Blue Oval Industries mostly sells parts for later model cars, but I know a lot of us also have Fox body and later generation Mustangs, plus a lot of us have updated our classics with later model parts.  I want to warn everyone out there to stay away from these guys.

My first experience with them was buying a set of center caps for a set of Cobra R wheels I'm running on my '89 GT.  The caps were listed on their website as OEM Ford.  What arrived at my door was not OEM Ford.  They had no Ford logo or part number, and having a pair of legit Ford ones that have both it raised a red flag.  On examination the way they were constructed differed from the Ford ones as well.  Obviously they were reproductions, aftermarket, or knock offs.  I should have complained, but I didn't.  They looked good, fit the wheels well, and I was happy with all but the price I'd paid and the fact that they were marketed as being Ford parts when they weren't.  The price I paid was for OEM, and I could have bought repros off eBay for 1/2-1/3 the price, likely ending up with the exact same parts Blue Oval sent me.  This was probably a year and a half ago.

Fast forward to a week ago.  I'm looking for various parts for my '89 GT.  I come across an engine wiring harness in eBay for $200 marked as NOS.  Repros are selling for $270 and up, so it seemed a screaming deal, and I figured, even if it was a repro its still cheaper than all the parts houses.  I purchased it and it arrived a short while later.  I opened up the box and inspected it and saw several things that raised a red flag.  There are two single post terminal sockets on the harness.  We've all seen these before, and Ford molds rubber around them to form a 90 degree socket, as used on coil wires, etc. from the '60s through the '90s.  These had shrink tubing over a metal terminal.  Its worth noting that I've never seen Ford use shrink tubing on any harness from the '60s-'00s.  Ford uses tape, usually cloth tape.  Speaking of which, this harness had tape that was vinyl where the original harness from my car had cloth.  There was a plastic push connector for routing the harness that was missing.  The wiring sleeves used on single wires was some kind of mesh like covering, where Ford uses that solid, fairly thick black sleeving (again, same stuff used from the '60s through the '90s).  I compared it to my original harness and this is what I found.  I've bought new harnesses directly from Ford before, and they are always exactly like the original.  There's no way this harness was made by Ford, or Ford's original supplier.  It certainly wasn't NOS, and wasn't any kind of service replacement either.  Bottom line, it was a reproduction, and not a terribly good one at that.

I then carefully examined the pictures of the reproductions on the web and saw that most of the features were correct, and they closely mimiced the originals.  I decided that low price or not I'd rather buy one of the more expensive, though more correct reproductions, so I contacted the seller and asked for a return based on my findings.  He said "ship it back and I'll refund your money".  I said "send me a call tag so I don't have to pay for shipping".  Still waiting on that, but its only been a couple days, so I'll give him another day or two before I take that to the next level.

Now, this got me thinking, because I'd seen other such harnesses for sale, some also claiming to be "Genuine Ford" and "NOS".  I found another one and closely examined the picture to find it was exactly what I'd just bought.  This one was being sold by Blue Oval Industries, and for $100 more than the guy I'd just bought from.  I contacted them and asked "Why is this listed as Genuine Ford and NOS?"  The response was that Ford no longer produces it, so its new old stock and why was I asking?  I replied that it was not made by Ford, and certainly wasn't NOS.  I knew this because I'd just bought the same harness and examined it.  I noted all of the differences as I did above.  I said I wasn't sure who was selling these as "NOS" to the various people out there reselling them, and assumed the mistake was one of ignorance.  This is where they started being abusive and belligerent.  I was told I was "worthless" and didn't know anything because they had 30 years of experience working for Ford.  I was told my email was "ridiculous" and to stop bothering them.  I never resort to this kind of stuff, you guys have seen me post before, even in heated arguments.  Name calling and abusive language is just childish.  Its the sort of troll behavior you see on forums where there are a lot of jerks trying to be hot @#$%.

I filed a formal complaint with eBay, we'll see where that goes.  I don't expect much.  How I was treated when all I was trying to do was let them know that they were selling reproduction parts as NOS and genuine, and even assuming that they had in turn been duped is insane.  Its clear from both this experience and my previous one that these guys know exactly what they are doing.  They are intentionally deceptive and fraudulent.  If you search their reviews they are terrible.  The only people with anything nice to say got their parts and never had to contact anyone for customer support or service.  Anyone who did, including people who ended up with broken parts were almost always insulted, hung up on, etc.  Its truly rare that I wish failure on anyone, but I certainly wish it on these guys.

Long story short, don't give these clowns your money.  Anyone know how I can contact someone in Ford's legal department so they can hopefully bring action against them for misrepresenting parts and using Ford's name to help sell them?