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Ive had my share too..
Last year a guy brought me his seized 85SX motor. Apparently he'd done two laps of practice at the last event and it seized the crank. He needed it repaired for next sunday.
That week I fitted a new OEM rod kit, OEM mains, OEM seals, Vertex piston kit, OEM gaskets and he happily took the motor away the following saturday morning. I told him to dump the fuel he was using and refresh. He ran it up saturday afternoon without a problem, took it to the race on sunday morning, done two laps of practice & it seized again!
Now, he returned to me Monday morning fuming! Blaming me entirely, without any understanding that whatever went wrong last weekend had gone wrong again and it was due to his jetting/fuel.
After arguments and realising I was getting nowhere and risking a bad reputation, I sucked it up, done the job again F.O.C, absolutely made him promise me that he will dump his fuel & replace with fresh and check his jetting during a gentle run-in period. Until he knew 100% it was running safe he was not to stress it.
He did as I asked. The bike ran fine for the rest of the season.
But this experience made me really resent the job and customers. A paying customer rarely accepts that he's done wrong and thats a shame. They will always insist that they never made a mistake with fuel/oil mix and always insist that their jetting is "spot on" when in reality they haven't got a fucking clue about how it works even!
But if you are backed up with work for 5 months ahead, while doing some of the best work in the business, and not making any decent money, you are doing some things very wrong.
For fundamental starters...
I'm sure you build great motors, but it's obvious you lack the business sense to manage everything in a timely fashion. You repeatedly compare yourself to Pro Circuit. This is laughable because Mitch has built an empire over MANY decades! You've been around a tiny portion of that.
What you should be saying is that even Mitch, the defacto king, has had rough patches where he got behind and might not have communicated the best. You might say, "I f'd up. I didn't communicate enough because I've been putting in 18-20 hour days for weeks on end.
There are tons of ways to approach this, but your responses don't look good to the Vital members. You look like an excuse maker that just wants to make it on your resume, which is pretty damn impressive. As a business owner, you have to realize, your resume is what 10-15 riders. Your BUSINESS is the other few hundred that you do work for at your $120/hr rate!
If you are truly months behind on work, maybe skipping some of the races to get caught up would be a good thing. Explain to your racers that you are behind and you'll be at their next race.
Just giving you some ideas, because what you're doing right now, isn't working and it's making you look really bad to a bunch of moto people, and word of mouth can do more damage than any amount of advertising.
My .02, whether you want it or not.
The Shop
And if you want to keep score, I have had 2 YZ144's built, a YZ 125 , a YZ250, 2 Husky 250's , a KX250 , a Husky 125, an RM250 and Honda CR125 all done since our "exchange" . Thats 10 engines built. Some were just a normal port /head work, some required extra machining to accommodate different reed block assemblies, etc. However, NOT ONE took longer than 15 days from ship date to back to my garage. Yes, we are an older crowd and have no Lorettas aspirations, but we were all Pros back in the late 70's and can still get around a track at a respectable rate. The important part here for you ,is that since we ARE an older group and have made our way in the world, we can afford to pay for our toys and not ask for the "next superstar" discount. All we expect are TIMELINESS, HONESTY, COMMUNICATION, along with the expected quality work. TOM MORGAN and ERIC GORR have provided me/us with all the above, PLUS they are both an absolute joy to talk to. I've been told that Terry Varner is also one of the good guys, but since I have had no direct interaction with him I can't vouch for that. The things these guys have in common is that each of them have been doing outstanding engine work for longer than you've been alive , which proves 2 major points, they know what they're doing and just as importantly they know how to treat their clients .
What we don't want is to have to track down our parts, beg for them back, be subjected to being called incompetent fools,etc etc. ,which seems you have those "qualities" covered, lmao.
To recap--- I just added up the slips from Tom and Eric , and it appears that I've spent almost $ 10k with those guys, and not once have I regretted it !!!
So......I'm thinking it is YOU that should go kick rocks.
Moscrop- great post !!
The fact that he is somehow comparing himself to Mich Payton in the same sentence is laughable as the member above posted. Also insulting to Mitch & his legacy I might add.
It’s easy to reel these threads in. Respond with solutions not excuses. Solutions shut the 10 pager ragers down.
But let’s change the thread name so the poor fella doesn’t feel bad
Dude complains about too much work and being months behind..... Lol.... Ummmmm.... Ever hear of expanding???? Dude could make even more money by doing twice or three times the work by simply getting larger.... AND.... Work could actually be done n a timely manner.... AND old boy could stop whining about no free time.... Oh and btw .. if u have no free time, that is your fault, not Anyone else's....
Dude talks about how fast his engines are, but obviously doesn't give a hoot about customer service.... what does winning at LL mean if everyone hates you????????????
My summary of the problems were:
1) Embarrassingly poor communication
2) Broken promises and missed deadlines
3) Careless inspection of incoming parts
4) Careless inspection of Derek's supplied core parts
5) Shoddy repair and craftsmanship on the final product
6) Lack of effort from Derek's end to correct problems that he created
7) Unprofessional attitude, disrespectful posts on social media trying to save face for himself
My family owns an automotive engine machine shop and repair shop so I grew up in that environment - we did everything from race engines, to classic car restoration, to keeping people's daily drivers on the road. We had customers who were millionaires. We had customers who didn't have two pennies to rub together. We had to balance the fun, high-power builds, with cutting Jim's ford Escort cylinder head ASAP so the guy can make it to work the next day.
Your attitude and method of taking on more work than you can handle (or care to handle) reeks of someone who is OK with getting their "hooks" into a project, and then letting it sit once you know you have it locked down. If you need cash flow, then you have a reserve built up to work through when things slow down or money gets tight. Great for you in the short term, but pisses customers off who would have deadlines they want to meet (or that you yourself have provided!) Long term, you run your business into the ground once all your credibility is used up and bridges are burned. Then you end up like this - on blast on vital, I guess.
From your side: people can be difficult to work with or too demanding. Suck it up and welcome to business - if it was easy then everyone would be doing it. The customer is not always right, but if there is a trend like what we saw in the now deleted thread, I think you should take a long hard look in the mirror and re-evaluate how you operate. Lying to customers about being out at Loretta's, and then posting pictures of you hacking up some guy's 125 pipe in the shop just makes you look arrogant and foolish, and is frankly disrespectful.
You don't treat customers like dirt. If you have to prioritize work, that is fine - but you have to communicate that to the customer and keep them in the loop. If you screw up, own it and and make it right, don't talk down to people like you are some god of engine building. I have news for you - there are a lot of people laughing at the knowledge you like to spout at people. You're not the smartest guy in the room, and certainly not the smartest business owner either.
P.S: I got the "stuck" power valve bolt out that looked like a high school shop class took turns going at out in about 10 minutes. I might be looking for a helper if you're looking for a place to work after this blows over.
Pit Row
Lakewood:
Red Bud:
Hangtown:
Sorry GuyB, it was a reply on my post, not on Derek's. That may help DKmxFAN to get back to us
I did a very long post because someone with a 3 post account + like 10 downvotes called BS when I told that delays happen sometimes so I detailed a bit some experiences.
Now just for a little laugh, the french new generation (EPR) of nuclear power plant at Flamanville has a 10 years delay, and about 6.7 billion dollars of extra cost so far. And it is a true story from a company of 154.000 employees !
Post a reply to: Derek Harris – good/bad reviews