I have to say that I do like what Larry and the boys have done over at PT.com in regards to the vendor/customer feed back forum. Meaning, only allowing the vendor/customer and moderator to comment on the thread. To me, it's another case of pure poltics. Everybody has an opinion on a matter they know very little about except for the story from two people that have their own best interest in mind. The problem I see is it's all negative. How professionally a vendor keeps his cool is important, but one bad apple can really hurt a good vendor.

I think I would prefer not to see the political bull **** at all, but I'm a big boy and I don't have to click on the thread. (Can you make it no pop up in the new posts?) I think politics tend to suck everybody in naturally. I know it does me on occassion. :unibrow:

Look at this thread de railing already.

Scott, you built a monster here and I think you have to rule with the gavel. My personal vote is still to have a thread removed until a moderator can make a determination and it can't be hear say. Prove it to me, when was the part ordered, photos, etc.... A vendors track record will eventually catch up to them. Let's keep the site clean and you dictate the sponsors as you see fit.

I agree

Scott,

You know I have had personal experience with the issues at hand in the past.
After exhalting my efforts, I came to you and John Parsons at PT to help with resolution. All and all I thank both sites for helping out.
If I recall it was dicussed privately with the moderators prior to posting.

Now my question, Do you plan on setting this up for sponsor and non sponsor vendors? And would there be different criteria between the two if so? There are several "parts" suppliers and shops that frequent here often that are not supporting vendors that we as the consumer deal with. Nothing wrong with that at all, there are alot of builds going on here that are by non sponsor shops. What Im getting at is that this could be ENDLESS if you know what I mean.
As I mentioned in my first paragraph, if the moderators had the time for legitimate grips I feel it would be best suited privately prior to public.

sounds like it'd be easier to just go back to the "no vendor bashing allowed" and call it a day.

Amen.

Nearly every forum I've been on over the years without a feedback section like this always has a knee-jerk reaction to addressing a big vendor bash thread.

At the end of the day, this rarely even happens out of hundreds and hundreds of threads.... the status quo is pretty damn good I say.

Here's a proposed solution from left field. Perhaps the bleachers? :lol:

Ban all rants about vendors and collect hard data instead and come up with a vendor rating/score produced by the forum's members.

As an example, here's my data from all the vendors I have used for the build of my car over the last year. I had a positive experience with those vendors in green and a thumbs-up. I would do business with them again. Those with thumbs down and in red I had a negative experience with and probably would not do business with again.

:thumbsup: :
Prodigy Customs
Best of Show Coachworks
Michael Castiglione
Turn Key Engine Supply
Detroit Speed and Engineering
Marquez Design
Hurst Drivelin
Vintage Air
Wilwood
Classic Industries
Electro Tech media blasting
American Autowire
AMD
Fesler Built
Ron Davis
Flaming River
Spaghetti Wiring
Billet Specialties
Driver's Inc.
Jegs/AutoMeter
Summit
Ring Brothers
SoCal Desert Classics
Eddie Motorsports
Anvil
Clayton Machine

Budnik Wheels :thmbsdwn:

Part of my motivation for posting this is to show what I suspect is the norm. I don't think my experience is unusual. There are a lot more :thumbsup: than
:thmbsdwn: .

I suspect that when a particular vendor is truly going south the mods are aware of things. Stuff goes on behind the scenes and off-line so to speak.

So, take the he-said he-said emotion out and simply give members the opportunity to cast one vote for each vendor they use. Over time the cream will rise to the top. EOS.

Mods...good luck tabulating the data. :D

So far as I can tell, the P-T way now is to resolve the dispute, while totally protecting the vendor from any public negative feedback. That helps the vendor and may help the OP, but does little to protect the next guy to send a vendor hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, other than to provide a place to air his grievance when the vendor doesn't deliver.

Expensive aftermarket parts have become so prevealent in our builds these days, that it seems to me it's as important to have reviews of vendors as it is to have reviews of parts. Why shouldn't I be able to research vendor perfromance the same way I research part performance?

A well run and moderated Vendor Feedback forum, I think, would serve our community well.

Good feedback from everyone. Many points to digest. I'm going close this for the time being and will revisit when we get a clearer vision of what we may want to do.

Thanks guys. :cheers: