It looks like a lot of people are reading this thread and wanted to give a follow up on my experience. I too was in the market for a hard folding tonneau and was about 2 minutes away from purchasing a bak flip cover... then I read this thread and I started second guessing my decision. After about a week of deliberation, I decided to just go with the mopar cover... it's been about 2 months and about 4' of snow and ice later and I can tell you that I am completely satisfied with the mopar cover.

I live in Western PA and we have about 30" of snow on the ground and needed to load my snowblower in the bed yesterday. Issue was that my cover was completely iced and snowed over. I was hesitant, but ended up taking my ice scraper to the entire cover. To my surprise, this thing is really tough and didn't even show a single surface scratch.

So, if you are in the market for a tough, hard folding cover, suck it up, pay the extra cash and get the mopar version. It is totally functional, stands up to the elements, and looks really nice too... oh, and did I mention the warranty? Go with a good dealer (like mine) and they told me that everything from the locks, hinges, and the paint are covered with my bumper to bumper 3yr, 36k warranty, no questions asked.

I'm not usually an advocate for Mopar crap, but at the end of the day, I really think that this is the best hard cover out there. The extra cash is worth it to me in the end, knowing that my dealer is going to be there to stand behind their product.

If Bak isn't noticing this thread yet, hopefully they do soon. Bad customer svc gets around and I'm really glad I didn't get tricked into buying their poorly built covers.

 

As someone suggested, I filed a complaint on the BBB website - I was just notified of this response this morning. (Must take a couple days for it to go through the system)
So I guess that they are now offering to repair my cover - which was what I was asking for in July when this all started. I like that they repeat the nonsense about "talking to dealers in my area" when they still have no idea where my truck was when the hail storm occurred.

 

You seem pretty happy!
Do you have a Ram Box?
If so, Can you give me the Mopar part#?
Thanks,
Jim

 

God didn't have a thing to do with a hail storm or the fact that the finish on the vehicle was not damaged in any way.Ask them for proof that God had anything to do with it.

 

Act of God is a legal term[1] for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.

Contract law

In the law of contracts, an act of God may be interpreted as an implied defense under the rule of impossibility, i.e., the promise is discharged because of unforeseen, naturally occurring events that were unavoidable and which would result in insurmountable delay, expense or other material breach. In other contracts, such as indemnification, an act of God may be no excuse, and in fact may be the central risk assumed by the promisor, e.g., flood insurance or crop insurance, the only variables being the timing and extent of the damage. In many cases, failure by way of ignoring obvious risks due to "natural phenomena" will not be sufficient to excuse performance of the obligation, even if the events are relatively rare, e.g., the year 2000 problem in computers. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, 2-615, failure to deliver goods sold may be excused by an "act of God" if the absence of such act was a "basic assumption" of the contract, but has made the delivery commercially "impracticable".
Tort law

In the law of torts, an act of God may be asserted as a type of intervening cause, the lack of which would have avoided the cause or diminished the result of liability (e.g., but for the earthquake, the old, poorly constructed building would be standing). However, foreseeable results of unforeseeable causes may still raise liability. For example, a bolt of lightning strikes a ship carrying volatile compressed gas, resulting in the expected explosion. Liability may be found if the carrier did not use reasonable care to protect against sparks—regardless of their origins. Similarly, strict liability could defeat a defense for an act of God where the defendant has created the conditions under which any accident would result in harm. For example, a long-haul truck driver takes a shortcut on a back road and the load is lost when the road is destroyed in an unforeseen flood. Other cases (and the preferred federal rule in the United States) find that a common carrier is not liable for the unforeseeable forces of nature. Memphis & Charlestown RR Co. v. Reeves, 1870, 77 U.S. 176.
A particularly interesting example is that of "rainmaker" Charles Hatfield who was hired in 1915 by the city of San Diego to fill the Morena reservoir to capacity with rainwater for $10,000. The region was soon flooded by heavy rains, nearly bursting the reservoir's dam, killing nearly 20 people, destroying 110 bridges (leaving 2), knocking out telephone and telegraph lines, and causing an estimated $3.5 million in damage in total. When the city refused to pay him (he had forgotten to sign the contract), he sued the city. The floods were ruled an act of God, excluding him from liability but also from payment.





No one NEEDS to prove God did it. That is not the pointof the Act of God clause. Your car/truck/house insurance etc. can all have the same clause unless you buy extra insurance. So, the company saying take it to your insurance company may be a moot point. They may possibly have the exact same responce.

