Was this e-mail I just sent too Vorshlag nasty?

Your best way to bite back is to design and market the parts he does not want to sell/make. He might say you stole the ideas from him, that would be hard now since he refused to sell you parts.

You may have saved someone the time and frustration of trying to buy parts from him.

The internet such that it is has made it tough for folks who are not flexible and don't support GrassRoots builders. If he was smart he would have worked with you and used you as a lab rat for a new product. You would have been happy to put his stickers on your car, and your post here would have taken a significantly different tone.

Scott, you do realize that Vorshlag employees frequent this site. We play with cars too. We do have a generic, blank camber plate that we sell to the early Porsche 911 guys to be welded into a custom strut tower that you might have used.

SnowMongoose wrote: Without any knowledge of the sorts of liability they may or may not be incurring by selling you that part, I'm always a little off-put/confused when a company goes out of their way not to accept money from a customer.

There are a lot of reasons we won't sell parts to someone. Historically people that have bought component parts from us have not been able to use them properly and have frequently wanted to return them after damaging or modifying, or have failures with them that come back on us.

evildky wrote: Or they buy their parts in even batches or complete kits from a third party manufacturer and can not get the individual parts themselves.

This I take offense at. We have used outside machinist in the past, but have made a huge push over the last year to move all of our machining in-house. I personally program the CNC machines and do the tool and workholding setups. Terry posts photos of my CNC work on his Facebook page all too frequently.

T.J. wrote: I get that you are not happy because they didn't want to sell you something, but I can't fathom why you would copy and paste the emails here. What is it that you are trying to achieve exactly?

This ^^^. When you go public with this, trying to bully or shame a company that does not deserve it, you end up getting pretty much blacklisted as an unreasonable customer.

Type Q wrote: F6sk, I know nothing about Vorshlag. I don't what they are like as a vendor. I don't know your history with them. Based on what you presented here, your response sounded abusive and way out of proportion to what they wrote. I am not sure if this is what you wanted hear. But as complete outsider to the your situation, those were my thoughts reading your email.

And I haven't made it to work yet, but I suspect that if you actually sent that email, you are on your own.

flatlander937 wrote: I got a similar email when I started building my Mazda2 front suspension. I was told they're in the middle of making camber plates for it and would be ready by end of the quarter(I asked last October, so assumed Decemberish).

While I wish we had the resources to make camber plates for every car out there, I've had a grand total of three people ask for the Mazda2 top mount. We've purchased a strut tower to model it in, and had a car in for measuring. I've drawn the CAD files for it. But there are just too many other more pressing projects that are ahead of it. Right now we can barely keep up with the demand for our core products, though I do try to prototype five new parts per year.

Jason McDaniel - Lead Engineer, Vorshlag Motorsports

Small world. I know Jon Beatty. Very good friend of mine before he moved out there to work for Vorshlag.

When want something that is not sold seperately, what you say is: I have purchased and love your __ but while assembling my suspension I broke the __ part. Can you please send me a new one from your parts bin so I can repair my existing unit?

FWIW, I wouldn't find that email offensive but it doesn't accomplish anything so why bother?

"berkeley You" e-mails don't get red past the first sentence unless its to put them up in the lunchroom as the "Asshat Client of the Month" winner. Most companies have this award on an ongoing basis. You might have just won.

I have been following the Vorshlag projects for some time. The reason that they turned you down as a client is the same reason that most painters do when you ask them to paint over your bodywork: They are working very hard to create a Brand that is above everyone else. You can see this in the quality of their videos and the conversions kits they design. Branding is largely a matter of anticipating and controlling perception of your product. Vorshlag does not want people to see stuff cobbled together with their name involved.

My intention was say this "I'm sad. Sad I didn't get what I wanted, and sad for you for the missed opportunity. Perhaps could consider offering a universal camber plate without the studs, and a mix and match option for individual components. There is clearly a demand, I should know."

With a bit of humor at the start. Kind of like this http://stephenliddell.co.uk/2014/02/04/virgin-the-best-complaint-letter-in-the-world/

I will take all the heat for my letter coming across as harsh. It is absolutely true that I wanted to get a jab in because I was indeed annoyed. (Although in my defense I phrased my FU comment as a type of e-mail, an "F-U email" rather than directing it at any particular person)

That being said, I asked if this letter was too harsh and the consensus is that it was. So, I sent an apology e-mail to Jon, that I missed the mark on the comedy and was sorry If I offended.

He graciously replyed:

Scott,

No need to apologize. We do make a great camber plate, we just dont make one for every vehicle on the road. We get the questions and than the snarky comments after when we have to let people down that we dont have a part for their particular application, sooo we are used to it ;). Once again, we love to hear about one off builds or something out of the norm. But we also have to protect our product and its reputation. Our camber plates work due to how they are configured, once those individual components go outside the overall assembly, they just turn into "parts".

