For the love of Silvias!!! Aftermarket Industry rant....

[A Spec Products]

I need to take a nap before I can muster up the energy to bust my rant haha...but I'll give it a shot cause I have an opinion about everything lol...

I think its hard to really understand the industry's side of it unless you actually have been on our side of the fence.

Consumers care about their own wallets and their well being, which is definitely understandable. People are self-serving by nature, and our "buy in bulk" type of lifestyle with huge conglomerates has brainwashed people into thinking that those practices extends to smaller niche industries such as the aftermarket auto industry (which it does, but should not, in my opinion).

What they don't care about (which they should) is the resulting industry that occurs due to their actions.

I think the biggest issue at the moment (besides the suffering economy) is the sheer AMOUNT OF AVAILABLE PRODUCTS in the USA.

You have a JDM part, a domestic alternative, a knockoff of those products, then the knockoffs of that knockoff! The worst part is that they'are all vying for market share. So there is just this huge overload of parts, and that's why our industry is suffering...because there are too many players, and a lack of consumers to buy all these players' items.

To side with the consumers though, sometimes they don't know better. If you are fresh to the market, you might see a knockoff product and not be aware its even a knockoff, or who is the originator of that part. Still though, I think it's just the general throwaway nature of the U.S consumer that makes people buy based on price rather than functionality of quality. I think you can play off the naive "I don't know any better" for a while, but after you make mistakes using lower quality items and seeing the frustration of it, it should be your nature to seek better quality products, even if it costs more.

There's so many cliches that go through my mind, like

- "do it right the first time"
- "you get what you pay for"
- "quality doesn't come cheap"
- "if it's too good to be true it probably is"

But really, these cliches are there because they really hold true. You cannot shop around always based on price. The dangers of shopping for the lower price is that you might get scammed, you might purchase an inferior quality product, you might just make a hasty decision, or possibly miss a great deal that came along afterward.

Obviously it's hard to live your life without being a hypocrite at some point, and I'm not saying "if you run anything fake you are wack," but rather just make educated decisions. There are going to be cases where a product and its knockoff are going to be almost the same in regards to functionality, and also cases where practicality outweighs getting the real deal.

Either way, my main sadness in regards to Zilvia (or just the 240 market in general) is a lack of pride and quality in one's car. Just because a car is worth $XXX amount of money doesn't mean you modify the car accordingly. Regardless of what car you modify, you should still want to put in the same amount of quality and attention that you would put with a car twice its value. If your response to that is "well this is only a beater," then why are you even modifying it in the first place?

Doing stuff the ghetto way is cool for about 5 minutes, you get a laugh or two, then realize "oh crap," since you just made my car worst that it was previously.

But yes, just like the OP, I have a lot of love for Zilvia as well, and I have been on Zilvia and involved in the 240 community for some time now. It just makes me sad when the scene is slowly becoming less and less like the scene I was excited about back when I first started.

Originally Posted by CrimsonRockett

+1.

I can't honestly say I've never rocked knock off parts, but I learned my lesson through them.

Cheaping out on suspension/engine pieces isn't exactly smart. Shit fails and you're F'd. Now, a body kit on the other hand, I'm not one to spend $1,500 on a full aero kit, slam my car to the ground, track it, and watch it all explode.

I don't exactly have disposable income.

However, I will always try my best to support the industry by buying name-brand parts.

I may be young, but I never had the drifter "whatever works" attitude.

I prefer doing things right the first time.

Yay

Thumbs up to you sir!

Good attitude, and still realistic!

Originally Posted by Sleepy240

I don't have a problem with it, the industry is stupid, everybody gets copied just like any other industry. Guess what your certainly not taking any money out of the multimillion dollar pockets at Greddy, or Apexi, or Megan for that matter. I'll continue to buy what I can afford, don't matter whether YOU like whats on my car or not

The thing that also gets me is that people have this preconceived notion that th eindustry is just swimming in money and everyone is sharks and eat babies for breakfast.

But this industry works off some of the LOWEST margins I have ever seen.

And then you factor in lowballers, and fly by night dorm room online stores whoring things out?

I've said it before and I'll continue to say it...businesses need to make money (you can all GASP now).

In order to operate and keep bringing in the parts that you guys want, businesses need to support themselves...so if you continue to lowball and eat away any chance of successful profit for a company, what do you think is gonna happen?

There is a happy medium where the seller and consumer should meet, and where the result is one that is satisfying to both parties involved.

Some of you probably think that it doesn't matter who or where your product comes from, but as more shops become less and less brick and mortar stores, who are you going to physically go to? Who is going to help you with your car? Will there be a quality replacement for the quality shop that had to go out of business?

This extends beyond just parts distribution, but also to the service side. People complain about labor rates, and how expensive it is to mount tires, etc etc...fighting over DOLLARS. Quality work costs money, and the guy mounting your tire has to eat too. Putting money into the industry isn't a BAD thing. That's why I said that until you work in this industry, you will not really see the bigger picture of why so many of us in it are frustrated at times.

[LongGrain]

Originally Posted by A Spec Products

Either way, my main sadness in regards to Zilvia (or just the 240 market in general) is a lack of pride and quality in one's car. Just because a car is worth $XXX amount of money doesn't mean you modify the car accordingly. Regardless of what car you modify, you should still want to put in the same amount of quality and attention that you would put with a car twice its value. If your response to that is "well this is only a beater," then why are you even modifying it in the first place?

this.

should be a sticky.

I'm active on more than one type of car forum, and I see this attitude EVERYWHERE, and honestly it makes me sick. it just begs the questions "if you really dont care enough to do things right, why even put time, money, and effort into doing them at all?" its really terrible.