 

I totally agree that giving the guy with hail damage a new cover would have been far less costly and far more beneficial to BAK, both from a marketing standpoint and from a position of goodwill and PR. Would it have resulted in a happy camper and increased sale? - ABSOLUTELY, but I do want all to understand this: If there's a defect in materials or workmanship, my team will replace without question. If there's something that fails on our covers, we will replace without question. If we have done something to cause any damage to the product then of course, we will replace without hesitation. However at what point do you take a stand? In my opinion, it's at times where acts of God, like hail or something falling out of the sky are the cause of damage, that we must unfortunately draw the line. Who's to say what velocity hail falls at or from what distance an acorn drops? I would like to show you a pic of my wife's car that had an acorn drop on the hood. I swear to you that there is a bulls eye ding that occurred literally within days of her owning the new car. Should I hold Ford responsible for the damage? Should I begin to blog about how pathetic their steel is? With this in mind, please note that we use the IDENTICAL MATERIAL in our aluminum covers as every other aluminum cover out there, including Extang. How can we be held responsible for something we cannot help? Should we be expected to take it in the shorts every time something falls on a cover and damages it? With this said, I feel awful for the guy who's cover was damaged, but still maintain that there's nothing we could have done to prevent it. And, while he is upset and slamming us, we did nothing wrong. We didn't make bad product and we didn't treat him with disrespect. My employees were simply following protocol in the name of what we believe to be fair. In the same vein, I'd like to share with you a fact that happens on a daily rate: We get at the bare minimum, 10 calls a day with folks wanting new covers under warranty to rplace covers that are not even made by BAK. We get Fold-a-cover's in ruins with folks demanding that we "replace the unit", only to find that it's not even made by us. We get unscrupulous people buying old units on ebay and then trying to tell us that they just received the cover, new in the box, damaged. We get the most bazaar attempts to try and get covers out of us. Each case is always handled unto its own. We do not take a blanket approach to customer service or warranty issues. This guy just simply didn't have a case. It is not our fault that his cover was damaged. Despite offering him an upgrade, which we were not even obliged to do, we have unfortunately been slammed.

Please understand that we do not have bad customer service. In fact I would venture to say that our customer service is outstanding. The claim just needs to be legitimate. In closing I will tell you that I have a lot of faith in the F1 you have and will gladly handle any concern you have personally in an effort to ensure your absolute satisfaction.

Regards,

Julian

 

In defense, I do think that this is a very fair offer. In addition, hail is hail regardless of where it falls. Asking a dealership what they do when hail is at the root of a problem has no bearing on where you live.

I get that you're upset. I would be upset too if I bought something and it got damaged within days of ownership. I do believe an amicable offer has been extended to you to remedy your problem. I also don't believe that slamming the company will get your problem resolved. It may help you to prevent potential consumers from buying a BAK cover, but your experience was not the fault of the company, regardless of how much you choose to disagree. In reality, BAK is actually going above and beyond what any other company in a similar situation would do for you.

Here's the fact: Your covers top surface was damaged by hail. The cover did not fail, but unfortunately has been aesthetically scarred.

Despite not being obliged to give you a brand new cover, BAK has offered to help. If I am missing something here, please let me know as I would honestly like to help. I just want to do it proactively and not in a manner which leaves anyone viewing this thread under the misconception that we are not here to help post the sale.

 

Happy to see BAK is at least offering a resolution to a damaged cover. My Extang Solid Fold (I'll post some pics) received some hail damage too. When the company I purchased it from contacted Extang, I was informed to "buy another one". Go figure.
I understand the manufacturer can't be held responsible for where we park our cars but have a heart! I'm going to go with the new BakFlip F1. My buddy has one and loves it. Sounds like BAK is willing to help, more than I can say for Extang.

 

I fail to see how informing others that hail which is not large enough to damage any other panel on my truck will damage a bakflip HD is "slamming". My main complaint is that your HD product appears to sustain damage much more easily than your regular (plastic) product. I acknowledge that the function of the cover is nice, my complaint is with the marketing of something as Heavy Duty - I paid extra money for heavy duty and got something less damage resistant than the standard product.

The cover still repells the snow and water
I'm going to decline your offer to attempt to repair the cover. It would just tick me off the next time something small hit the cover and dented it. Pea sized hail storms are common in the midwest and the same thing would happen the next time there was a small storm. It's clear that the skin of the cover is not suitible for where I live, so I'll live with the dented cover and replace it with something stronger when it bothers me enough.

 

And you are correct in many points, but I even read many times on the site claiming the HD able to stand up to hail (last year when this was evolving), so when you make that claim, your warranty oughta cover the damage. As far as your customer service, I don't know. I could of called you about the minor dent in the front alum. frame and the minor 12" scratch on one of the FRP panels on arrival, I didn't, b/c I didn't want to deal with you guys on it, and not very noticeable, but its there, you want to take care of that for me? Only had it two months. i would say QA could be better from what I have seen on forums and recieved (bent rails, missing seals, my product) but things happen, you decide, but I do like the F1 and I do think it would hold up to even hail, matter a fact I know it will and thats why I have recommended it to people ( had 4 people inquire about it today at Arrigo dodge). And you gotta realize no one wants to slam you, just want to be treated fair, and I am sure you deal with alot of scum out there.