I appreciate your interest, I thank you for your email, and I wish you the best of luck on your build. Once its done, video or it didn't happen!

Thank you! Jon Beatty

Vorshlag Motorsports

I have no problem with their product. I wanted one and was angry when I couldn't have. (and lashed out like someone took my candy).

Hehe.... that was actually a pretty funny email from Scott. Sure, he was upset because we refused to sell him part of a camber plate (that we knew would never work in his application), but I felt Jon did a good job on his reply. And again on his second reply, which was hilarious (Scott can share all he wants). We assume all emails and PMs will be shared publicly anymore - that's just how the internet has become.

As for not selling him a set of our camber plate perches for his one-off camber plates, let me explain. We have been in business for ten years, clawing our way up from a garage based after-hours business to a semi-legitimate company with 10 people working here. It has NOT been easy and I've managed to tick off a few folks along the way, but one thing I've learned is - the customer is NOT always right. We used to bend over backwards to sell anything to anyone, but that was pointless and even damaging in some ways.

In the early days we sold several sets of spring perches to people like Scott, who wanted to add the benefits of our radial bearing spring perch to some pair of ding-dong eBay $50 camber plates. Or if they were trying to make their own one-off, like Scott. At $60 for a pair of perches (back then) we had maybe $5 in profit in the sale, but it often took several calls, emails, pictures, and way more time than a camber plate sale. There's a lot that goes into our spring perches, and they can be made in dozens of ways.

What happened on these $5 profit sales? They rarely if ever worked, and 95% of them ended up in returns and angry customers! We would get parts back that looked like they were dragged behind a truck on the highway DEMANDING a full refund + shipping costs + pain and suffering. Never mind that we warned them 8 ways from Sunday that it wouldn't work, the time we wasted with building their custom one-off perches, etc. It was a 100% money losing proposition for us and once again, we were the "Bad Guys".

So now we just refuse to sell them without camber plates (exceptions occur, of course - if someone can prove they have our camber plates but are switching from OEM to coilover or something, we will make perches to help them out. Even on used Vorshlag camber plate purchases). We are still sometimes branded the badguys, but at least we didn't waste our time AND the potential customer's time with a complicated assembly that almost never works. Plus, the perches are part of what make OUR camber plates last longer than anyone else's in the world. And I don't say that lightly.

Anyway, Scott was a good sport, apologized for his semi-dickish email (at least it was funny!), and hopefully one day he will consider us for parts on his non Isuzu I-mark builds. Seriously, innovating with a chassis nobody else tries is cool!

And yes, we DO manufacture everything on our CNC machines in house now, as of 2015 (edit: obviously we don't make the bearings, and we have a few non-critical 2D, flat parts CNC laser cut by a local shop). It was a huge investment in CNC machines, tooling, training, and had a STEEP learning curve, but it was worth it. We can finally NOT be at the mercy of outside machine shops and it also gives us an opportunity to develop and prototype more new designs. This quarter alone we have made more new products than in the previous 3 years - all because we can machine things FAST in-house.

Today Jason is designing, programming and machining spherical top mounts for the C5 Corvette shown above (where he was mocking up the MCS TT2 coilovers shown below). Totally new design, which will go from concept to metal in less than 24 hours. The customer is racing it this weekend, so it has to be done!

Cheers,

Terry Fair - owner at Vorshlag, a GRM fan, also has been labeled a "douche canoe"

check out our Project #Dangerzone C4 Corvette cheap-ass NASA TTC build here on GRM!

All successful businesses need to treat every transaction as a contract. (product or service). And to stay successful, businesses need to make sure those contracts are mutually beneficial.

No one can sell everything to everyone, and at some point, not everyone has to understand the reasons why a contract may or may not be beneficial to the other party.

p.s. Vorshlag has served me well in the past, and they supported their products via phone when I had a problem.

EDIT: I still can't spell vorshlag. Fixed.

Just because nobody believes anything anymore, we've gone from pictures to video... below is our semi-weekly weekly video series showing what's going on at our shop. Like the C5 Corvette development, some new C7 Corvette stuff we made, a custom chassis and suspension for a tube-framed 69 Camaro, two LS1 swap Alpha projects (FR-S and NB Miata), and a look inside our CNC room.

This Week At Vorshlag Video - June 15, 2015

Cheers...

Well said terry.

In reply to f6sk:

Way to man up, Scott.

