Good God almighty! People. Please. Stop.

Tuners will prove themselves with proven products and proven knowledge. Tuners will not prove themselves with promises. (Or promises trumpeted by their so called lemmings((re-directed towards original author)). Every car tuner in the world has a product/idea "under developement". If they don't, they won't stay on top. The trick here is to develop the product and prove it prior to release. As the old saying goes,"if you want to get ahead, keep your nose to the grindstone (not the keyboard)." A big lesson could be learned from the forums on IS300.net, whereas tuner Swift Racing made promises for two years of some incredible turbo system that was to be released. After so much hype for so long with no results, credibility was lost to say the least. Happily, they now have released several turbo systems with 300-700 reliable hp. They have a long road to customer recovery though.

I guess the point is...if you have a proven product, promote the heck out of it. If you have ideas for product development, great. Develop it. Prove it. Then promote it. If you only lay out awesome promises, expect to be criticised until you prove it. Again, develop, prove, then promote. We all want to see incredible products for our cars, but please, let's be proffesional. Stop bashing other tuners (or the folks who buy and trust other tuners).

On that note...I can hardly wait to see what M7 will offer. The Venom system looks promising, though it needs more proving. Randy, your input to this forum is invaluable. Your advise has helped most of us with our mods. Thank you, and I'll see you on Cape Cod.

Motor on, peacefully .

 

Well said Bisch. Hell, look at diamond racing, they keep talking about these insane 400hp systems but have nothing to show, whereas Peter is trying to do things the proper way (where I come from) and that is to release info/products that are finished. He is a super nice guy, and is more than willing to chat, he is a very enthusiastic mini owner/tuner and he would love to talk about his race car that he is building, very cool stuff. I know the plasma booster sounds like an odd product with the name and all, and can be a bit difficult to grasp, but things sound promising in regards to customer response, and I'm sure some great info will come out of some more testing. Please do not run this guy off the board because we all have sand in our panties! It would be shame to see his effort go elsewhere. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

Blake

 

Sorry if it sounded like running someone off the boards. Not my intent at all. Actually, I'm very happy to see Peter, M7, responding to all of the Plama Booster questions and CF hood (gorgeous) questions. Many questions arose over a year ago when the PB came out for other cars. Also, it's not neccesarily the tuners themselves doing the bashing, but the butt kissing followers

 

grrrrrr! i hate sand in my panties! i love randy's contributions!

 

Ever heard the story about the 40 year old virgin bride who'd been married 3 times already?

Her first husband was very old & couldn't
Her second husband was very religious & wouldn't
Her third husband was a MINI tuner... he kept telling her how great it was gonna be but never delivered the goods.

 

Pretty damn funny!

 

For our tuners:
Yes do keep us informed. Be as accurate as you can be. We know there can be delays and changes along the way.
We want reliable and functional products so do the testing/R&D. Back up the claims with some track times and dyno numbers. Stand behind your products. Good customer service goes a long long way. Try not to make promises you cannot keep. Be honest. We can be your best customers- lets work together to make some great MINIs!

And yes, I also hate when I get sand in MY panties!
Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!

 

>>it's not neccesarily the tuners themselves doing the bashing, but the butt kissing followers

 

Hi hi

Thats more like it!!!!

 

SOunds good Sounds good...


:ear to the ground:

 

Why are the tunners even allowed here? Let them post in the released product section only. It seems that some tunners use the forum for free advertising. That must really **** off all the other paying sponsers.

I dont post much but it seems like all you get is marketing hoopla and it makes it hard to figure out what is truely a good product.

Willis

 

The tuners arent just here to market their products, theyre here to help out their customers and fellow mini enthusiasts with problems, questions etc

 

>>Why are the tunners even allowed here?

i would venture to say, ,becauase most of these tuners are mini owners and enthusiasts..and have every right to be here...just like we are her e

 

>>Why are the tunners even allowed here? Let them post in the released product section only. It seems that some tunners use the forum for free advertising. That must really **** off all the other paying sponsers.
>>
>>I dont post much but it seems like all you get is marketing hoopla and it makes it hard to figure out what is truely a good product.
>>
>>Willis
>>
>>
>>

Your right Willis, you don't post much. Not to be a **** but if you took a second to look at the "tuners" you would see that they are all sponsors who pay allot of money each month to be sponsors. You can be assured that if you ask them, they will tell you this kind of exposure is NOT free! Secondly, if you have questions about performance mods, why wouldn't you just go to the source and ask the people who spend night and day researching and developing the products? I think I can speak for allot of people on the board in saying that as much as I love my cooper and as much as I try to know about it, I have a day job, this is just a hobby, but for guys like Peter and Randy, this is their job, hence the being extremely knowledgeable about Mini's. Hell, come to me if you have questions about web design and graphic design, because thats what I do, but don't expect me to have all the answers to someone else's job/profession. Ok, enough ranting, I just thought that was a really uncalled for and uneducated comment about the freeloading tuners, just look, the sponsors are the tuners, not really sure where you got that idea about these guys getting banner ads and such for free.

 

Quick question here, fellas/fellettes:

*Who's/what's a "tuner" ??

