Cracking down on newbies "claiming" to want to buy parts

[trd4life]

This is becoming a trend and it sucks. Its one thing if you post on here looking for info on what mods are available for our cars, thats cool. But dont waste everyones time with situations like this. example from newb :" I just bought a stock solara and i want to buy this, this , this and this for the car i have the mod bug. Does anyone here have these parts for sale i want to buy them now!?"

reply from reputable members." Yes i have that part for this much. Another member says yes i have this part that you are looking for as well for this price. Another guy says i have this other part you need"

But the newb never responds to anyone because either they were lying and dont own a solara OR they want all these mods but have no money.

Theres guys on this forum that sells parts and spend lots of time replying to WTB adds and answering questions regarding parts inquiries but nobody ever acutally buys the parts. Man things have changed since solaraguy was peaking with modders back in the day that acutally modded their cars.

Please guys dont post that you want a supercharger if you just got your car and have no money. TRD superchargers are around $2500 used. You are not going to get lucky and find one for $300, just not going to happen.

Again i want to make it clear that its totally cool if you want to get info on parts I acutally enjoy teaching new members about cool mods available for our chassis. But if you dont have the money, instead of saying i am looking to buy this this and this where do i buy it, just ask what mods are available and what is the cost and where can I can buy them when the time comes and i do have the money.

[hskrsolara]

what's just as bad (if not worse) is long time members doing the same thing. "when I get money, when my paycheck comes, in 2 months, blah blah, when I win the lottery, Imma buy a supercharger"... If you don't have the money, you're not in the market, no matter who you are. Quit wasting our time with this useless talk.

IMO, the guys that do this have ZERO credibility.

[DSM_Lara]

like that one guy named "Ineedasupercharger". lol

[Gregtrd]

Let's not even get started on the mac again or that other flake marcosolara.

[trd4life]

"once i get my bills paid off im gonna buy a supercharger" its like dude stop posting that crap.

[trd4life]

newb " man thats one nice twincharged solara, i'm gonna do that to mine soon and buy all the parts needed from you gabe i'll let you know soon"


uhhm ok.

[DSM_Lara]

buahahwhahahaha

[ThatVietGuy]

Just call the person out on it every time he does it.

"You gonna buy all this? BULLSHIT."

At the very least, you'll hurt their pride and they'll end up buying crap to prove a point

[SpeedySolara]

Gabe I agree with you 100%. There are so many flakers & lowballers on SG nowadays its caused many members to sell their superchargers, for example, for ridiculously low prices just to get the sale. Thats actually why I'm still holding onto mine. I still get calls & offers so low its borderline insulting. I hope things change around here & get back to like the old days.

[ThurzNite]

LOL, haven't you guys been around long enough to just start to ignore these things? If lowballers are your issue, maybe you should think about lowering your asking price, or educating the potential buyer why your asking price is what it is.

Can't deal with it? Let someone else sell your stuff for you, and take a % commission. Who knows, maybe they're better at selling than you are, and can even fetch you a better price too.

I'm actually surprised this thread is started by a company that supports this forum. If I bought a car, and went to the forum, and saw that post, I'd automatically assume the company/employee isn't agreeable, and probably priced unjustifiably high, and not even bother.

1 more thing: define your target market. What's your niche? Maybe SG isn't your market. If SG accounts for a small percentage of your business, why bother? Not worth the headache, move on. If SG is your target market, listen to what the members are saying.

Or, just copy what other companies have R&D, outsource manufacturing, don't bother with quality control, and compete based on price. trd4life, I know this's not you. You offer quality products/service and from reading your posts, your service and knowledge earns an A+. I suggest you make that part of your brand, and make people recognize you as such. But a n00b doesn't know this, they don't know anything about you, except what they read in this thread.

Dr J

[trd4life]

.