Good job.

f6sk wrote: My intention was say this "I'm sad. Sad I didn't get what I wanted, and sad for you for the missed opportunity. Perhaps could consider offering a universal camber plate without the studs, and a mix and match option for individual components. There is clearly a demand, I should know." With a bit of humor at the start. Kind of like this http://stephenliddell.co.uk/2014/02/04/virgin-the-best-complaint-letter-in-the-world/ I will take all the heat for my letter coming across as harsh. It is absolutely true that I wanted to get a jab in because I was indeed annoyed. (Although in my defense I phrased my FU comment as a type of e-mail, an "F-U email" rather than directing it at any particular person) That being said, I asked if this letter was too harsh and the consensus is that it was. So, I sent an apology e-mail to Jon, that I missed the mark on the comedy and was sorry If I offended. He graciously replyed: Scott, No need to apologize. We do make a great camber plate, we just dont make one for every vehicle on the road. We get the questions and than the snarky comments after when we have to let people down that we dont have a part for their particular application, sooo we are used to it ;). Once again, we love to hear about one off builds or something out of the norm. But we also have to protect our product and its reputation. Our camber plates work due to how they are configured, once those individual components go outside the overall assembly, they just turn into "parts". I appreciate your interest, I thank you for your email, and I wish you the best of luck on your build. Once its done, video or it didn't happen! Thank you! Jon Beatty Vorshlag Motorsports I have no problem with their product. I wanted one and was angry when I couldn't have. (and lashed out like someone took my candy).

I applaud you for taking the time to apologize.

Thanks to Jason and Terry for chiming in. We've dealt with Vorshlag for years, and they have proven themselves over and over again to be a top-notch company that conducts it's business with integrity. I think the way they responded to this just reinforces this.

Thanks again guys!

This thread got a whole lot better since yesterday.

Datsun1500 wrote: The first rule in business is "The customer is always right" and every business should remember that. The problem is, many forget rule #2 "They don't all need to be my customer"

Unfortunately, the customer is often incredibly wrong and asks for things that wind up being fraught with peril. My day job is on the B2B sales side of technology and I'm often asked to do things that I know are going to be way more trouble than it's worth. I'll have customers ask me if I can send someone out to work on a storage array that has no manufacturer support and I refuse every time. I've got a brilliant dude that could do the work, but when something else goes wrong (and it always does) now I have an angry customer demanding that since my guy was the last to touch it I need to fix it after it was stuck by a meteor and it has to come out of my margin.

The heck with that. Sometimes you're not losing a customer, you are actually avoiding a problem.

What an amazing place GRM is. OP starts with what I thought was not the best of emails to be sent to a company. GRM hive then politely points out the errors of his ways. He apologizes to the company and makes it public here as well as the company's response.

Then getting several first person reply's from the company's staff INCLUDING a very detailed explanation of things from Mr. Terry Fair. (That by the way should be printed in the GRM magazine as I found it very informative and left me wanting more. . .. lots more)

Hint: Tom, Tim, (Somebody over at GMR headquarters) Mr. Terry Fair has a talent for writing as well as the design of suspension parts.

The short of it is you never see this on the internet.

One of the best threads EVER on GRM!!!! I just wish I had something that Vorshlag made parts for now.

And a big thanks to Mr. Terry Fair. Your post was very interesting to read and it left me wanting to here more specifics about things that you incorporate into your designs and more importantly why. I would also be interested to here some of you general takes on suspension theory and the modification of suspensions.

I thought it was funny. They are probably laughing still

wae wrote:

Datsun1500 wrote: The first rule in business is "The customer is always right" and every business should remember that. The problem is, many forget rule #2 "They don't all need to be my customer"

Unfortunately, the customer is often incredibly wrong and asks for things that wind up being fraught with peril. My day job is on the B2B sales side of technology and I'm often asked to do things that I know are going to be way more trouble than it's worth. I'll have customers ask me if I can send someone out to work on a storage array that has no manufacturer support and I refuse every time. I've got a brilliant dude that could do the work, but when something else goes wrong (and it always does) now I have an angry customer demanding that since my guy was the last to touch it I need to fix it after it was stuck by a meteor and it has to come out of my margin. The heck with that. Sometimes you're not losing a customer, you are actually avoiding a problem.

I think that falls entirely into the realm of Rule #2.

This all makes me smile. Maybe the rest of the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but people here are still awesome--and when they're not, folks here just work patiently to put things right. Thanks for being you, uh, everyone. (Cues up the song about buying the world a Coke...)

edit: Except a couple of you. You know who you are.

Margie

Marjorie Suddard wrote: edit: Except a couple of you. You know who you are. Margie

So not unlocking the GGA thread?

