already there. Although we’ve solved the core problems that caused these issues, it will be a little longer until we have product to ship everyone.

I’m a believer in transparency, and I lack brevity, so I’ve answered your questions and concerns below in detail, along with provided background info on what got us here.


Quick and dirty ETA Update:

Some ARC-8 units just arrived and some more are coming in a week or so. Colors are limited. No EC-7 units are arriving yet. All of this is due to the issues outlined the background details below.

All 1 series relevant ARC-8 and EC-7 sizes are part of our 3rd tier of production to get us caught up, which just started. This means healthy quantities are being produced, and will come in our 3rd wave of restock shipments. The “summer” ETA is accurate for a full restock. We’ll provide a tighter ETA, but it’s too early into production to predict arrival accurately.


AERO-7 wheel phase out:

Yes, our plan for the past few years has been to phase out the AERO-7. It was initially introduced in January of 2010. We did one production run of about 500 units total. The wheel sizes and weights were great, but the design did not take on for whatever reason. We’ve never had to re-order in 5+ years, and the remaining few units we have on hand are still from 2010. Even blowout sales barely moved any units. It’s a shame as it’s a great wheel, but the market spoke.

We don’t want to see the AERO-7 die either, and we did make a significant investment into the tooling and VIA certification. We know there is a small trickle of demand, and we could produce more wheels, but we could only bring them back via a group buy with a minimum number of participants. To guarantee the success of such a plan, we’d offer the wheels at a significantly reduced price to participants of such a deal. Since this is not a commercial thread, we can create another place to continue the discussion of reviving this wheel if we see real interest. Because of forum rules, we only will tread lightly on the subject in this thread.


Lack of PS-7 option:

Because the 1 and 2 series sizes are low volume sellers, it’s was not possible for us to stock a 3rd aesthetic fitment. There is a slight difference in offset between the 18x9.5” ARC-8 and EC-7 wheel, but sales volumes did not warrant developing a 3rd design with no functional difference. Our focus will be on bringing back the ARC-8 and EC-7 designs for this fitment.


Willingness to produce new size:

Some of you may have seen our willingness to begin discussions about a 17” wheel offering. Now that we’ve taken more control of our production issues, we’re at a point where we can pursue new projects again. We’ve wanted to do this for years, but we just gave it the green light last week at Bimmerfest. Please note, we haven’t even agreed to a specific offset yet, so it’s just research, which doesn’t distract us from getting 18’s back in stock. We love supporting niche fitments, and we’re committed to the 1 series market. We regret not clarifying the production issues before, as we now see the perception we’ve created by lacking 18” inventory while discussing new 17’s.



Full Background

Our Production Problems:

We experienced 3 major issue that lead to these shortages, but recently we developed solutions for all of them. Those problems were; increased production times, shortages from our requested order quantities, and total available line capacity. In December of last year we took serious action in cooperation with our supplier, and by August these problems should have a negligible impact. The 1 series sizes are still affected as of today, but the fruits of our labor are right around the corner now.

Since 2009, the minimum lead time to receive an order was about 6 months on average. In late 2013, and all of 2014, that increased to as much as 9 months. We couldn’t act fast enough to large spikes in demand, such as what we saw with 17x8.5” and 17x9” wheels for Spec E46 racing. This increased delay was due to a major influx of orders from Japan. A lot of production space was hogged, and production wouldn’t start for months after our purchase orders were received.

Our production runs for speciality SKU’s like the 1 series front and rear sizes are usually 120~ units, but the factory’s ideal run size is in the high thousands. Those comparatively low order volumes can experience major fulfillment issues as a percentage. Example: pulling 50 defective units from the line when producing 5000 wheels, is only 1%. Pulling 50 units from 120 wheels is 40%. Combined with the 9 month delay, and unexpected production shortages we experienced last year, we definitely unintentionally ran out of product.

The solution to the above would be to just make more units, but because of increased demand from their Japanese clients, we also hit varying weekly/monthly line capacity issues. Some of our other SKU’s sell 10:1 or 20:1 compared to the 1 series units, and those units had to be prioritized. On a number of occasions, much to our dismay, we were forced to make the call to delay 1 series unit production.

At the end of the day the 1 series fitment was part of a group of SKU’s that encountered significant delays, beyond what anyone would consider reasonable, including ourselves. We understand why it happened, and we’ve been working diligently to fix it.


Our Production Solutions:

Since December, we’ve negotiated to have preset space allocated for us each month. If we don’t use it, they’ll give it away, but we do have it when we need it. This was very hard to get, but has essentially reduced our waiting period by months. Our turnaround time is now 1/2 of what it used to be. Our supplier also agreed to hold significant inventory on hand for us. This allows us to produce higher quantities, which lowers the defect rate per batch. It more importantly means when we need more units, there are some finished units ready to ship with no wait. Many other improvements were also made that together will have a significant positive impact on sustained availability. Since this new program began earlier this year, it’s taken many months for production to catch up, and level off. A lot of stock has arrived, and 1 series sizes will be here soon.


Our Communication Mistakes:

Production issues to some degree were out of our control, but we could have done a much better job communicating with the public. When our product specialists quoted ETA dates that were pushed back repeatedly, they genuinely, and sincerely thought those were accurate at the time. Those updates were passed down to them, and as much as all of you, they were eager to get them back in stock. Sadly, we were in the middle of this production issue, and didn’t really understand the extend of how bad it would be, and how many delays there would be. We should have been much more conservative with our estimates. We failed to communicate accurate ETA to our customers, and that resulted in many of you patiently waiting for restock for an unreasonable amount of time. Until late last year our site didn’t show inventory levels and it still doesn’t give you detailed information on when product will be back in stock. Communication is clearly an issue.


Our Communication Improvements:

The length of delays will certainly decrease, but we will still inevitably encounter delays we need to communicate. We’re currently customizing our site to show a detailed description of the back-order status for every sku. You’ll be able to see how many weeks away new stock will be, and a description of why, if there are any delays. We’re setting up automation so that people can follow those status updates, and we can add members to update lists. Any time there’s an update, or when stock comes back in, you’d get notified.

More importantly, our product specialists in recent months have joined our production meetings and are keeping things in check, and getting more first hand information. Most of that energy was recently spent prioritizing production to get us out of the hole we’ve been in, but their new focus will be on better representing and predicting community demand, and having the info needed to provide more accurate ETA updates.





Please accept our sincerest apologies. I hope the service and support we are known for is a testament to the fact that we truly take your feedback seriously and we are committed to resolving this issue. I’m glad this topic came to light, as it’s a clear indication that public communication is as much part of this problem as production was.

Sincerely,

Eddy Pintacsi - CEO
925-245-0773 x801

[chris82]

Thank you for clarifying everything Eddy, The response is very appreciated

[Ryki]

I have to say, this is one of the best written posts I've seen, it makes me want to sell keep buying Apex's as I have been! I don't know if you'd want to but having this up in it's own post could help the confusion, versus having here on the second page.

[i_love_cars]

easily the best response to an issue from a vendor I've ever seen.

I have confidence now that I'll be able to snag a set of track wheels from Apex for next track season

[02rsxpilot]

Very much appreciate the info Eddy. A+.

[drewster99]

I'm going to snag a set of ARC8's as soon as they become available in 135 offsets!

[Hit Redline]

Ordered a set of Arc8 hyper black on Wednesday and arrived today, Friday.

[Kosta135i]

My arc 8s come in Monday. The nt05s are waiting for them

[A_Lightyear]

I have a set of ARC-8s in 135i fitment FOR SALE. Look in the Wheel Classifieds

[drewster99]

Mine come in Thursday!