Mar-K, my experience

[General23cmp]

I thought I’d share my experience with Mar-K as it’s been extremely frustrating. I consider myself moderately picky (I’m not an OCD customer). I purchased a complete set of upper and woodgrain lower trim for my swb 72. This was over 4 months ago. I went with them because the are the best.

Upon receiving the trim after a long lead time, which they communicated would be the case, I was very disappointed in the woodgrain pieces. As you know, the woodgrain is simply a long vinyl sticker applied. Several pieces had vinyl areas that were not sticking to the trim below it (making a bubble or crease), and the vinyl was not even applied straight on some pieces leaving gaps along the top or bottom. No matter how much pressing I did of the raised areas, the vinyl would release back to the way it was received. Even on the back side of the pieces where the vinyl wrapped around and is supposed to be attached to hold it, was releasing so it just flapped. There was no way these pieces would last when actually installed on the truck if the don’t last inside protected plastic wrap.

I contacted Mar-K, and to their credit, they arranged for me to send back the pieces (I only sent the 5 worst ones back), and they sent replacements to me. Upon receipt, 3 of the 5 pieces were worse than what I had originally sent back. I made one piece work, but shouldn’t have to do that and question if it’ll last over time. But the 2 pieces left were not good. I couldn’t even press the vinyl down as it would cause a raised crease on one, so there was no way it was ever down correctly/smooth. I contacted Mar-K, and they sent two more pieces for these (again, credit them for that), but one is still in the same boat. It seems like they would’ve taken a good look at the pieces before shipping to me at this point, but clearly they did not. I haven’t bothered contacting them about this one, as I’ve given up. Three shipments should be enough to get it right. All I can do at this point is caution others about the woodgrain. A picture of one of the last pieces received is attached. As you can see, it won’t press down without a crease being made.

So in summary, after three attempts and 4.5 months, I still do not have a usable full set of lower molding. Their customer service has been good, but I did go a while without responses at times. I’m also very concerned that the woodgrain pieces that looked ok, will not last when installed. I just wanted to share my experience as trim is a very big investment. I don’t know what I would do differently if I could do it over again as there aren’t many quality trim companies to choose from, but perhaps a less expensive company could do this part just as well. I know other companies apply a strong tape to the back side to hold those back side flaps down better. I like that and will probably do that to mine before installing (I shouldn’t have to do that if buying high quality).

I hope Mar-K monitors these types of sites as I’d love to end up with a complete set, but I know, like I am, they are probably tired of hearing from me on this transaction. But more importantly, they need to look at this product more closely. We need complies like them and this won’t be the only truck I need trim for. I know others had great luck with them, but it can’t be just me if I’ve had multiple replacements sent with similar issues. Maybe it’s a result of covid, too, and I’m getting product that is atypical.