Dealing with Race Tech

Let me first start off by saying that I have had good experiences with Race Tech in interactions with them at the Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows in Seattle, and their products seem to be of very high quality.

I am pleased with how the products perform, the price is on par with the prices I found from competing products.


They did make it right in the end. However, having said that, and knowing what I know, I would not deal with Race Tech directly in the future. I would buy their products, but not directly from Race Tech.


Lets start at the beginning...

I went on their website to figure out what I need, found out what I needed, built my shopping cart and then decided I'd call to make sure I got everything I needed, and was buying the right spring rates for my riding style, bike, and weight. My call went straight to voicemail, and wasn't returned. But their voicemail suggested they are having an "unusually high" volume of calls and so maybe I didn't wait long enough?

I placed my order anyway...Well, I tried. I filled my shopping cart and went to check out. You don't check out through their website, you place the order, and they call you for your credit card number. What is this? 1992?

No big deal, I guess. I got my call for my credit card info and a total that seemed right. No order confirmation, but the total seemed right. "We'll have that on the truck later today!"

Shipping information was received the next day, not bad. 1 day doesn't make a big difference.

First, I noticed that they had sent my springs to Sunnydale, CA. Once they corrected that, it was on it's way to me. Watching the order like a hawk, I can see that UPS delivered the packages, so I call my apartment office to have them drop my packages in my front door.

1 box with 1 rear spring...nothing indicating that it was package 1 of 2 or anything. Hmm. I check my bank account. Sure enough, half my total.

Wait, what?

So, I sent an email to them, and below is the email chain between them and me.

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Hello,

Ever since finding out that you guys sell springs for my DR650, I've realized I had to have them.

So I tried to call to discuss my needs to ensure I was getting the right springs, and was met by a voicemail and my call was never returned.

I then gave up and ordered the springs online. The person who called me had no time to chit-chat, which is fine, but she didn't confirm my order, just gave me a total (which seemed right) took my credit card info and told me they would be on the truck soon, with shipping information to my email. No problem.

Except that the zip code was messed up. Once again, when I called, I got voicemail. Figuring I wouldn't get a call, I sent an email. A prompt response sent the package my way.

Cool, all is good, I'm happy.

I got the package. It looked a little small. In fact, it was too small. It had only the rear spring for my bike. Where's my front springs? Ok, the front office at my apartment complex must have the other box. I looked for "1 of 2" or something on the box to no avail.

I checked my bank account, and sure enough, I was charged about half of what I expected.


What is going on at racetech? I've heard nothing but good about your company and products which is why I ordered your products directly from you, but my experience suggests they either got lucky or something has changed.

It is very frustrating getting my order, only to have half of it show up.

Do I need to re-order? Is half of my order still processing or backordered?

Please help me get my bike properly suspended!


Thanks,
Jeff Holbrook

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Hello Jeff,

I am terribly sorry about the mis-hap with your order, yes it is correct the springs are on backorder. What I can do is get you close to a .75kg spring and get you a .70kg spring, I know it is not the one you ordered however it is closer. We aren’t expecting to get the correct springs until November. I am terribly sorry about that and let me know what you would like to do.



Thank you

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(name witheld),

This upsets me a great deal because it has been well over a week since I ordered these springs, and this is the first word that I've had that they aren't available. You have my phone number, email address, and even my mailing address.

My friend, who really got me to order from you, suggested that you are able to make custom springs because you did not have springs strong enough for him. Is this an option in this case?

Thank you,
Jeff Holbrook

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Hello Jeff,

I am terribly sorry about that and I am not too sure who you spoke with. We do not do custom springs but I do know of a company that does they are Cannon Race craft you can try them. I am really sorry and let me know if you would like me to keep these springs on order or delete the order.



Thank you

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...Ok, at this point, I called in the big guns.

I got a hold of the above mentioned buddy and got the email address of the people he worked with and copied them on my next email.

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The people my friend (name withheld) talked to were (name withheld) and (name withheld). He had to have springs spun up for him because he weighs more than the suggested weight for your springs for his KLR.

If this is for sure not an option, I guess I'll go with the .7 springs, as they are the closest, and waiting till November isn't really a good option either.

I guess the real issue here is that I wasn't contacted about the back-order status. That's really frustrating.


So, I guess send those .7 springs my way. If you didn't keep my credit card info, give me a call and I'll get you the numbers again.

Thanks for your help. As frustrated as I am, I do appreciate it and I look forward to getting these springs on my bike!

Jeff Holbrook

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Jeff,



Not sure how I got this email, but I got with (name snipped) on what was going on. We can make you the .75 that you want, not the .70. I will get those shipped out for you Mon at no charge on the shipping Mon. I will send you the tracking number once they ship. If you have any questions please contact me via email or call me (phone number snipped).

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Hello Jeff,

While I wa sin the back packaging up an order, I saw a set of the .70 and a set of the .80, so I have pulled them of to the side and we will make these for you and we will ship them out to you on Monday. Sorry for all of the frustrations, we are in the process of doing an inventory count as we speak hopefully this will rectify these problems. I have also let the sales person know who does the internet orders that she needs to check stock on parts when dealing with internet customers.