"Videos or it didn't happen"

Yup, typical Jon response haha

Knurled wrote: Summit doesn't give two E36 M3s about what you are using it for, when you buy Allstar sleeves and upper hats and lower perches. Just sayin'. I love how hoity-toity he is about how precision-engineered his whatever is. Isn't Vorschlag one of those companies that make suspensions for cars whose main attraction is that the suspension doesn't move so they look cool in a parking lot? You don't need to be very precision engineered for that, hell you could replace the strut with a 2x4 and it'd work just as well.

You couldn't be more wrong, which is typical when being snarky, go check out the track records, trophies, etc and who has Vorshlag products on their cars.

It's not some Taiwainese BC hard-parking junk.

Try again.

z31maniac wrote:

Knurled wrote: Summit doesn't give two E36 M3s about what you are using it for, when you buy Allstar sleeves and upper hats and lower perches. Just sayin'. I love how hoity-toity he is about how precision-engineered his whatever is. Isn't Vorschlag one of those companies that make suspensions for cars whose main attraction is that the suspension doesn't move so they look cool in a parking lot? You don't need to be very precision engineered for that, hell you could replace the strut with a 2x4 and it'd work just as well.

You couldn't be more wrong, which is typical when being snarky, go check out the track records, trophies, etc and who has Vorshlag products on their cars. It's not some Taiwainese BC hard-parking junk. Try again.

The only times I have ever heard of Vorshlag before this thread was in regards to stancebros ruining newer VW/Audi products and showing off sub-millimeter tire clearance.

This thread has indeed been enlightening for me. However this perception is out there, and it is indeed a damning one for a company that is indeed concerned about its image and reputation as a high quality performance developer/producer.

Knurled wrote: The only times I have ever heard of Vorshlag before this thread was in regards to stancebros ruining newer VW/Audi products and showing off sub-millimeter tire clearance. This thread has indeed been enlightening for me. However this perception is out there, and it is indeed a damning one for a company that is indeed concerned about its image and reputation as a high quality performance developer/producer.

Hehehe... sir, I think you have Vorshlag mistaken with some other company. Your description couldn't be more off the mark. We don't make anything for an Audi and barely make anything for a VW. And while I don't like to toot my own horn (for Vorshlag) it seems necessary now...

We build race cars. Top to Bottom, front to back. That's the main focus for our shop.

We also make the world's best spherical top mount camber plates. Again, I don't make that claim without some credence - our design is like no other, and many of our dealers used to be competitors. We also sell top tier monotube adjustable shocks from MCS and Bilstein, as well as AST and Moton (when we can get those two brands). We have worked with all of these companies to make new shock models to cover new cars, too.

Heavy fabrication doesn't scare us - we have been there and done that.

We build custom exhaust systems for race and street cars...

Vorshlag is known for V8 swaps, and we have made kits and turn-key LS1 swaps for 3 generations of BMWs, Miata and FR-S (shown above). 150+ kits sold to date, so this isn't something we just dabble in. Our swaps and kits are in books and magazines, and well... some say its the industry standard?

We work on a variety of cars from BMWs, Subarus, EVOs, Miatas, Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros, MINIs and more. If someone is gong to autocross or track the car, we want to make suspension, chassis, suspension, wheels, brakes and aero solutions for it. If we can, with the manpower we have.

The build thread for our C4 TTC Corvette that we built this year is chronicled right here on GRM. I'm driving this car at NASA Nationals, and I aim to WIN.

Our red 2011 Mustang is fairly well known as well, with wins in SCCA, GTA, Optima and NASA. It has set 16 track records in NASA TT3 class in the past 3 years alone. At the last NASA TWS event, on day, 2 I took one solitary lap all day. Reset the track record, 4.2 seconds over 2nd place, 11 in class. And this car still has HVAC, SatNav, full interior, and is street legal.

Some people see the aero work we've done and think, "Oh, a bunch of ricers!" but we don't give two sh!ts about the "looks" of the parts we make, just the functionality. If it doesn't make the car faster, it comes off.

Last but not least, this is our GRM $2011 Challenge winner, which I built in my home garage but with the help of about 14 friends - including some Vorshlag employees who volunteered their time.

We did that some years ago but race much more often in Vorshlag built cars since. My wife and I go to 30+ race weekends a year with SCCA Solo, SCCA Club Trials, NASA, GTA, and Optima events, among others. I live to race... not stance.

So yea, I think you might be thinking of another company. And don't take my word for it - come by our shop at 1703 Capital Avenue, Plano, TX for a tour. Or watch any of the hundreds of videos or the 80,000 images on our gallery page to see for yourself.

Cheers....

Datsun1500 wrote: The first rule in business is "The customer is always right" and every business should remember that. The problem is, many forget rule #2 "They don't all need to be my customer"

this is true. i turn down people on a semi-regular basis. "sorry i'm not the contractor for you" is what they get. my customers, however, get red carpet treatment.