Is Tomei really Chinese product?

 

Agreed!

 

I forsee this whole Q and A turning into a game of cat and mouse but ok let's start with how Jims miraculously found out exactly what Techart products are worthwhile copying and also how did they got hold of that Shark werks GT3 bi pass exhaust system I saw you buys selling a few months back? Or is that all just all sheer coincidence too and they contacted you and said hey Vivid do you guys want some of these cheap and nasty SW and TA copies? Bottom line is someone from your way very obviously sent the originals to them for copying....no question about it, so let's get real ok. Jims are in China so how on earth would they know what to copy unless someone from USA gave it to them?

Trying to water down your position in the matter by shifting the attention toward other vendors that are also selling this crap as well is just an attempt to the avoid the glaringly obvious. It's who started the ball rolling in the first place and you guys are obviously their key customer for this rubbish and have been for a while now. Or is everything just sheer coincidence?

Ok i accept you guys are hardly likely to fess up but just remember some of us didn't come down in the last agency shower. It's pretty obvious what's going on.

Now the other question is why do you guys sell these one size muffler fits all "showers" when they perform so badly and wind up in the bin? And what is with all that glossy blue tinge nonsense? Why the need for **** and glitter tactics to suck the less fortunate in? If the stuff was any good you wouldn't need to dress it up like that.

 

yeah fabspeed and Meisterschaft have been accused of similar things before. Tomei really surprises me though.

I dont have a problem with asian products per se, but when you say they are made in the USA or even in-house or whatever and are actually chinese mass produced items... then I have a huge problem with them.

Some of the stuff in china can be okay. I bet meisterschaft's stuff is china made (in parts) and their exhausts sound amazing (I know, most of them are simply unresonated muffler bypass pipes with tips, but hey it works!!).

 

Isn't meisterschaft what was the Chinese knock offs Eisenhaus was selling as eissenmann before that whole debacle happened?

 

As far as i know Meisterschft is Korean made, not Chinese. I could be wrong.

 

From what I understood when the whole Meistercraft thing went down on M5 board, the biggest issue was not just that it was a chinese copy, but the importer was selling them along side the authentic Eisenmann products for the same money and marketing them as if they were simply a different model of an Eisenmann product. To me, I think that is much worse than simply having something made in china.

I don't have any dog in this fight as I don't have a 997TT yet (just enjoy reading the boards for info, so when I am ready to buy I will be really well informed!) but at least Vivid is admitting they outsourced it, and at least vivid markets their stuff as a lower cost alternative. Now the performance of that alternative is another question altogether that has already been addressed by many more knowledgeable people than myself. Whether or not you want to buy knock off TA parts or the real thing is your own decision, but at least they are telling you its fake up front. The meistercraft stuff was being sold for the same money or more than the real thing and people were being told it was the real thing.

There was another great thread on (not sure if I can actually post another board, and I like it here, so...) Fabspeed. Tomei I guess is the one that really surprised me being on that list since they market their stuff as being "JDM" and made in Japan. I've never been a fan of that trend as I think their are plenty of good tuners here in the US, but I think it would be especially ironic, as well as deceptive marketing if something marketed as JDM was actually made in China.

 

First they have been producing this style tip for years now. They were doing it well before we came along. They are just now making it in a titanium finish that we are offering.

The GT3 Bypass. We make that here. At Vivid. In the USA. There are only so many ways to route that piping.


I dont get the deal behind the mufflers. We have dynoed and tested dozens and dozens of these and shown power gains without any boost loss.

The tip coloring. We offer two options. Does everyone like both styles? Probably not. Lots of people desire that look though.

 

Yeah! Fabspeed...

 

I think it goes a lot deeper than this. Having the option of buying the same (looking) thing for less money is sometimes not all its cracked up to be at all.

Copying/replicating some one else's products, having it made in China so know one knows who was behind it (i.e. hey it wasn't me that gave them the stuff to copy....everyone else is selling it) and then marketing it using the inventors intellectual property (i.e. TA style front lip and so forth) to gain market recognition for that product, for the clear purpose of stimulating interest and sales is an offence in most developed countries. And saying your product IS the inventors when it's really not is just suicide if you get caught out. That is asking for trouble. It's a dangerous game.

