Originally Posted by MacFly?' post='955674' date='Jul 27 2009, 11:48 AM

i too was trying my best NOT to post in this mess of a thread, but here goes...i was the initial guinea pig to test fit the AFE HAI for the 535. boys at AFE gave me the same tour of their facility, impressive...yes. but choosing a performance mod, i'm not impressed with how pretty their facility is!make a long story short, AFE HAI made me lose HP and plenty of low end torque. not to mention throwing multiple limp modes. interestingly enough, once i finally removed/threw out the intake....guess what, no more limp mode!! what a coinkidink!AFE = FTL

Originally Posted by vegastrashed' post='955682' date='Jul 27 2009, 11:58 AM

You all in Socal better listen to him. After all, he's CHP.

Originally Posted by Rizbel' post='952117

And, as an aside, since I consult for small businesses as my other job, I'm going to offer you a word of advice. Never promote your product at the expense of your competitor's. Look on the front page of your website:

Clearly, your entire corporate philosophy is "our product is better" - which is fine. But instead of emphasizing how your product is better, you've continually emphasized that other products are worse.

You know who else does that? Microsoft.

Did you read the front page of the Wall Street Journal today? They've posted a 29% LOSS in sales despite mounting a MASSIVE and wildly expensive ad campaign against Apple in the "You find it, you buy it" campaign (which smears Apple products).
Granted, Apple is guilty of this too, but the point remains valid.

Your strategy may have worked this far but it won't take long for customers to realize they're being manipulated, and they will (yes, will) lose respect for you and your company. Ceteris Paribus.

Originally Posted by Jlevi SW' post='953086

LOL. The only thing that silence from Jlevi and aFe proves is that we have multimillion dollar businesses to run, and customers who deserve our full attention. I'm glad other people have time to street race and bash on the forums... I don't. The thought that you challenged a reputable manufacturer of aFe's size to a "street race" or "challenge" just gives me the chuckles. What self-respecting business would agree to that? Again, comparing products is a no-no. *Rolls up newspaper and goes looking for someone at RPI* Learn to sell your products based on their own merits. I can't emphasize that enough.

The suggestion that Jlevi doesn't know how to modify cars... eh. I have trophies and magazine articles to prove otherwise.

Regardless, I'm willing to concede that maybe RPI's design for the E60 is better. After all, to err is human. However, I still think it's ludicrous to suggest that the intake loses power, and I intend to find proof to the contrary.

Until then, however, I'm tabling this discussion. I had no intent of calling out competitors, and I have no intent of dealing with diatribe here.

As for this thread hurting our business... I think we'll be OK. We are honest, hardworking people who serve thousands of satisfied BMW enthusiasts every year. We'll get by, even if many of you don't agree with our choice to support aFe.

Thanks all
JL

Originally Posted by EuroCarFan' post='954019' date='Jul 25 2009, 10:13 AM

Okay allow Grand Poobah to comment here.

Jon, you may not think this will hurt your business or maybe the members on this forum are insignificant to your enormous customer base from your multi-million dollar business but that just shows your poor judgement. I certainly do not wish your business to falter but the big mistake you made here is that you're alienating potential customers while trying to defend a supplier yet I don't believe you personally have any solid, personal proof as to the validity of their products....only pictures of a large and well run facility.

Look at Trinity Autosport. They were also selling AFE products but when real world results came out showing problems with the intakes, they didn't sit there and defend AFE, they sided with their customers and tried to rectify the situation. I think it was Trinity who also asked for the AFE executive to get on this board to address the concerns which demonstrated a fair and unbiased approach to dealing with the problems. That's far from what you're doing. You could have simply stated that you can get or do have proof that AFE products work and produced them instead of posting some of the argumentative and condescending remarks to members here.

I guess your purpose is to stand behind products that you sell and although that stance is admirable of a vendor in certain cases, it's not the case here. You lost me as a potential customer as well.

Originally Posted by RPIpower' post='952952' date='Jul 24 2009, 12:37 PM

Heat shields are used to block and reduce radiant heat. They do nothing to protect an intake from under hood temperatures. If you turn the heater on in your house, would a heat shield surrounding you keep you cool? On the other hand if you are standing right in front of the fire place, the heat shield will limit the amount of radiant heat you are getting directly.



I hope you really dont believe this because if you really do, you might be in the wrong business as this is one of the most important things about engine tuning. Air density, temperature and ignition timing all go hand in hand.

BTW, the car does not need time to adjust. The only adjusting this thing does is loose power because the DME WILL pull ignition timing as underhood temperatures rise. You DONT need any adjustment period with ANY of the RPi products. Talk is talk, but we already know what happens during real races.

Here is an AFE intake taken off a car. Not only did he dyno much less than a stock M5, he also got his ass handed to him on a race against a STOCK M5. I formaly invite you to come out to our next dyno day and we can do some dyno test as well as actual runs in real world conditions. Who, with an AFE intake has ever beaten another car with a stock intake?

Originally Posted by Jlevi SW' post='953086' date='Jul 24 2009, 11:20 AM

On every other forums, members have been enjoying the thread for what it is - only E60.net has to make this a product comparison and sabotage our thread.

Originally Posted by vegastrashed' post='955682' date='Jul 27 2009, 11:58 AM

You all in Socal better listen to him. After all, he's CHP.

Originally Posted by EuroCarFan' post='955721' date='Jul 27 2009, 02:30 PM

I missed this post so thanks for bringing it up Frank. I'm stunned by how ridiculous it sounded.

How do you expect people to "enjoy" a thread for what it is when so many people here have had such bad experiences with that product? It's like posting pictures of the Enron building to show how big and well decorated it is and expect people to who's lost millions to ignore that fact and compliment the pictures???