ART StrongArms, $639/set

[shifty]

FYI, sharing this with everyone else, since mine are reportedly on the way.


www.stylintrucks.com

Click the link above.

Locate the Air Ride StrongArms kit which applies to your year range of truck (I ordered same year range as my ball joints). OR, alternately you can go directly to the Strong Arms "Truck" arms page, hunt the number for the kit you want, and search for it at the Stylin Trucks website to confirm they carry it and have it available.

Get the Stylin Trucks part number from the website. In the example below, I got the 73-87 set with part number LUCA11802

Call their sale hotline. Transfer to the sales department. If you are a first time customer, let them know you saw a deal that you absolutely could not pass up and decided now was the best time to give StylinTrucks your business. Let them know you have have the part number, and a coupon you'd like to use. Give them the part number, and if you're not already a customer (I am), they will take your info.

Give them the part number.
Tell them your coupon code is: EXTRA20

This coupon will take 20% off your order! This takes the $799 upper/lower arms kit down to $639 total.
If they ask for a 'reference number' or whatever, this is the code that is usually on your magazine/sales flyer/catalog, you don't need it, don't panic, just say you don't have the catalog you saw the stuff in sitting in front of you right now.

NOTE: COUPON WILL NOT WORK AT WEBSITE, YOU MUST CALL TO USE IT.
NOTE: Coupon code expires March 31, 2008.
NOTE: If 20% coupon won't work, there is a 15% coupon: MAR15 --- this brings price down to $679.
NOTE: They almost always have other coupons going on, find them using THIS LINK

This should net you the resulting picture you see below, which was my order. $639 for the arms. They DO NOT apparently combine coupons, so free shipping is probably out of the question. YMMV. There are free shipping coupons out there, but everything is drop-shipped direct from ART, so ... not sure how much good the coupon will do you.

I had someone worried that I said "$639" when the end cost after shipping is really $710.

Seriously... trust me, I looked for three weeks and priced through everyone I could find. The best I could get for these things shipped was around $780 shipped, and that was with 10% knocked off (Many thanks to that vendor, btw!)

So....if you're in the market, just trying to hook anyone else interested up. This price is MUCH lower than what CPP is charging, and honestly nets in right around what the (reportedly) lesser/inferior DJM tubular and no-name tubular arms cost.

Enjoy.

[shifty]

PS - this worked for me. If this gets heavily abused and people buy an ass-ton of these arms, I'm pretty sure they'll find some way to exclude using this coupon against the ART arms, or something ... so .... get in while you can, and hopefully they don't refuse or void my order over this I was going to wait till I had the arms in-hand to share the info, but that wouldn't give anyone much time...and I'd like to see Tony and the other guys at ART get the business, to be honest

[jlaird]

They won't care. They drop ship these things. All they have to do is paperwork to make whatever they make on the arms. By the way, they are offering free shipping now. I once called them and got them to agree to 15% off special and free shipping. They are pretty cool like that.

Free shipping coupon code: POTOGOLD
ends march 17th

[Shane]

Holy Chit -- $67 shipping! That pretty much wipes out any savings the promotion helped out with.

[shifty]

With no promotion, it comes out to almost $900.

$180-$190 savings.

If you paid tax, it would almost be $1,000.

[Shane]

maybe but that is still a wee bit on the extreme side for shipping 4 a arms ...

[PBFAB.COM]

Originally Posted by Shane

maybe but that is still a wee bit on the extreme side for shipping 4 a arms ...

That's what ART charges on the shipping... have to pass it on when you're only making 5% on the order to begin with... wait, 2% after the merchant service takes their cut.

[jlaird]

Originally Posted by porterbuilt

That's what ART charges on the shipping... have to pass it on when you're only making 5% on the order to begin with... wait, 2% after the merchant service takes their cut.

that's ridiculous that ART's wholesale prices are what they are. They give retailers like you pretty much no reason to deal with them.

I'm surprised stylintrucks gives those promo discounts on airride products. I'll bet they are making nothing if not loosing money on the deal.

