Did you guys see Autopia was sold?

Status
Not open for further replies.
OCDinPDX said:
Wow...this turned into quite the conversation fairly quickly. Allow me to add my opinion. I'm not bagging on Autopia but based on my experience, the atmosphere seems fairly unforgiving, especially for noobs, such as myself. It seemed that I could not get anybody to answer my questions or take me seriously.

I left in August of last year and haven't been back since. This place is much better. :dcrules
Click to expand...
I agree about the atmosphere DC is different than most sites.
I fear that as it grows it will have more problems and Troy is a easy going guy that does NOT rule with an iron fist like some I have visited.

Some how he has managed to keep the shills that are paid to push a certain product from hanging out here, sure was not that way on the detailing section of Corvette Forum.
I don't know how it is their now I left 5 years ago have not been back.

IMO DC is also blessed with some of the best sponsor's look at the personal attention you get here from Steve "AKA" Poor boy's and Auto geek can't beat the products or the service.

I feel like I'm among friends here not that way at other sites.

:dcrules
 
duty_calls.gif
 
I just say ignore them if they annoy you. I do know some bait people to respond by making outrageous comments so we all get caught in that trap every once in a while. I think in time most will settle down and contribute or leave.
 
black bart said:
Somehow he (Troy) has managed to keep the shills that are paid to push a certain product from hanging out here.

IMO DC is also blessed with some of the best sponsors. Look at the personal attention you get here from Steve "AKA" Poorboy's and Autogeek. Can't beat the products or the service.
Click to expand...

Agreed 100%, Bart.

I have not seen a single DC sponsor with the "My stuff is best and you're stupid if you try anything else" attitude. If we want a sales pitch, we can check out the manufacturer's website.

I think the reason we join a detailing forum is to find objective discussion and expert advice. The attitude of sponsors like Poorboy's World and Autogeek seems to be:

- Here's a product for a particular application.
- This is the intended result.
- It's properly used like so...
- If you have a problem, here's advice based on our experence.

Forrest, from Mother's, is a welcome addition to DC and he seems to be taking the same approach.
 
Welcoming contributions from industry vets like Forrest and Mike P. is a no brainer really as the beneficial information shared is invaluable.

All of the forums on which I participate seem to have a certain ebb and flow of new members and long term members alike. The reason for some departures is obvious but many more are mysterious. Life changes? Boredom? Change in focus? and yes on one forum a member passed away. Sometimes as a community we gain by addition and sometimes we gain by substraction.

I won't go into all of the members which I wonder about and miss, but I will say that I always find it a bit refreshing when one of our members of the female persuasion chimes in with their perspective. Marj (awd330) and norahcrv and Sheila come to mind and their may be even more.

And for members from long ago, I never knew what happened to Boss429. If memory serves, his posts were fairly pragmatic, straight forward, no nonsense in nature. But then it has been a long time and maybe he wasn't that at all.
 
Mr. Clean said:
I won't go into all of the members which I wonder about and miss, but I will say that I always find it a bit refreshing when one of our members of the female persuasion chimes in with their perspective. Marj (awd330) and norahcrv and Sheila come to mind and their may be even more.

And for members from long ago, I never knew what happened to Boss429. If memory serves, his posts were fairly pragmatic, straight forward, no nonsense in nature. But then it has been a long time and maybe he wasn't that at all.
Click to expand...

awd330 (Marj) does lurk once in a while and we talk often ... she has many other interests now but her car is still one of the only swirl free DD's I have ever seen:rockon
Nourah still is here and she comes to chat fairly often :bigups

Boss429 is around , not here, and his OCD was a bit more than most could handle ... I could go on :notme:

I see Kimwallace checking in, but he doesn't seem to post anymore :(

Personally I miss the Fuzz and his mullet :wow: even though there was the flair for the drama and a bit over zealous attacks on spammers, you knew he was looking out for the best interests of Detail City ... business up front and party in the back :lol2:
 
People come and people go for whatever reason.
Some come back others don't. It is nice to see a couple old familiar faces posting again :)

As for DavidB selling Autopia all I'll say is good luck to him, and to the new owners. As for not noticing too much change YET, I remember When Troy aquired DC, it's was a good number of months before he started making changes (for the better I might add).
It's always wise to see what works and what doesen't before making big changes. Like using a blue background instead of the brown one :D

JMHO
"J"
 
Well, I'll share a few thoughts.

David Bynon had BurlyQ stir a thread up about Steve and Poorboys and then banned him-of course DB stood to gain more sales with his Sonus line(that's pretty low on the ethics scale). Later he turned the site into a late night infomercial for his Ultima line and banned people left and right. He hocked one of the worst products in the history of detailing- the UDM. DB chased off the best posters and reduced the forum to "what's the best product" posts. After all that he sold the site to a company that didn't even tell the members that they purchased the site for 8 months. As a member there that raises some questions regarding transparency on the part of DB and 3D. I hope that 3D is an ethical company and run the forums in an ethical manner. Only time will tell. One thing is certain, they can't do any worse than DB.
 
