VWR Intake disappointing

[csrigo]

I'm also keen on any updates as they come.

I really need an intake asap, are racingline still providing the original version for sale to suppliers?? If so have they considered ammending the cost (which i presume they wont) and if not do they guarentee that if purchased say today they would still supply the modded version parts when available?

Cheers

[Dan_FR]

Too much money to be made developing and testing new kits for the newest cars on the market, rather than 'wasting' it redesigning a product for a warranty fix aimed at a market that is pretty much dead....

I highly doubt it'll happen

[pudding]

Still no news yet buddy???

Not yet mate.

[pudding]

I'm also keen on any updates as they come.

I really need an intake asap, are racingline still providing the original version for sale to suppliers?? If so have they considered ammending the cost (which i presume they wont) and if not do they guarentee that if purchased say today they would still supply the modded version parts when available?

Cheers

You would hope they halted supplies because of the fundamental flaws, but I suspect it is still available.

[pudding]

Too much money to be made developing and testing new kits for the newest cars on the market, rather than 'wasting' it redesigning a product for a warranty fix aimed at a market that is pretty much dead....

I highly doubt it'll happen

It's far from a redesign, just some minor enhancements.    The market is far from dead.  They've only sold 5000 intakes worldwide, which is considerably less than the number of EA113 engined cars produced.  EOS, GTI, Jetta, Scirocco, ED30, Passat, A3, S3, VRS etc etc.   

It might not happen, but it's completely false to say there is no market for the intake.

[pudding]

Yet another chase up email sent, via the main contact page this time.   

Given their initial interest and gumption to sort this kit out when I visited them in March, I now find their lack of follow ups very disappointing.  I was there - there was loads of people sat at computers.  How hard is it for one of them to keep us informed?  British companies have absolutely no concept of customer perception and retention.  I have no idea why such low standards are common place and deemed acceptable in this country.

I can guarantee if it was American customers making a stink about this, they would be bending over backwards to help them out.  I'm done with giving them the benefit of the doubt.  All they care about is raising their profile on social media.

[Shoduchi]

Gutted that VW Racingline doesn't correspond to your efforts and our hopes of a well sorted intake.

[pudding]

Well, to be honest, when I arrived Matt Ellis forgot who I was and why I was there.......when I had only spoken to him the week before!   Not a great start.   He is the Technical Sales manager.   Managers of sales ought to be switched on when it comes to their customer base, no?

And when we were assessing my kit, an engineer came out with quite a dismissive, abrupt and arrogant attitude and basically told me there is nothing wrong with the kit and then disappeared.  Yeah, thanks for that.   So why is it a revised intake pipe fresh out of the bag STILL had a totally wrong MAF aperture?

After that, Matt and a couple of other guys were extremely helpful and 100% acknowledged the issues I raised were unacceptable, so it is disappointing they haven't maintained that same momentum since.  I'm not that demanding of a person.  I get it, we all have busy lives, but in the retail world, even a simple "Sorry guys, no progress made this week due to X, Y and Z" goes a long way to placating customers.    Silence just creates a very bad impression.

I think Dan was right, it's not looking likely it will happen!

[Dan_FR]

Profit is too important to 98% of companies in this world, and there's no money to be made in fixing an issue with something that they have already been paid for when the market for new intakes on this platform is tiny nowadays. Revo were the same when asking about RFD specific mapping - promises, promises, promises and it never happened. Always moving on to the newest market and rushing to be the first company to introduce X, Y and Z parts to maximise sales and revenue.

If it were 10 years ago when they were fresh on the market and people kicked up a fuss, it would have been fixed within days/weeks in order to not hamper sales.

[Shoduchi]

@Dan_FR I agree. We'd need to join many and make a big enough fuss to make VWR worry about this issue.

[S19MDE]

Hi All,

I have seen your emails, while also reading all of your comments on the forum.

We have not forgotten about the issue with this intake, nor would location of the customer correlate to the speed of the issues being fixed.