As a whole though, automotive aftermarket wholesale pricing is around 10-20% which sucks for retailers. Just as a comparison, my wife deals in a fashion industry where retailers get around 50% off retail.

[Shane]

I agree that ART is raping their dealers if that is what they charge for shipping. That is freekin' ridiculous, but sadly not surprising ... opinions vary, but ART is pretty well known for being over-inflated on lots of levels.

[abadsvt]

Originally Posted by Shane

Holy Chit -- $67 shipping! That pretty much wipes out any savings the promotion helped out with.

Actually depending on where you live i think it is along the lines of what it would cost. The Strong arms are not the lightest thing out there. I was actually surprised on the actuall weight. There still a very nice piece though.

Josh

[shifty]

Originally Posted by jlaird

I'm surprised stylintrucks gives those promo discounts on airride products. I'll bet they are making nothing if not loosing money on the deal.

I figure unless ART is cutting them a deal and giving them the arms at 20% below MSRP, yup, they're probably losing money on the deal (to the tune of ~5-10%). I don't necessarily feel bad about it, because I know they make up the money elsewhere, but the reality is, so few people will actually cash in on this that I doubt it's really even going to scratch, much less dent their bottom line. (At least that's what I tell myself )

Originally Posted by jlaird

that's ridiculous that ART's wholesale prices are what they are. They give retailers like you pretty much no reason to deal with them.

Originally Posted by Shane

... opinions vary, but ART is pretty well known for being over-inflated on lots of levels.

I have this feeling about most custom fab shops. For example, ECE is overinflated on many of their products, but their gas tanks are the friggin worst, and mounts/crossmembers are a close second IMHO. CPP is overinflated as well, they charge more than ART for their arms. I actually feel like ART's arms are somewhat reasonable, but, as with most custom fabbed parts for my truck, for every person like me or you who'll sit around and complain about it, there are five to ten other guys sitting in line to buy it. I prefer when manuf'ers actually lower their prices when they hit break-even, but in the case of tubular arms, the market seems to set the price. I haven't seen control arm prices budge since I first started working on my truck almost three years ago.

I feel like the manuf'er is giving it to their dealers at a cost that should be the actual MSRP, NOT the dealer price. Dealers have no option but to sell @ markup to make a profit, which in turn leaves the end user (purchaser) feeling screwed. I don't feel it's the "right" way to do business, but if you can do it, and the market allows it, that's basically the heart and soul of our country, whether we like it or not.

Originally Posted by abadsvt

Actually depending on where you live i think it is along the lines of what it would cost. The Strong arms are not the lightest thing out there. I was actually surprised on the actuall weight. There still a very nice piece though.

I was actually going to bring this up also - we'll see when the package comes through, but I've seen the lower arms already for a full size Silverado, and they're pretty damned big, and if they weren't bolted down, I reckon they'd have weight at least 20-30lbs on the low end for just one lower arm, with the uppers at 15-20lbs. figure the dimensions of the box ... I actually expected oversized shipping @ $80-100. Normal policy is to tack on $30-50 for anything oversized with most vendors I've dealt with.

[BigTex]

Thanks for the info shifty. Why did you order the 73+ strong arm kit?

[Shane]

I was actually referring to something OTHER than their shipping charges being over-inflated ... but you're new to the Suspension forum, so I can see where you're a bit confused on where I'm coming from..

[PBFAB.COM]

There's a reason I don't push the "retail sales" thing. The margin isn't the best, and it takes a large volume to make good money. Large volume means large overhead, and large amounts of time, which equal little money in the end. Now product manufacturing... it's a little better.

[shifty]

Originally Posted by Shane

I was actually referring to something OTHER than their shipping charges being over-inflated ...

I was too. I've gotten chewed out in other forums for expressing OTHER viewpoints , so I tend to dance around it as best as possible and indirectly expressing my feelings

Originally Posted by BigTex

Thanks for the info shifty. Why did you order the 73+ strong arm kit?