Thank you

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Thank you very much!

Is there anyway I could add to my order the Spring Adapter Collar (required to mount listed spring)
SPSR 4002U20

I just tore into my shock and my stock collar doesn't fit, and I didn't see that I needed the collar until today poking around on your website.

Or should I order it through the website?

Jeff

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...The Race Tech website doesn't make it clear that you need this spring collar, and there's no way to order them as a unit, and with their less than stellar interface, I didn't know I needed the collar until my shock was in pieces.

So I called and was actually able to get the person I was dealing with to have the spring collar added to my order before it shipped.

I got my shipping information on Monday as expected and saw the proper charge show up on my bank account.

The product install went smoothly thanks to taking my time, and mostly because Mic's quite handy with a wrench.

The springs are quite springy and I put them to a good workout over Labor Day weekend to MUCH success.

I look forward to my future Race Tech purchases, however, as I stated before, I will not be dealing directly with Race Tech.

The more I engineer, the more I understand engineers

Last night, I was looking at the brakes on my wife's car. I had heard some noise coming from the wheels last weekend, so I took advantage of some time and took the wheels off to look.

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At the suggestion of our Technical Director, I added some tattle-tale functions to the particle system. Full on logging of all particle add requests. I also added some functionality to track some other trouble spots. Also, in discussion with artists, they asked for a few minor debugging features. All these little minor features add up to create a VERY powerful system that will let us know IMMEDIATELY what is going on in the particle system with just a few button pushes.

-------------------------------

These are 2 separate events that really illustrate 2 levels of engineering prowess.

The particle debugging all came at the request of a more experienced engineer, and I didn't honestly see the reasoning. However, now anytime anyone comes at me with a particle question, I'm able to easily debug it for them on their machines, without having to go back to mine and step through the code to see what is going on. This saves TIME, which we all know is MONEY. Being able to easily tell what is wrong is great. But what if...?

The brake pads can't really tell you that they are worn out, but the little tattle-tale doo-hickey can. A simple bent strip of metal that sticks out the depth of the usable brake pad and drags on the rotor tells you that the brake pads are worn out.

What's the difference? The particle changes allow me to figure out what went wrong. The brake pads tell me before things go wrong.


Something to think about when designing and implementing new things...


As I was sitting there pulling off the wheels to verify that the noise I heard was what I thought it was, all this dawned on me. It's amazing what we can learn from other disciplines.

How Americans are imagined across the pond...

names changed to protect the innocent:

American:
I wish I had another 4 wheel drive vehicle with me today

Englishman:
another? for two at a time?

American:
I didnt' want to go out alone, but there was plenty of roads to play on
yes, 2 at a time...so someone can tow out the guy who gets stuck, lol

Englishman:
ah .... there's that much snow?

American:
there was maybe 6 inches on the roads
but it was packed and re-frozen, so it was crusty
if you hit the bottom of your vehicle, the snow wouldnt' give, and you'd be high centered right quick

Englishman:
thta was the advantage for me of working at a m/c shop all those years -- when there's that much snow it was gonna be slow & I'd just call in well!

American: so I stopped and just did my skeet shooting right in the road

Englishman: and taht's exactly the way people here imagine Americans to be!

HOLY COW

The $150 Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget

"two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth"




epic.




I really should post here more...

A step in the wrong direction...

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/foamy/

"People either love Crocs, those ubiquitous rubber clogs that come in dayglo colors, or hate them. We suspect people will feel the same way about the Croc-inspired Spira foam car said to deliver 100 mpg and a top speed of 70 mph."



How is 100mpg a step in the wrong direction you ask? Look at the picture. No one is going to want to drive that, and even if they do, they'll never feel safe.

However, as a motorcyclist, I'm more exposed than I would be in this car (or am I? on a bike I could at least be tossed out of the way...), so my position seems hypocritical.

What about this: we are trying to solve the oil problem by creating more efficient dinosaur burners, when we need to start looking towards alternative energy instead.


So, what's the pros to this little guy? meh, not much. You can get close to that many MPG's on a small motorbike. You can get more safety out of a small honda/toyota/hyundai...and get damn good mileage (and haul more poeple/stuff too to balance out the loss of mpg's). Oh, it's something no one else has, but so are yugos.


out.

grant and I had some fun today

Puppeh is a race fan!

We took Sage down to the races on Sunday, and she was totally stoked and wanted to be up in my arms so she could watch the bikes go by. It was hilarious.

We saw an awesome race, the top 3 guys duking it out to the final lap, and saw some good friends that I don't see enough.

whoo hoo!

I played a bit with a friend on sunday

today's project

Ok, this is 16 minutes long...but watch it.

watch it. you don't need the details. but if you listen to the last 30 seconds (after listening to the rest of it) you'll understand (as I do now) why I do some things the way I do.