Jngrbrdman said:
At least they are allowed to ban now. Back in the day everything had to go through committee and it was ultimately determined by whether or not the user was a customer at David's store. That was one of the things I fought with David about and is one of the factors to my not leaving the moderator staff six years ago. That was before Pat's time, so he can't really comment on that, but I'm sure he will since his intentions here are now clearly known.
Click to expand...

If that is true, it's another indication of just how low DB's ethics were:passout:
 
As the owner of a UDM, I am waiting for it to croak but I do not use it much but mentally ready. Plus, I dropped mine on the ground and cracked the back housing - now blue tape holds it together.

In their defense, Perfect Shine did extend the warranty with swaps for all those that did fail during and after warranty. Meguiars also had their fair share of problems with the G110 and now we have the G110v2. The problem is in both cases we only see negative reports publicly reported so no idea what the real failure rate is. From reports in both cases, it is often an issue with the motor brushes and can be readily replaced.

I would like to know more about 3D International. I checked their web site and they appear to like many professional detailing suppliers / car washes and a blender for private label brands. (Chemical Guys is not the only one out there despite how they (and others) seem to want to take credit for every private label product on the market).

It looks like they decided to move into the consumer space with the HD line and also acquire Autopia as well to give them direct access to potential buyers.
 
Bunky said:
The problem is in both cases we only see negative reports publicly reported so no idea what the real failure rate is.
Click to expand...

Exactly! You speak with much wisdom. You typically only hear the bad news as the majority are providing trouble free service and since that's the way it's supposed to be it doesn't become a topic of discussion as much as one that requires a warranty claim.
 
DB's problem was that he rushed everything to market without testing it. Ultima was the only product that he did any amount of testing with and it still had it's share of issues with bad sprayers, junking up and yellowing in the bottle.

3D is a bulk company. The stuff is probably decent but the HD line was brought to market in 3 months. That seems like an awful short amount of time to totally reformulate products as DB claimed and certainly not enough time to adequately test products(then again, maybe they don't last 3 months). For the price, HD had better be darn good, I'll guess time will tell but from what I've read on other forums, once again, it seems to be a case of the products falling short of the hype.
 
Yes, what you say Bunky seems to ring true. We live in a society of complainers. And with the internet the complainers have been given a "voice". IMO, this is good and bad. Good, because as consumers we can readily exchange experiences with people with whom we would not normally meet. Good because we can joing together in a common voice to get a company's attention which hopefully brings a favorable resolution to the problem, squeaky wheel/grease and all that. Bad, because it gives a voice to a segment of society who are constant complainers (more like whiners), who live in a world where nothing is right and everyone is out to get them. These band together and create a perception of a problem existing much larger than reality.

Which brings us to the topic of hype. There are two kinds. Too great and too bad. I see this all too often on the forums. I can not bring one product I have used that has ever achieved the high of the highest hype or the low of the lowest hype. IMO, those who expect products to live up to the standards of internet hype will come away disappointed far more often than not.

wannafbody, I get it! You don't like DavidB. You are surely not alone. But what is the point of coming over here to bash him? Is he going to follow you over here to read your opinion and change accordingly? Questioning someone's ethics w/o concrete facts is out of line, IMO. Why don't you address your issues directly with DavidB? On at least one occasion where I found my opinion about his actions related to the forum at odds with his; I pm'ed David who replied promptly. We discussed the issue back and forth. His opinion wasn't changed and he knew my stance on the matter did not change. We agreed to disagree, but it was cordial. He did not ban me, nor threaten to do so.

As far as rushing to market, IIRC the release of the UDM, it wasn't rushed. I thought that the launch suffered a few hiccups with DavidB (or whoever he charged with the task if he didn't do it personally) went back and forth with the manufacturing company. I guess though in the end as Bunky mentioned they worked with at least some of those who experienced problems by extending the warranty when I assume he had no obligation to do. I will say that I do not own the UDM, so I have no first hand knowledge of the problems or whether they were widespread.
 
The UDM was a pile of crap that according to rumor wasn't high enough quality for Megs so they passed on it. And yes, I did publicly question David Bynon's ethics on Autopia and was sent a private message that he wouldn't tolerate someone challenging him on his own board and he threatened to ban me. I publicly apologized just to placate him. DB went so far as to ban people for what they posted on other websites. And he was rumored to have shills pushing his products on competitors websites as well.

David Bynon tried to destroy Steve from Poorboy's reputation. I was informed of that information directly by BurlyQ who started the relabelling thread at DB's insistance and then was banned as DB tried to cover his butt. I was never able to post the story there until after he left (and even then it got deleted). I think everyone here should know what DB was like.


And yes, I tried Ultima and found it fell way short of the hype. It wasn't anywhere close to Zaino in durability. Of course, I never posted that at Autopia for fear of being banned. I wonder how many found that out the hard way?

3D needs to know what kind of guy DB was as well. Hopefully, they will run Autopia in an honest, above board manner.

BTW, I'm sure there are a couple other guys over here who could post DB stories but probably would choose not to due to professional courtesy.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top