There are people who own
motorcycles and there
are Bikers. If you don't know or can't understand the difference, we think you will
find this page to be too politically incorrect for your tastes. This material was
written by and for Bikers.
I hate mandatory helmet laws. The true morons in society think the
debate is about wanting to feel the wind in our hair. For people who
actually know what they're talking about, it's about not wanting to
spend the rest of our lives as talking heads after this piece of
so-called "safety equipment" breaks our neck and puts us in a wheelchair
forever. If you happen to think that it's Government's job to force
it's citizens to do things they are absolutely dead set against, you
and I would not get along. In my opinion, you would be happier living
in a Socialist or a Communist Country. I'll be happy to make your
plane reservations if it will get you out of the USA any faster.
I could care less about Harley
Davidson copyright problems, how much chrome you have, what size scooter you ride or what
kind of yuppie scum biker propaganda you subscribe to. If you love to ride and turn
your own wrenches then come on in. If you buy bikes as investments, wear official logo
roadgear from head to toe, worry about getting grease underneath your fingernails or think
that mandatory helmet laws are a good idea then get the HELL away from me!
Oh, and if you are thinking about having Joe Cree and/or California
Customs build you a motorcycle, take some advice: DON'T!!!!!
You're welcome to ignore this advice but you will soon come to rue
the day you ever heard of California Customs or Joe Cree. And this will
start seconds after you send in your check and will continue until
you finally get rid of the piece of crap bike that Joe Cree and
California Customs will charge you tens of thousands of dollars
for.
Be smart: avoid Joe Cree and California Customs like the plague!!!
Motorcycle Builder Reviews - The Worst Builder
Joe Cree, California Customs Reviews
Built the biggest piece of crap motorcycle I have ever owned.
Charged me $35,000 for it (back when $35k was real money)
and totally refused to stand by his work or pay to have any of his
MANY design screw ups and poor quality workmanship corrected.
Nine years later, this bike has only 5,400 miles on it and even
after spending many thousands of $$$ to get it to run right it is
still such an unreliable piece of crap that I am afraid to ride
it any further than I want to push it home. I would dearly love to
sell it and would practically give it away, but California Customs has
such a lousy reputation that no one wants to buy it. And try getting
Allstate, Geico or one of those to insure one! Good luck with that!
I currently insure this piece of junk Joe Cree California Custom
through Progressive (although why
I don't know since I'm lucky if it can make it down the street
without needing a tow truck to get it back home). Progressive charges me twice what I pay
Geico to insure my Big Dog which, unlike this Joe Cree reliability
nightmare, actually gets ridden once in a while.
Gary George, owner of Obsession Motorcycles, said to me after talking
to Joe Cree, "Well, I've just talked to Satan himself! And what
a miserable creep he is to have to deal with. I don't think we're
going to get anything out of this guy except grief and stonewalling."
How right he was.... And Gary hasn't been
the only
experienced Harley
builder and Mechanic to point out some of the many knucklehead design
mistakes that Joe Cree made when building this motorcycle. Probably
the biggest and most expensive to correct boneheaded move was the use
of a dangerous and unreliable mono shock softtail frame.
Check this out on the web sometime. More than one rider came to a
screeching, grinding halt when the suspension broke and the rear tire
slammed up tight against the rear fender. Sort of like the good old
days when a chain would break and wrap around the rear sprocket,
locking the rear wheel up.
Throughout all of these trials, Joe Cree could have cared less that
the bike he
built for me was a complete piece of garbage. This bike barely made it
home from the 7 mile ride from the Shipper's warehouse. It was in the
shop being repaired the very next day and had to be trailered there!
A brand new, $35,000 motorcycle! And this Joe Cree California
Custom has spent most of it's nine year life either sitting in a
repair shop somewhere or sitting in the back of my garage collecting
dust. Joe Cree did absolutely
nothing to make any of this right. In fact, he turned in to a total
jerk as soon as he got my check. And has been an unredeemable
jerk ever since.
Luckily, Joe Cree had "California Customs" painted on my bike
(against my wishes...) Ever pay $4,000 for a custom paint job and
have the nit-wit builder put an advertisement on it?
Anyway, it all worked out because anytime someone sees this bike
when it's in the shop
and asks me how I like California Customs, I give them an earful
and STRONGLY
encourage them to NOT give their money to Joe Cree and
California Customs. Then they tell someone who tells someone who
tells someone else.... The best advertisement is word of mouth.
The worst advertisement comes from unhappy past customers.
The very worst advertisement comes from company owners
like Joe Cree posting
vile and obscene comments that insult their unhappy customers instead of
trying to do something to make things right. That says a lot about Joe
Cree's integrity and sense of honor, I think.
A LOT of people have found this web page over the years and have
told me that
they were considering doing business with Joe Cree and wanted to know
about the problems I had dealing with California Customs. Hopefully
I convinced them to give their business to a more competent and
responsive company
than Joe Cree and California Customs. I even got an e-mail from
one of Joe Cree's Sales Lackeys Tanja Rolli
tanja@swaco.net who
pretended that she was an unhappy Joe Cree customer but was really just
trolling around for information at Joe Cree's direction. Gives you
some idea of what a creepy, devious guy Joe Cree really is.
