The Ford Maverick community is in an uproar after a major performance parts retailer for the popular small pickup seemingly went dark earlier this year with countless orders unfulfilled. Fast Mavericks is now in hot water with customers who have been waiting months for parts, refunds, or even a reply to their messages. The shop’s owner says he’ll make everything right, but the promise rings hollow with those who now have no other recourse for their lost time and money.
Update: Aug. 28, 12:45 p.m. ET: Gonzalez told me he has taken his web store offline while he catches up with orders, and sent over several receipts for refunded transactions. We have verified that the Fast Mavericks storefront is no longer up, though Gonzalez did not provide the names of the customers he claims to have refunded. The rest of the original story continues below.
Fast Mavericks was founded by Ivan Gonzalez, who built his business on the pioneering mods made to his Ford Maverick EcoBoost. Gonzalez’s drag strip-proven parts accordingly became some of the most popular choices for those seeking to make their little pickups quicker. He also made a business of modifying other Ford vehicles’ parts to fit the Maverick, such as flat-bottomed steering wheels, paddle shifters, and prindle-style shifters to replace the divisive stock rotary dial. (Disclosure: we previously wrote about his work in two articles, as we often do with new shops doing seemingly cool things).
But in the last several months, Fast Mavericks has started to leave customers waiting for parts they’ve already paid for, or shipping incomplete orders with the promise of completing them later. I’ve investigated multiple cases, and found a pattern of business practices that—while seemingly not ill-intentioned—have dug Gonzalez into a deep hole with the Maverick community.
I’ve found 20 claimed cases of Fast Mavericks customers receiving only part or none of their orders dating as far back as February 2023, and have made contact with five of them. It’s not clear when exactly things started to go south, but in recent months, a growing number of people in the MaverickTruckClub.com forum and Gonzalez’s own Fast Mavericks Facebook group have been reporting problems with orders. They collectively paint a picture of Gonzalez receiving payment, promising parts in a matter of weeks, but then stringing them along for months. For the last few in particular, it’s been hard to contact Gonzalez at all, as he seemingly has either disabled his personal Facebook Messenger account or has been blocking customers. For some, it’s their only point of contact with Gonzalez.
At the Maverick forum, Gonzalez was dismissed as a sponsor after failing to pay the agreed fees. Gonzalez’s own Facebook group has allegedly taken down critical posts according to two sources, though this has not been verified. As of publication, the group has multiple negative or critical posts that have not been wiped after multiple days. Group moderators, however, continue to downplay the situation.
As for the orders themselves, the earliest known unfulfilled order was placed by Calvin Butts, who got in on a group buy for an intercooler upgrade kit in February 2023. Over the following 14 months, Butts dumped $4,600 on a variety of Fast Mavericks parts, plenty of which arrived. He got a turbo upgrade, a Livernois tuning module, a lowering kit, and more. But others, such as an ethanol injection setup, flat-bottomed steering wheel, and part of his original intercooler order never arrived. Butts can’t get his money back, either: Gonzalez asked for payment over Zelle, though he compromised and accepted PayPal—but via a non-refundable “friends and family” transfer.
More recently, Andy Larrow paid $1,000 upfront for a Livernois tuning module, downpipe, and steering wheel back in February. Larrow hasn’t heard from Gonzalez since June, and started to get suspicious when he could no longer reach Gonzalez via Messenger. This communication breakdown occurred just after the expiry of the 120-day window most banks allow for filing chargebacks. Jason Gozum meanwhile told me he sent Gonzalez $800 for a steering wheel in May, and he too has heard nothing since. Because he paid via Zelle, he can’t apply for a refund.
Lastly, we have John Reichert, who sent Gonzalez almost $4,100 over a string of orders since November 2023. His first few orders arrived as expected, but a set of oil catch cans was delayed. While Gonzalez kept him waiting, Reichert placed more orders for an engine cover, gauge pod, and gauges. But the gauges, along with $1,125 in subsequent orders, never materialized. Or, in the case of his intercooler order, arrived damaged, which Gonzalez allegedly promised to replace. Reichert says Gonzalez never followed through.