Because I'm upgrading to disc brakes, and using the beefier 1.25" spindles/calipers/rotors I stole from '77 front end. This meant I needed to use 73-87 balljoints, and I'm also using the '77 crossmember, so ... might as well, you know?

I reckon if I'd have ordered a different year (if there was even a difference), like maybe 67-70, they would have come with the 67-70 balljoints, not the 71-72 or 73-87 or whatever the year breakout is.

[BigTex]

Thats kinda what I figured after looking over the airride parts list. The 71-71 and 73+ have the same part number for the LCA, but different for the upper.

Will that 73+ airride kit bolt on to a 71-72 crossmember and allow the use of the 73+ larger spindle and brake setup?

Is that EXTRA20 code good for one item or for the entire order?

[shifty]

As 've been told time and time again around here (this is not my personal experience, in other words) with stock upper and lower control arms, you can literally interchange 67-70, 71-72, 73-87. Any of the arms from any of those years will bolt onto the other respective crossmembers. It's possible this could even be true for 60-66, that's not my year range of interest, I don't care.

The point everyone has been drilling home with me is that, no matter what arms you choose to use, you need to be most concerned with your spindles. If you're using 67-68 spindles, you need to use 67-68 balljoints. If you're using 73-87 spindles, you need to use 73-87 balljoints. You also need to use the same year of outer (not inner) tie rod as the balljoint/spindle.

As for your question, you need to contact ART and ask them, or ask someone else here. I've never worked with this product. I assume that the cross-shafts are the same, so, yes, if all the stock arms interchange, there must be no difference between all of them.

That code shoud be good for the entire order.

[FnLow69]

Originally Posted by porterbuilt

There's a reason I don't push the "retail sales" thing. The margin isn't the best, and it takes a large volume to make good money. Large volume means large overhead, and large amounts of time, which equal little money in the end. Now product manufacturing... it's a little better.

So when are you going to start making arms nate??? you know you wanna....LOL

[PBFAB.COM]

Originally Posted by FnLow69

So when are you going to start making arms nate??? you know you wanna....LOL

It's on the list.... but it's a long list!

[BigTex]

Thanks shifty, I'll do my homework on the crossmember and see about placing an order pretty quick.

[bad_burb]

I just tried and I didn't get a discount with either coupon. Anyone else have any luck?

[shifty]

YOU NEED TO CALL. The website will not let you add the coupon. This is why I mention "call the sales hotline" and not "add the stuff to your cart at the website and apply the coupon"

I had the same problem, but only mentioned it in a different post here. I'll updated my post above.

[slammed1]

Im with Porter on the reason for not wanting to do the retail sales on many things. Places liek Summit,Jegs,and Stylin buy in bulk and if the product dont sell in a timely fashion they make offers like this to move the product. If they didnt they would be sitting on a high price item and not selling. Yes it makes it seem they loose money but really they arent. Places that buy mainly direct with manufacturers and drop ship wouldnt make good on a deal like that at all just as Porter stated but a place like Stylin needs to move product to make sales,and since its been on the shelf for a period of time it needs gone.Manufacturers do get some of their money back by inflating shipping which makes places like Stylin and others order in bulk to save on shipping so they can control that part themselves as many manufacturers prefer to sell bulk items to vendors instead of drop ship and make shipping deals with places to get bulk shipping rates on large orders.

On another note,Shifty thanks for the link and coupon,as I may just try to jump in on that because I have been on here long enough to start thinking I may just bag mine........now to come up with more money I dont have.

[jlaird]

Originally Posted by slammed1

Places liek Summit,Jegs,and Stylin buy in bulk

I wold have thought they drop-ship from ART. Shifty will know...you have a tracking number? Let us know if they come from Ohio or Indiana.

[shifty]

I do not have the tracking #. I've been told by two board vendors that they are drop-shipped direct from ART, and the operator at stylintrucks stated the same - she told me ahead of time that the arms will not ship from the stylintrucks warehouse.