I thank you all in advance for answering my dumb question ...

 

>>Quick question here, fellas/fellettes:
>>
>> *Who's/what's a "tuner" ??
Refers loosely to those parties that "tune" high performance versions of our MINIs (or other cars) such as the folks over at Helix13,M7, Randy Webb, etc. On MCO we have many.
May also refer to those companies that specialize in high performance upgrade parts for the MINI such as Alta, H-sports, etc.

 

>>Your right Willis, you don't post much. Not to be a **** but if you took a second to look at the "tuners" you would see that they are all sponsors who pay allot of money each month to be sponsors. You can be assured that if you ask them, they will tell you this kind of exposure is NOT free!

Ummm...maybe. I could be way off base here, and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But I haven't seen any announcements that M7 is a sponsor. And he's not in the sponsor directory. I'll just leave it at that.

Yes Randy is a paying sponsor and has been forever, so I think that he is more than entitled to shill for his products that are in beta testing and/or on the market.



________________

 

M7 pays several hundred dollars a month to be a sponsor here on MCO, his web guy just hasn't finished his banners yet. Even with that said, I'm not sure why there hasn't been a little blurb put up in the sponsor's directory about M7. I remember when peter first came to the boards and people started to give him hell about selling products w/o being a sponsor and his response told everyone that he had already had talks with mark about being a sponsor and had taken the necessary steps. Even thought that was a limited bit of info, I don't think it's fair to label all the tuners as bad guys who are taking advantage of sponsors, if someone has a question regarding a specific tuner and their sponsorship status, just ask. We all need to remember that these "tuners" work really hard when it comes to being helpful and informative to the mini community and I think we should all be a little kinder to them because some of them sacrifice alot personally to be our on call 24/7 mini therapists/mechanics. So, thank you randy, peter, and the rest of the helpful tuners.

Blake

 

I stand corrected. Pardon me.

 

yea, Mr. MCO won't put that little "Vendor" under your screename until you've forked over the dough

 

no worries. I've just been a bit frustrated lately with some of the heat M7 is taking. I'm installing the plasma booster I got yesterday as we speak. Actually I am just waiting for the ECU to reset, you have to unplug the battery for 20 min before you touch anything. I'll keep everyone posted.

Blake

 

Obviously some strong feelings here, but I seem to have noticed this thread going in two different directions.

First, Bisch's original post refers to product development, announcements and occasionally unsupported hype. I think he makes very important points that vendors should pay close attention to. Basically, develop it, prove it and promote it. MCO's members and the various forums have a place in this process. though the vendors should be careful. The members bang around a lot of ideas. Things that worked on other cars. What if scenarios. Also, importantly from a vendors point of view, possible need and demand. Much of these discussions are important to move MINI mods forward, but often are early in the process. If I were a vendor I wouldn't participate, but would read with interest.

Second, is the vendors'participation in the form of technical support and Q and A. Here, we do not want to discourage the vendors. However, this is a different matter then the one Bisch originally raised. Unfulfilled hype. I think we all appreciate more info relating to products "already on the market". Various vendors have different ways of supporting their customers. Some, directly through these forums. Others, through Q and A's on their web site. Still others by e-mail or phone. We appreciate their efforts.

I write this, since I don't want to see these two topics intermingled. In one, I agree that vendors should be discouraged from participation. In the other, I think they should be encouraged.

Apples and oranges.

 

Let's not forget, when it comes to guys like Randy - WE (the MCO community) are usually the ones ASKING for the information. Randy (just using him as the example) doesn't force his way around here. Look at the threads. We beg him for his knowledge, his information on products and his how-to's. And I for one, greatly appreciate him and guys like him!

 

You guys are missing the point. I will attempt to elaborate.

I was under the impression that the “Vendor announcement area” is the only area that they can post too.

It’s not fair that one or two vendors run the forum, have the ability to delete posts and always keep their posts at the top of the list. If you are a moderator you can do this.

In my opinion Tuners should NOT have MOD rights.

The performance fourm is not a sales pitch place and that is what it’s turned into.

Mini2 has this Policy why doesn’t MiniCooperonline?

 

Coopertino,

I can assure you, and anyone that has ever posted who is another vendor can attest, that as a moderator I have never erased another's post. I have also never kept my posts at the top (except for the How-tos, which I think everyone in the community would rather have in one place to reference easily).

As far as posting and involvement, it is open to all. If a particular Vendor wants to spend the time answering questions, or posting evaluations, or ongoing development of their producst, they can. One or two may seem like they run the board, but it a direct correlation to how much time they are willing to put into the forums. If any of the other sponsors would like to answer questions about products, or more importantly get direct feedback during development, that's allowed here on MCO. The more restrictions that are placed on the forum, the less the community benefits.

Until recently, there haven't been a lot of problems with Vendors or Sponsors posting - considering it is an open forum for MINI enthusiasts.

It isn't that MCO is right and MINI2 is wrong, it's just a different approach. If it doesn't work for everyone, that's OK, as long as there is a place you feel comfortable.

The meaning of my post is just to explain how things have worked here and why. I appreciate your feedback, as I'm sure the other moderators do.

Randy