“I have to say, I don’t think that Ivan intended any of this to happen,” Reichert said. “I want to believe he is a stand-up guy that just got completely buried by the popularity of the Maverick platform and the products he offered.
“He was always willing to help, and shared his knowledge of the platform freely,” Reichert continued. “He always returned calls or texts or messenger chats. That [is] what makes this so hard for those of us holding the bag. We all wanted him to succeed, and voted with our dollars to help make that happen. At this point, it seems like things have spiraled and now it is so far gone that I don’t believe any of us (close to or over 100) will ever get our parts, or our money back.”
While Gonzalez hasn’t been accessible to his customers, and didn’t respond to our initial contact attempt weeks ago, he reached out to give a partial account of his side of the story. Gonzalez has in various places throughout the last few months said that he is both overwhelmed by his order backlog and trying to relocate his business from California to the Carolinas (originally South, now North). He also said he has been stuck waiting on suppliers to finish parts so he can ship orders.
“I’ve been in contact with customers and orders started shipping today. I’m not trying to screw anyone,” Gonzalez told me in a text message. “It’s no excuse but things grew faster than one person could keep up.”
“I can and will right the ship,” he said. “I’ll get everyone their parts or refunds.”
Gonzalez provided me with a UPS tracking number along with the name of a customer the order was going to. I was able to contact this individual, confirm they placed the order, and that they had received a shipping confirmation via email. Another UPS tracking number was provided for a separate order, and I have verified that the package was overnighted to Illinois, though the customer’s full name was not given. A post in the Fast Mavericks group seeking customers who have heard from Gonzalez received no comments reporting any sort of contact.
You’ll also see in those messages that Ivan asked me not to publish anything to avoid making things worse while he works to catch up on orders. It’s an understandable request, but not one The Drive can agree to in this situation. We first learned about the problems at Fast Mavericks when disgruntled customers started reaching out to us directly to question why we wrote articles promoting who they suspected to be scammer. The fact is we have no way of knowing whether a startup we highlight in a story will grow into a legitimate business or fall into crisis. But we also owe it to our readers to provide a follow-up like this when things go bad. I haven’t found any hard evidence that Gonzalez set out to scam people. But staying silent at this point will make everything worse for all parties, including Fast Mavericks.
Even if Gonzalez has been acting with the best intentions all along though, his business practices and poor communication have dug him into a deep hole. Gonzalez seemingly isn’t stopping it from getting deeper either, as the Fast Mavericks online storefront has remained open to take new orders through it all. A poster in the Fast Mavericks group who texted the phone number on the business’s contact page also received a reply to an inquiry about parts, with no acknowledgment of the company’s order backlog.
On top of this Gonzalez continues to list parts for sale that he seems to neither have in stock nor the ability to acquire in a timely manner. The Fast Mavericks storefront currently lists a set of coilovers from a manufacturer called Silver’s, whose sales team I reached out to. A sales manager for Silver’s told me they had sold Gonzalez a single set of coilovers for his personal vehicle, and set him up with a wholesale dealer account. But the manager says company records show no subsequent orders by Gonzalez. When the company became aware of the outcry against Fast Mavericks, the manager suspended Gonzalez’s wholesale account. This means Fast Mavericks is listing a product for sale that it can’t actually provide at present, which might explain how the company got into the situation it is now.
We don’t have enough information on what’s really going on behind the scenes at Fast Mavericks to characterize the situation beyond what the community is saying. The best-case scenario is that Gonzalez tried to build a legitimate business selling parts tested on his own personal truck, but bit off more than he could chew, and made some bad choices as the volume of orders overwhelmed him. Then again, the fact that he’s still taking orders without disclosing the current situation to new customers makes it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.
At this point, even if he makes things right with every customer who has been shorted, he still faces the challenge of regaining the trust of the Ford Maverick community. It ain’t over til it’s over, but not Fast Mavericks now has a very steep hill to climb.
Got a tip or question for the author? You can reach them here: james@thedrive.com