Hopefully, I was able to help prevent folks who wrote to me from getting
screwed by Joe Cree the same way that he did it to me.
So here's a sample of what you'll be dealing with if you hand
over any $$$ to Joe Cree and California Customs. Note the
not so subtle threat of violence from Mr Tough Guy who doesn't like
bad customer reviews ..... .although this one is far from the only poor
review out there on the web that's been posted by an unhappy Joe Cree
and California Customs past customer/victim. And Joe Cree's insulting
tone
including belittling this web site which gets more visitors in a day than
his site gets in a year. But Joe Cree's antagonistic, pissy little girl
whining,
peppered with "real man" tough guy chest pounding is exactly the
kind of crap that this guy is famous for. If Joe Cree was even
remotely interested in customer satisfaction (and his reputation),
he would have
said something like, "Frank! I'm absolutely flabbergasted and horrified
to hear that one of our motorcycles has performed so poorly. I am
just hearing about these problems and I can't begin to tell you how
sorry I am that your experience with California Customs has not been
what you expected. We try very hard to build great bikes and to
develop long term, repeat business relationships with our Customers.
I am VERY sorry to hear about these problems. What can I do to
make things right for you?"
Needless to say, that's not exactly the
words that have been coming out of Joe Cree's mouth, starting on day
one. Note that he didn't even
show the courtesy of addressing me by my name.
Received 10/28/08, exactly seven days after his stooge Tanja
contacted me with her phoney story and looking for information
Joe Cree writes: Saw you mentioned me in some post on this page:
http://www.easyrider.com/bikes.htm
Kind of curious who you are and how would you even know about my shop
and our work? Far as I know you're not a current customer nor have
you ever been a customer yet you seem to think it's okay to run my
name and business down behind my back. Just curious how you get off
thinking that's cool? If you were all you preach in your little web
site you'd step up and say those things to my face, or at least in an
e-mail since that seems to be your realm.
My suggestion is try growing a pair and saying this to my face
instead of posting it on some obscure web site.
Joe Cree
California Customs
And Joe The Blowhard's tirades continue (posted on the Easyrider
public forum which is read by children among others):
Saw something posted here on some part of this site by some douchebag
named Frank, or at least that's who this site is registered
to. In his rant he slams me and my shop. Never heard of this
**** *** (expletive deleted)
and don't know where he gets off talking nuts behind my back but he
can **** ** (expletive deleted). He's not a customer of ours, never
has been asnd has no
balls by talking smack on a site behind my back. So here ya go
Frankie or whoever it was that posted my name on this site,
**** ***, (expletive deleted) **** ** (expletive deleted).
Anytime ya wanna be a man and talk nuts to my face let me
know. **** **** (expletive deleted)
Don't know who this Frank Whack off, oops, I mean Wykoff is but he
knows ******** (expletive deleted). He sucks donkey ***** (expletive
deleted)
Joe Cree- California Customs
Easyrider again: Do you eat with that mouth Joe?
I'll bet you make your Rabbi proud
Does Joe Cree sound like a guy you'd want to do
business
with? Or someone you'd be comfortable babysitting your child or
dating your Daughter? I certainly wouldn't want my Grandchildren
playing over this guy's house, that's for sure! I'll bet he's
a real credit to his church and to his community
And what I've posted isn't even the complete diatribe.
Some of Joe Cree's
rantings were so vile and so profain that they were just not
suitable for a family web page. But considering the filth he posted that
I didn't delete, you can probably imagine how bad some of Joe Cree's
other comments were. I'd hate to be the Cop who has to drag an
angry,
violent, drunken, verbally abusive, profain Joe Cree out of a bar
at 2 AM if
this is what
he's like when he's in control and sober (assuming that he wasn't
plastered
when he wrote this stuff). Quite a businessman.
Quite a credit to the motorcycle building profession. And quite an
example for his children and others to aspire to, huh?
I certainly support anyone's right to do stupid
things if that's what they want to do. But forewarned is forearmed.
Hand over your money to Joe Cree at California Customs and you will
DEFINITELY regret it. And the above is just a sample of the treatment
you
will get after the sale, when you aren't happy with the way that
things turned out. I have lots of other snotty, unresponsive and
mean spirited Joe Cree E-mails that he sent while I was still
a new customer and
hopeful that he'd do the right thing and stand behind this pile of
junk that he built. But, this most recent missive from the head
creep himself
should serve as ample warning to potential victims to steer way
clear of this character.
Read Joe Cree's own words and decide for yourself whether he and
California
Customs in San Jose, California is worthy of your business.
11/09/08 Tanja Rolli e-mailed me again claiming that
she is not trolling around for
information on the Creep Cree's behalf and claims that she
is, indeed, yet one
more unhappy Joe Cree customer. It would seem that
California Customs and Joe Cree have certainly racked up a lot
of dissatisfied customers since he's been in business. Quite a
few have e-mailed me over the years after reading about my
experiences. It's certainly possible that Ms Rolli is yet
one more of those. I do have her e-mails if anyone wants to
know about her specific complaints with Joe Cree and
California Customs.
