M Power Motorsports Rips Off Slon Workshop

[Abdul]

Originally Posted by Mpow-wow

Is there a raffle we can enter? 😎

That's a good idea. Man, I have at least 50 messages and I'm not sure how we should chose who to send them to. First come, first serve or raffle? Or something else? Suggestions?

[Mpow-wow]

Originally Posted by Abdul

That's a good idea. Man, I have at least 50 messages and I'm not sure how we should chose who to send them to. First come, first serve or raffle? Or something else? Suggestions?

Is there a raffle we can enter? 😎[/QUOTE]
That's a good idea. Man, I have at least 50 messages and I'm not sure how we should chose who to send them to. First come, first serve or raffle? Or something else? Suggestions?[/QUOTE]


Well id gladly take one! But you could do pick a number between blank & blank, and closest gets it. 🤷

[MaximusB]

Originally Posted by Abdul

That's a good idea. Man, I have at least 50 messages and I'm not sure how we should chose who to send them to. First come, first serve or raffle? Or something else? Suggestions?

First come first serve as per original post

[Abdul]

Originally Posted by MaximusB

First come first serve as per original post

You're already on the list. You made the cut. Since I already committed to you. lol. That's the benefit of waking up early in the morning.

[Ccieszyn]

Originally Posted by Abdul

You're already on the list. You made the cut. Since I already committed to you. lol. That's the benefit of waking up early in the morning.

@abdul How about me? lol

[nycplumber]

Lol I love how shady people on this forum act holier than thou and then get called out. Props to @Abdul for doing it with class. Everyone else get your screenshots before the facts get hidden

[Bimmer Barney]

I should get a pan because I've left you a positive public review in past for great service on the T/A's and didn't jump on the flamer bandwagon

[Dpc2u]

.

[Ab28]

I'll second that it should be first come first serve regarding the pans.

[drwankel]

I think the pans should only go to users name drwankel. First 5 users with the name drwankel get the pans.

[Abdul]

Originally Posted by drwankel

i think the pans should only go to users name drwankel. First 5 users with the name drwankel get the pans.

😂🤣🤣🤣

[Redd]

Hi Abdul, thanks for the long reply. First off, I have always considered you a reputable M3post vendor. I said as much in my original post, and like you said, have given support to the products you sell even though I am not your customer. It was this respect that I had for you that made me all the more shocked at what you did.

If you had come right out from day 1 and said what you wrote in your explanation, we would not need to be here debating with each other. Just come out and say that due to perceived logistics and pricing issues, M Power has decided to release a replica of the Slon VANOS cap at a lower price. You'd be a hero for supporting the community. If you had shared how you were making such a small profit for the benefit of the M3 owners, you'd also be scoring major points for yourself and M Power.

But you did not do that. Let's look at the facts.

Fact #1 - In your Instagram post which I screencapped, you claimed to have "engineered" these caps. Your words, not mine. You then changed it to "retro-engineered" after this got blown up. We can argue for hours about the definition of the term "engineered" but since we're being honest, you know that your intention was to give the impression that you had designed them in-house. You did not. You copied the Slon design. Yes many people make replicas, but no one goes around claiming a replica GTS wing is an original design.

Fact #2 - You proudly claim that your VANOS caps are "Made in the USA". Again your words, not mine. Then, it was found out that the image you used was from a China supplier. China is not the USA. I don't know why you decided to use the China pic when it would have been easy to take your own pics because you have all the cap samples in your possession since you would have presumably done testing on all of them before deciding on using the Bulgaria supplier (as you claim). I have my suspicions but no proof, so I shall keep them to myself.

Fact #3 - Thank you for sharing all your costing, big brownie points there. However, I don't think I saw one for the US supplier, and Bulgaria still isn't in the USA.

Fact #4 - Even if there was a US supplier, it would mean that there was a chance a buyer might get a Bulgaria made set. Still not "Made in the USA".

So that's the end of the facts.

