I knew these shocks were coming out because they tried to go behind my back and contacted my supplier multiple times to sell directly to them and not buy through me.
A few months later a local customer of ours sold their car to a person in Florida, and that person sent his car to another place where they told me the shocks leaked after 250 miles and must be replaced. Per the text messages and emails I was forwarded by the car's owner, our shocks were removed and sent to a suspension shop and put on a dyno to be evaluated; I suspect they did this to get our spring rates and valving data, all things I paid a lot of money to get right. What a surprise there is now a shock offered for less. The retail of these is $1100 less than my cost. After pushing back on the hard upsell of the need for new shocks because they were leaking, it was disclosed to the client the shocks were not leaking as this was just assembly lube from when we assembled them. I have all of the emails and text messages from the Florida guy to back these comments up. The man was so discouraged over this, that he took a $40,000 loss on the car and sold it. Owned it for less than 90 days.
Our shock and spring setup quality is far superior to these; I can give you a dozen reasons why, but what irritates me is that we paid $20,000 to have them developed by a Lotus race team supplier. Anyone driving our shocks will tell you their roadster drives better than ever. I would put our top-quality parts against these and see who lasts the longest. Which car handles better, corners better, and has a more comfortable ride?
It is the same situation with our American-made Carbon parts and other parts we have made. We sold zero carbon online after the cheaper carbon parts hit his page for half my cost: nothing, zip, nada. There is zero incentive for me to keep making parts for your Roadsters when, as soon as someone offers them all for less, you buy them and don't buy from us. This is happening with every single part we make. I guess most of you have forgotten how many before me took your money and produced nothing. We are the first to keep our word and make parts for these cars.
Many parts need to be made for the longevity of these cars; why can't they make other parts and not copy us? I'll answer this myself. Because I know what I am doing, and I developed most of the upgrades for these cars when they were new. I don't need to copy anyone; I was the last editor of the Roadster shop manual. Tesla did not sell me parts for eight years, but I survived; again, I know the cars and all the original suppliers—those who don't know copy.
You don't see me making podcasts and videos bragging about our 30 million dollar portfolio; you see us working hard to save roadsters from the scrap yards. we put most of our profits back into new parts and sometimes we barely make payroll. We are a small four-person family business that has not wrecked, damaged, or destroyed 60 roadsters; we save them if possible.
But as business goes, the guy with the most money eventually wins, and we will be out of the roadster business. Cheers