[trd4life]

Sorry but i disagree with you 100% I find some of your comments to be rediculous. I help a lot of people here. I have dozens of close personal friends on this forum that have all spent 30+k on their $5k Solara because they are true enthusiasts and they also all agree with me that these guys causing these problems all need to go. I have spent a $100K of my personal cash over the last 5 years designing testing and manufacturing products for this chassis and have shared all my info with everyone. pics, vids, tech info. Not because i had to , but because i wanted to. I talk with customers for hours about their cars over the phone helping them out, sending free parts to people, not charging them for parts of their order. You can sit there and say all you want that's fine if it makes you feel better go for it. But the fact of the matter is there is a lot of newbies PM'ing me to order parts I am nice enough to talk with them and give them tech support and go over options with them etc, and when you have someone verbally tell you over the phone they want this , this , and this, they are LEGALLY BOUND to purchase the product from me. If i wanted to be a d-ick i could actually go after these guys in court for bailing out on a verbal agreement. But i don't do that because I don't have time or money to do so.. I have every right to call out these fools for screwing up the forum and messing with all the reputable sellers. Your saying this about price? I'm giving people prices , they verbally agree at that point that want want to buy the product, i write up a purchase order, then email them or call them, and they blow me off. And your basically saying that ok to do? I'm one of the ONLY guys in the world that actually went and manufactured custom race parts for these cars. Went to the track and destroyed camry/solaras to get tech. data. This is a specialty business. You can't buy something then bail out on me. When that happens I eat the cost every time because and i still have to pay my machinist for the parts being made.

What if I call clutchmasters or ACT or TRD or anyone to order a custom made stage 6 clutch or supercharger from them , and when they call me back with the completed order, I tell them never mind keep it I'm all set now don't want it anymore fr5om have a nice day. Or if i ignore them snd jsut dont respond. How do you think they would feel? Do you think they would ever want to do business with me again? NO they wont. And its 1000% harder for me when this happens because I am such a small business catering to one only a few certain vehicles/engines.

[SirThomas88]

LOL, haven't you guys been around long enough to just start to ignore these things? If lowballers are your issue, maybe you should think about lowering your asking price, or educating the potential buyer why your asking price is what it is.

Dr J

Actually this has nothing to do with price. It's about people agreeing to a price, verbally agreeing to buy it, and then after Gabe spends his time and money acquiring said parts, bailing out and not paying for them. I think that's the issue Gabe was trying to get at.

[trd4life]

yes exactly

[hskrsolara]

LOL, haven't you guys been around long enough to just start to ignore these things? If lowballers are your issue, maybe you should think about lowering your asking price, or educating the potential buyer why your asking price is what it is.

Dr J

Actually this has nothing to do with price. It's about people agreeing to a price, verbally agreeing to buy it, and then after Gabe spends his time and money acquiring said parts, bailing out and not paying for them. I think that's the issue Gabe was trying to get at.

...and 2-5 years ago, I rarely saw this happen (this is also the point). Unfortunately, the forum is much more different now than it used to be. The wannabe's used to regularly get called out before and flamed til they figured it out. This process was very effective at sorting out the legit buyers from the time wasting wannabe's. Now, everyone gets their panties in a bunch when someone calls somebody out.

I remember I lurked for a long time before I started posting regularly, and made sure I SEARCHED and knew wtf I was talking about before contributing to a post. I remember Datsrboi getting flamed NON STOP in the beginning and look at how far his car came... and his early posts were far more educated than the noob's of today.

Nowadays, there is so much idiotic advice getting thrown (aftermarket headers on a stock 1mz, wtf???) around that it has actually spurred me to reply and set some of that misinformation straight. I'm prob in more PM conversations about tuning now than I ever was before, hoping to correct some of the crap floating around on here.

There's a lot of the guys that actually know their stuff that got tired of it and went away or quit posting. These are the guys that could actually contribute, but are turned off by the new crop of "self proclaimed experts" that are predominantly BS. It's not about just ignoring them as much as its about that crap was never allowed here in the past and buyers were legit.

Before your time, "Thurz", the forum was much different. It is not the seller's job to educate the buyer. They buyer should know wtf they are talking about before they buy and especially if they have the gumption to try to talk down the sellers price. When one member that doesn't know anything then tries to give another member/prospective buyer information (mislead based on incorrect information), we end up with the mess we have now. Gabe is right on.