As you can see, everything I claimed in my original post is still true. Look, I come from sales and marketing, I know what you're trying to do. Slon has a good design but he's expensive and a difficult vendor. What his reasons for ignoring you are, I have no idea. I've never had issues communicating with Mikhail when I bought his pan and VANOS caps directly.

So let's copy the Slon design (why fix something that ain't broke) and see if we can offer it cheaper. Your China part (the only pic I have to go on) is stamped/folded from alu plate. Slon's appears to have been CNC-ed from billet. Kudos for finding a way to reduce cost. Sure it may not be as strong as billet but it should work fine, and who doesn't love a discount?

Then let's see if we can drum up some extra sales with the "Made in the USA" slogan because that implies all kinds of good things right? And to make sure we get some people saying good things about us, let's give away some DCT pans (brilliant - but expensive - move!).

You're free to run your business as you like, Abdul, and I'm sure you are very successful doing it. Just don't be surprised when some people see thru the hype for what it really is.

[Bimmer Barney]

Also on the topic of hype…I just changed valve covers and timing cover gaskets. Inspected the original caps. 91k miles and I've done some track days. My car is very well maintained. Caps were in perfect condition. No replacements needed for me!

[Redd]

Originally Posted by Bimmer Barney

Also on the topic of hype…I just changed valve covers and timing cover gaskets. Inspected the original caps. 91k miles and I've done some track days. My car is very well maintained. Caps were in perfect condition. No replacements needed for me!

Mine were also intact - no cracks or coming loose - at 145k kms.

[LakeSurfer]

@redd I'm not trying to be a dick but here goes. what makes you think he owes anyone an explanation on how he runs his shop? You wanted him to come out from the get and say, hey I copied these parts from someone else? What? Who would do that and what would the point be? So you feel better about…… about what? Do you request that info on the millions of other products that we all buy everyday? When you buy generic toilet paper do you expect them to give props to Charmin? It's the exact same product but at a lower price. Do you protest Wendy's for copying bigger kings fries?

Again the term "engineered" has been defined and it means nothing close to what some are implying. If he said that he drafted, tested and prototyped the product and didn't, I'll be the first to call him out but he told us what he did by the words he used. It's your mistake for reading into it or not understanding what the words mean, not his.

And as far as what you think his intentions are, we'll that's just your speculations. None of us know his intentions but the only thing I can assume is that his intentions are to sell parts to M owners. I'd say that's a pretty good thing.

I don't know the guy and never bought anything from him but this is a BS post, bashing a company for innocently doing something every company does.

It's insanely difficult to run a business, any business, especially in this messed up market. Y'all need to give a guy a break.

[Ximian]

Originally Posted by LakeSurfer

what makes you think he owes anyone an explanation on how he runs his shop?

While nothing is owed, there are plenty of us that look at this and will choose not buy anything from his business*. Same with the slimy "group buy" organizer. It's in his interest to explain the situation, especially when it's potentially hurting someone that actually supports the community by providing innovative products.

*assuming it is a business, why haven't BMW's lawyers completely destroyed it for the trademark infringement? Not wishing them anything bad, but it is pretty blatant.

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by LakeSurfer

@redd I'm not trying to be a dick but here goes. what makes you think he owes anyone an explanation on how he runs his shop? You wanted him to come out from the get and say, hey I copied these parts from someone else? What? Who would do that and what would the point be? So you feel better about…… about what? Do you request that info on the millions of other products that we all buy everyday? When you buy generic toilet paper do you expect them to give props to Charmin? It's the exact same product but at a lower price. Do you protest Wendy's for copying bigger kings fries?

Again the term "engineered" has been defined and it means nothing close to what some are implying. If he said that he drafted, tested and prototyped the product and didn't, I'll be the first to call him out but he told us what he did by the words he used. It's your mistake for reading into it or not understanding what the words mean, not his.

And as far as what you think his intentions are, we'll that's just your speculations. None of us know his intentions but the only thing I can assume is that his intentions are to sell parts to M owners. I'd say that's a pretty good thing.

I don't know the guy and never bought anything from him but this is a BS post, bashing a company for innocently doing something every company does.

It's insanely difficult to run a business, any business, especially in this messed up market. Y'all need to give a guy a break.

In this market more than ever, the HOW matters.

These were developed by Slon as one viable solution to a potential problem that can result in plastic shards clogging the pickups and blowing the engine. Therefore if you're going to copy a part and pass it off as your own (which is a documented fact), you absolutely owe an explanation to your market and potential customers. It's a hard to replace engine…

I guess I'm fortunate not to be sweating a couple hundred dollars. But I don't cut corners in general, so I don't have much interest in supporting those that do.

I guess, we have different values.

[LakeSurfer]

Originally Posted by DRLane

In this market more than ever, the HOW matters.

These were developed by Slon as one viable solution to a potential problem that can result in plastic shards clogging the pickups and blowing the engine. Therefore if you're going to copy a part and pass it off as your own (which is a documented fact), you absolutely owe an explanation to your market and potential customers. It's a hard to replace engine…

I guess I'm fortunate not to be sweating a couple hundred dollars. But I don't cut corners in general, so I don't have much interest in supporting those that do.

I guess, we have different values.

The how matters? Do you know who makes your Nike shoes? You ever seen one of those Chinese factories? Well they're actually starting to move out of China because they and several other companies don't like the fact that the Chinese are adopting stickler labor laws. Most of the stuff we buy and eat comes from despicable processes far worse than a copy of a good design.

It's up to you to decide where your money goes but you can't demand or expect anyone to give you anything other than what you paid for. No one owes us an explanation. And if that's truly important to you and your values are superior to mine than I would suspect you would be one of those tiny home, off the grid folks. But I don't think any of them drive luxury sports cars, so what are we doing here?

It would be safe to assume that most of us here are fortunate enough to fork over a couple hundred more for a part from someone else but again why would you? Do you think any business cares about you in this same manor? Because they don't.

You think it's shady or whatever and that's fine, I'm not arguing that so much. I think it's shady to slam a guy for doing what every company does. I think it's hypocritical to boycott this one thing when there's so much worse that we spend our money and time on every day.

I tried living an ethical, sustainable, free range, cotton life and it's damn near impossible. I've moved on to protect and invest in my assets and my family. I do and pay for a lot that I feel bad about but theres only one person looking out for me and that's me.

[LakeSurfer]

Originally Posted by Ximian

While nothing is owed, there are plenty of us that look at this and will choose not buy anything from his business*. Same with the slimy "group buy" organizer. It's in his interest to explain the situation, especially when it's potentially hurting someone that actually supports the community by providing innovative products.

*assuming it is a business, why haven't BMW's lawyers completely destroyed it for the trademark infringement? Not wishing them anything bad, but it is pretty blatant.

No lawyers are hunting this guy down because he's done nothing wrong. No trademarks, no patents pending, nothing. You know they all would if they could but they can't because they've got nothing.

If you wanna pay more for an "original" part and you'll sleep better at night, then go for it. I'd prefer to have more options with fewer numbers after the dollar sign.

[jp1984]

Originally Posted by MaximusB

First come first serve as per original post

First come first serve. its fairest.

[Ximian]

Originally Posted by LakeSurfer

No lawyers are hunting this guy down because he's done nothing wrong. No trademarks, no patents pending, nothing. You know they all would if they could but they can't because they've got nothing.

Using the M logo, "M Power" along with all three including "Motorsports" is certainly trademark infringement.

Here's the first result of "Can I use the BMW M logo" - https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/c...--4871304.html

[Throatpunch]

Originally Posted by amrazM

slon has zero customer service, I would never buy anything from him directly. dude will stop replying when he doesnt feel like making some shit and hes behind the soviet firewall so when he dissapears for 3 months theres no contact to him

Agreed
Slon has ripped off members here by not delivering brake kits and pocketing thousands of dollars but he keeps getting defended on these forums.

That is shocking