Author: SteeevO

Before I started Rugged Rocks, Nissan 4×4 parts were hard to find. Off Road shops and wholesalers didn’t carry them and in many cases they didn’t know they even existed. In those early days I manually went through the printed catalogs to consolidate the Nissan offerings into a single website, and special order parts through suppliers that had access to the parts but didn’t have them loaded in the systems. Once that was done I went on to building relationships with various brands working on special projects to bring more support to this forgotten circle of Nissan enthusiasts. The majority of this effort took place between 2006 and 2019. From Soid axle swaps, atlas transfercase adapters, headers, lockers, chromoly extended axle shafts, high output alternators, robust add-aleaf kits, ring and pinion sets built new as well as odd OE ratios from Japan, coilover shocks…the list goes on.

Fast forward through the pandemic and into a completely different economy, and industry. There have been a lot of brands bought by larger companies, some companies closed down, and the remaining have prices are constantly changing across every brand which has been a lot to manage, along inventory and production votality. Slow moving parts have also been Staying up to date become a full time job in itself.

In 2025 I had a major technology fail, crashing my website & phone system… everything ceased for a while.

The rebuild has been going well. It’s not just a restoration of old systems, but rather a fresh look at processes, managability, supply chains, with the goal of shrinking lead times, automating accurate info on the website, growing the catalog like it’s a fresh look at the industry, keeping my eyes peeld for unique problems ot solve, and best of all…. bring the Nissan 4×4 community back together… after all thats where this all started.

See you on the trail.
-Steven

Over the last 20 years, Rugged Rocks has accrued many valued international customers. Historically, shipping rates to ship direct has been high and therefore international customers have been directed to use a shipping forwarder. The tide is shifting and with the recently announced shipping rates, and for greater convenience for international customers, international shipping and payments has now been reactivated for online checkout.

In Addition, American Express payments are now being accepted.

Thank you for your continued business and support. I look forward to seeing you on the trail .
-Steven Lutz
President

New orders are now being processed often same day. This is still a small business but recovery and optimized systems are shaping up a lot, and overall running smooth.

Shipping has been switched from FedEx to UPS and have negotiated very agressively cost effective shipping rates. I hope this helps my customers as these tpyes of rates are something I had been attempting to get for years and it’s finally happened.

All product listings should now have corrected product description. Correcting these issues from a corrupt import was quite the challenge. Correcting the categorization and search capability for easy site navigation will be happening next. There are still thousands of broken category and Product URL’s floating around on the web from forums, social media, etc that are dead and will be restored during this process.

I am available full time, am very active on the phone and e-mails daily for tech support. If there is anything that I can help you with, please feel free to reach out via the contact form on the website or calling 909-547-4651.

Thank you for your patience and understading during this period of restoration. I’m looking forward to getting back into more forward thinking occupations beyond just restoration and into developing new products as well as getting back out on the trail soon.
-Steven Lutz
President