This is my 4th ///M (my first being an E34 ///M5, hence my screen name across all messageboards) so the ///M tax is nothing new to me...doesn't mean I accept it like others do though. I'll still try to treat it like any other car and shop for deals. MSR himself has been helpful to me in other ways over PM since they don't make S63 stuff. As for people who buy his intakes, that's their choice...at the end of the day allmotor2000 has proven they're an unnecessary expense seeing as I believe he's still got the fastest M5 to record, on stock intakes no less.
R would make more money if he didn't try to make so much on each one and sold them for a more reasonable price...Costco and WalMart type mentality vs what he's doing now.
I know intimate details after having spoken with the person who was screwed over in that whole transaction via talking through WhatsApp/GroupMe, so dare I say it that I know more than most. While he may not say as much to R as I do, at the time he was still trying to work out things to get back what he was promised, which I'm sure involved some lip biting. R is still R, so it's my choice to let it go...people like him don't get let off easily because whatever he's done to one, will likely get done to others because he hopes what you're telling me to do...forget about it like it never happened.
I realize how fortunate I am to have gotten my intake, but I've also talked to the guy who made them originally in an effort to have them recreated for others (something R cried to the admins about since I'm not a vendor, which in turn got me placed on ban for like a month), but ultimately my thread was deleted. Between talking to the guy who welded them up and my own personal experience with working with carbon fiber, my gripe is what he charges for them...which if I got my way (unlikely), would be more beneficial for those wanting it seeing that they'd be more reasonably priced. I have no desire to become a vendor though, I just wanted to help others get a reasonably priced intake and was shut down by someone who bought their way into leverage.
Yes, we can agree to disagree. I've also had other types of bulbs, LED's, CCFL's, etc on other vehicles...priced low and high...although everyone wont let the mantra die, I've stopped believing that you get what you pay for. Case in point...BMW's as a whole vs American and Japanese cars I've owned in the past. But like most do, we justify and defend our poor financial choices because we're emotionally invested as well.
Ebay doesn't make wheels, but if you're asking if I've run reps, then yes. I can go on about that as well using 6 years of back to back Bimmerfest drives as my experience, driving from Seattle to Hollywood to Vegas and back to Seattle. I ran rep M6 20's on my white E53 X5, never a single issue in 2 years. I ran iForged 20's on my blue E53 X5, bent every single year for 2 years. I run ADV1 22's on my Harley F150, three have bent within a year and this is a truck I hardly ever drive. I run the mostly unknown brand of AC Forged 22's on my E70 X5M, never a single issue in 2 years. Point being is that the wheels I've run over the years have had varying levels of quality/durability, WILDLY different price ranges and as mentioned above giving me just more proof that price doesn't provide a direct correlation to quality at all.
Albeit low 6 figures, I still make 6 figures...as a loathly mechanic. I'm cheaper now than when I made 1/3 this. My GF HATES that I'm so thrifty, but that's why I handle the money with the almost 800 beacon while she...doesn't lol
In the world of outsourcing and almost everything coming from China, someone who charges more, puts it into a fancier box and has the better sales speech doesn't mean it's a better product. I'm having flashbacks of the Top Gear episode where they jokingly put BMW and Audi badges on random things and charged ridiculous prices lol. I could go on for DAYS about prior experiences of seeing overpriced products, seeing part numbers and generic Google searches leading me to true costs. Everyone loves to make the comment "cheap Chinese shit" yet many glaze over that most people are just resellers and repackagers of said cheap Chinese shit...but charging 3, 4, 33 times as much as they paid for it, giving a "warranty" and then trying to make themselves look like the hero when they go a few months beyond the warranty lol.
I love debate as well
We're still good, bro