Justin-
I very much agree that it is sad that everything has come to this. It really did not need to. When Mike and I met you, Brad and Savi that night we honestly saw a different side of you all that hadn't really been apparent to us before. Once we had worked through all the individual issues that led up to this situation, we both saw the "real" Justin - not the Justin we knew from what few face to face encounters we had with you in the past. It was good to see that you were a real person behind the guy we had only really known in the past as Justin.
Allow me to ramble a bit…
WHY JOIN FORCES WITH LOCAL SHOPS
For me the answer is simple. Forums often have people come in looking to have work done on their vehicles and they need help getting to their goals. TCG is in a unique place to vouch for the cumulative past experiences which our members have had with shops which allows us to learn from those experiences. Essentially, TCG vouches for the vendor in hopes that that all other members will have the best possible chances of positive experiences when dealing with our vendors.
ON THE TUNING
I started my own quest into tuning when I began modding my TA. I understood that even the slightest changes to the engines ability to move air meant that a retune would benefit me. So I bought HPTuners and began to learn, back in early 2007.
I don’t make my living tuning cars. I know enough to tune a LSx NA car, I'll be the first to agree that driveability issues were often difficult to work out... but I worked them out and my car ran quite well. That doesn't make me a pro, but it gives me a leg to stand on.
As part of my early research (prior to even knowing there would be a meeting with MM mgmt) into the MM tuning issues we started to see happening with TCG members cars, I tried to find as many MM-tuned member’s cars as I could with the goal of trying to find what was common in each of them - leaving them all with very similar driveability issues. Again, I personally want to be able to vouch for a vendor’s abilities… but I started seeing a trend that I wanted to confirm for myself with actual TUNE DATA, not hearsay or 2nd hand information.
While I’m sure I could offer my findings, I don’t know that it really would matter much at this point.
THE ULTIMATUM
After Mike and I met with you and your team in Aurora, at the end of that night we walked away with that ultimatum that you issued - Brad mentioned it earlier in this thread. We were both pretty shocked and certainly caught off guard by your demands. It really put us in a hard place that night and for me at least, really took me so far out of my comfort zone that I didn't really know how to act or what to say. We walked away dumbfounded honestly, but we ALL left with the common understanding that we wanted to make the relationship between TCG and MM work in the long run. With Mike headed into surgery the next day, I was left with a ton of research to do around the accusations.
As the days after our meeting came and went, it became more and more obvious that you had been given bad information and that we were really left with no choice but to tell MM that we could not you’re your demands.
In my opinion, this ultimatum you issued is what put the bulk of the nails in the coffin that ended the relationship – and in my opinion, is the #1 take away Modern Muscle should ponder as this sponsor relationship ends. Why?
- You did not first reach out to your customer who you felt very strongly was the most concerning issue.
- You issued TCG an ultimatum based on 2nd hand info which you did not take the time to confirm.
- You put me in the difficult place of having to confirm or deny all your accusations, find your "secret" informers, and determine for myself what the issues in your tune work was.
- Finally Justin, you asked TCG to decide how we wanted to proceed with Modern Muscle after telling us that we either remove an admin from our site or you were no longer interested in participating at TCG.
If there were a rule book somewhere regarding sponsor to forum relationships, I imagine such an unfounded demand would be strictly against the rules. Bottom line Justin, you left TCG with no choice when faced with the facts.
WHAT DO SHOULD WE LEARN FROM THIS?
Honestly, I'm personally quite exhausted from all of this. I'd like to think that Modern Muscle would sit down as a company and honestly evaluate the actual client and/or potential client feedback in this thread and see how they prevent something like this from occurring in the future. Bad tunes will happen, unhappy customers will happen, even partial refunds might happen. But allowing a partial owner / shop manager to put the image of Modern Muscle in peril with one of the largest local online communities in their vicinity based on nothing more than second hand info without even taking the time to address the concerns with the actual client involved... that should never happen again.
Personally, I'm interested what Ryan Diem would have to say in light of all the facts now being on the table around the discussion with TCG and various member's feedback. I'd even drive back to Oswego/Aurora to have that discussion.