At the moment, we have a re-designed MAF housing which has been 3D printed, tested and approved. The new flexi-pipe is being sampled as we speak to make sure we have the correct shape and fitment. Next, the bracket will be re-designed to support the back pipe as we were not happy with our first effort attempt. The grill re-design is next on the list.

I understand your frustrations due to lack of update, but I ask for you guys to understand that we do have other projects to contend with to get new products to the market, not just raising our social media profile.

Pudding/Kevin - I planned on contacting you when I have a full, new manufactured kit in my hand for you to test personally. I expect this will be around 4-6 weeks away after final testing/manufacture, as I would not like to give you a kit with any unfinished/3D printed parts.

I will try to keep on top of updates for you guys in the future.

[Shoduchi]

@S19MDE: Thanks for updating us. This relieves us a bit while we wait.
[/quote]

[pudding]

Hi All,

I have seen your emails, while also reading all of your comments on the forum.

We have not forgotten about the issue with this intake, nor would location of the customer correlate to the speed of the issues being fixed.

At the moment, we have a re-designed MAF housing which has been 3D printed, tested and approved. The new flexi-pipe is being sampled as we speak to make sure we have the correct shape and fitment. Next, the bracket will be re-designed to support the back pipe as we were not happy with our first effort attempt. The grill re-design is next on the list.

I understand your frustrations due to lack of update, but I ask for you guys to understand that we do have other projects to contend with to get new products to the market, not just raising our social media profile.

Pudding/Kevin - I planned on contacting you when I have a full, new manufactured kit in my hand for you to test personally. I expect this will be around 4-6 weeks away after final testing/manufacture, as I would not like to give you a kit with any unfinished/3D printed parts.

I will try to keep on top of updates for you guys in the future.

Thanks Matt, this is all that we could have hoped for from you.  Just touching base with us occasionally to say you're still on it 

I'm sorry to have resorted to strongly worded opinions in order to get a response from you, when really you could have mitigated that by being proactive with the updates.

I get that you have other projects on the go, but the MK7 isn't going anywhere.  It's still very current and ripe for development.  Gold service is looking after the people who have already paid a substantial sum for a substandard product before chasing new business.  The UK is too used to brown service, so be the better company 

[pudding]

Profit is too important to 98% of companies in this world, and there's no money to be made in fixing an issue with something that they have already been paid for when the market for new intakes on this platform is tiny nowadays. Revo were the same when asking about RFD specific mapping - promises, promises, promises and it never happened. Always moving on to the newest market and rushing to be the first company to introduce X, Y and Z parts to maximise sales and revenue.

If it were 10 years ago when they were fresh on the market and people kicked up a fuss, it would have been fixed within days/weeks in order to not hamper sales.

Agreed.  Imo, Revo appear to be a bit risk averse and won't venture out into the 'custom' arena.  RFD tuning is pretty niche to be fair.  Only a tiny proportion of people are prepared to remove their intakes (coz it's a ball ache!), which would result in fewer sales of that map vs the much larger sales of their vanilla 1 size fits all maps.   The usual cost benefit business model.

One thing a lot of companies overlook is forward thinking and customer retention.  GTI owners naturally progress onto Audis or other performance VW group cars.  Based on their experiences of company X during their GTI ownership, they are 10 times more likely to go back to them for a map or intake for their new RS3 if they were pleased with the service they received.  Or will move onto company Y if they weren't.

Compare the MK7 Racingline intake to the MK5's.  Night / day different in approach and quality, but I'd wager fewer MK7 intakes are sold vs MK5 because the bulk of them are leased.  So why all the diligence for the MK7 and not the MK5?  I don't get it.  Johnny 5 is still very much alive, especially with media outlets like Pistonheads, Evo and PPC magazine periodically doing peices on what a great car the MK5 is. 

[JamesED30]

Good news at last!!!
Unfortunately I thought the day would never come also so had the intake fitted by Will at VRS Northampton. Top bloke by the way!!
I can certainly see what you all have complained about. It’s not what you’d expect for double the price of others on the market.