My Blast at BlueOx

machman72 · 04-11-2005, 02:29 PM

I bought a Blue Ox light kit for my Saturn. Directions said to pin point which of the light blu wire under the rear seat controlled the righ brake light and the left brake light. Cut these 2, install the diodes to each, hook the green to the right, the yellow to the left. Did that, no problem. Then it tells you to test each of the brown wires and find either 2 or 4 that operate the rear tail lights. Cut them all, attach all of them to th 3rd diode, and attach to the brown wire. Ok did that no problem. Then attach white ground somewhere for a positive ground. Ok did that. Put the power to it, and nothing worked. Come to find out my turn signals work off of a pair of YELLOWwires. Instructions say nothing about yellow wires at all, period. My Saturn is a 93, and the instructions were printed in 94. Blue Ox will be hearing from me. I ended up rigging a light bar on the back of the car. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this Blue Ox product a -10

machman72 · 04-11-2005, 02:29 PM

I bought a Blue Ox light kit for my Saturn. Directions said to pin point which of the light blu wire under the rear seat controlled the righ brake light and the left brake light. Cut these 2, install the diodes to each, hook the green to the right, the yellow to the left. Did that, no problem. Then it tells you to test each of the brown wires and find either 2 or 4 that operate the rear tail lights. Cut them all, attach all of them to th 3rd diode, and attach to the brown wire. Ok did that no problem. Then attach white ground somewhere for a positive ground. Ok did that. Put the power to it, and nothing worked. Come to find out my turn signals work off of a pair of YELLOWwires. Instructions say nothing about yellow wires at all, period. My Saturn is a 93, and the instructions were printed in 94. Blue Ox will be hearing from me. I ended up rigging a light bar on the back of the car. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this Blue Ox product a -10

ISLAPP · 04-11-2005, 03:47 PM

I'm sorry to hear about your problem. Don't you just hate when something like that happens? But I'm sure Blue Ox will make it right by you. Steve, I'm curious why you didnt just switch to the yellow wires once you found out those were the correct ones instead of mounting the light bar?
Mike

DriVer · 04-11-2005, 05:19 PM

I believe the Blue-Ox Race Team is going to be camping in the next site from me here at the Texas Motor Speedway. I will past on your concerns about your diode kit. Blue Ox is a superior company and they stand behind their products without question.

Too bad you had to purchase a light bar.

IrishBear · 04-13-2005, 06:03 AM

You need to call Blue OX customer service right away. They will take care of you. They are one GREAT company and realy care about there customer. There number is 888-425-5382

machman72 · 04-13-2005, 03:57 PM

Went to a light bar because we were supposed to be leaving that morning to go camping. Didn't want to continue chopping up the wire harness, for something I did not know if it would work or not. None of the lights were working at all. A light bar was (excuse the expression) idiot proof, and quick to rig.<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ISLAPP:
I'm sorry to hear about your problem. Don't you just hate when something like that happens? But I'm sure Blue Ox will make it right by you. Steve, I'm curious why you didnt just switch to the yellow wires once you found out those were the correct ones instead of mounting the light bar?
Mike </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Catdave · 04-13-2005, 04:16 PM

DriVer- feel free to pass along the following to the Biue Ox folks when you see them...

The other day I was putting a Blue Ox baseplate on my '04 Silverado. The instructions called for 78 ft. lbs. on 4 of the mount bolts. After pulling the threads out of two of those "inside the frame" wire nuts with 78 ft. lbs. with my DoD calibrated torque wrench, I sent them an email questioning the torque. Sure enough they answered that there were more current instructions for my application (dated 5 months newer) and the torque was only 60 ft. lbs. Since my baseplate had just been ordered from them by my dealer 3 weeks prior, they obviously don't put a lot of emphasis on ensuring every product has a current set of instructions- even when it's sitting in their warehouse.
Anyway, they shipped me new nuts and bolts, which took 8 days to get here via FedEx Ground. (FedEx Ground to Alaska is only marginally faster than shipping by camel.) I had suggested USPS Priority Mail which is cheaper and only takes 3-4 days, but I guess that made too much sense. (Most companies will ship FedEx Overnight or 2nd Day Air as a courtesy when the problem is due to a mistake on their part. I guess Blue Ox doesn't feel it's necessary.)
Expedited shipping would've gone a long way towards making me a happy customer, but when the parts didn't show up till 8 days later I really wasn't much of a Blue Ox fan anymore.

The instructions were also incorrect in the placement of two of the mount bolts in relation to the tow hooks. It was physically impossible on my application to put the wire nut on top of the tow hook inside the frame and thread the bolt through both. The bolt threads straight into the tow hook without the need for the wire nut.
Took me awhile to figure that one out.

I also determined I have to cut the front air dam in order to connect the hitch to the brackets, which isn't mentioned in the instructions. The brackets don't protrude far enough in front of the air dam to allow the hitch arms to connect and to align the hitch pins properly. The instructions clearly state that the only air dam cutting necessary is on a 2WD model without tow hooks; 4WD models with tow hooks require no cutting. However, this is not the case.

I'm not usually this negative, but after hearing so much good about Blue Ox prior to my purchase I am, at this point, gravely disappointed. These are all very expensive parts because they are supposed to be custom fit for each application, yet it's more like I'm trying to install a cheap "universal fit" type of getup.
As I just got the replacement parts yesterday I still haven't finished the install of the baseplate. A 2-hour job has ended up taking 2 weeks. Hope this isn't what I can expect in the future from Blue Ox. If so, I might have to look to someone else for my towing product needs...

Dave

DriVer · 04-13-2005, 05:23 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Catdave:
DriVer- feel free to pass along the following to the Blue Ox folks when you see them... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>I'll print this sheet out and personally hand it to the Blue Ox people.

Could you please send me your contact info via e-mail, mpelchat@irv2.com if you would like a response directly from them.