There are other downsides. Where the inventor loses market share which reduces the profitability of his exercise , they inevitably lose interest in further designing and developing good products for the end user. Future design principles and quality ends up suffering as a consequence. This creates an ever decreasing circle for the end user that expects/relies upon quality design, engineering, and use of high quality materials from an inventor who has previously shown to be passionate enough and/or clever enough to have come up with the idea in the first place. I have seen this happen from well known OE brands already.

Copies are generally always of a lesser quality....and often in more ways than one. So whilst the customer can buy a product that appears to physically be the same for less money usually is not the case at all. Hence the saying you get what you pay for....buyer beware etc. I hear this statement being made about Vivid a lot just on these boards alone, then there is google (crikey moses!) so these guys are not at all what they are cracking themselves up to be! You see they can say whatever they want to water it all down on this thread but the fact is why are there so many complaints and so much animosity out there now. Maybe they can answer that question?

The irony is everyone is looking for the bargain these days yet are usually the first to complain when the cheaper product fails them or doesn't deliver in the same way as the original....which is usually the case. Once again you get what you pay for. So these cheap copy products are traps for the consumer and create issues along the way for everyone involved. The healthy margins in the copies usually make the aggravations worthwhile for the vendor who sees the opportunity (such as Vivid here)....but in the end, the user always has higher expectations. Therein lies the problem. Sometimes i wonder should Vivid be blamed for all of this or should the purchasers of this junk accept the fact they should have known better? Well if the product has been fairly marketed? Yes. The consumer should take his medicine in these instances and move on.

Vendors that hold the concession for the inventors quality products also suffer because they find it harder to sell the same product for the same price and make an acceptable margin against the vendor who has sourced rubbish copies and who markets the products as of the same quality for less using stealthy marketing practices. Vivid has their nose deep in the trough on this. We have seen evidence with power claims for tunes, exhausts and other products that don't perform any where near the marketed claims. So should the purchasers be blamed here? No. Vivid is entirely responsible and that's why there is a lot of disgruntlement out there.

Again the quality driven vendors lose interest in providing quality products as it becomes no longer viable to do so. So the end user eventually becomes the loser and will wind up with only rubbish to choose from in the end. As i said, it becomes an ever decreasing circle in the sense that good quality products become extinct through greed and stupidity of both vendor and consumer.

China created the comment throw away world because if something doesn't live up to expectations, which is 99.99% the case with these unlicensed products, then just go buy another one and keep filling the bins up. But don't whinge when you find that for all the disappointments and farting about spending more money when you should have paid the money for the real deal to begin with...which wasn't that much more anyway. How many times have i heard this story?

One need only to take a snapshot of some of the products we've seen in recent times such as that rotec rear diffuser that cost a fortune to fit (yet is still no bloody good) and the Agency shower exhaust that's turfed in the dumpster. Im sure thats jus another happy story right there And these are only the ones you've heard about on the forums? Many guys buy this crap and often you never hear about it because they are to embarrassed to let anyone know they were stupid enough to get c0cked and rolled.

No offence but the way some of you guys are thinking you are going to need a lot more dumpsters soon by look of the rubbish that is being spruiked as gold. But don't worry there is tons more of this junk to be had as you see by the arrival lists. But fortunately for the importers there is an endless flow of victims out there.

What's wrong with supporting the guys that have the good stuff or is everything thought from the wallet these days? Sometimes i wonder why some guys here even buy a Porsche. If saving money is so important guess what? There are Kia's and Hyundai's to buy.

 

NOT A NEWS FLASH! They have sold outsourced crap for years! All the while trying to make the consumer think they are "buying American".

Why do you think you can buy their stuff for half in the used section. While EP stuff holds its value? Quality! Quality of the product and quality of the company. The EP guys don't hard sell like fab. They also stick by what they say and have real quality products. Try getting joe to back up his products!