Hello, Well before everyone starts to burn me on a pole I thought I would wade in to give a slightly different outlook on things. I can understand racers wanting everything to last forever and never break but that isn't really the way things work. The first statement most customers give me is " I want the lightest wheel you can make", so we try to accommodate. Now, we don't get stupid and make the wheels super light but they are on the light side. The first 10in wheels that we made, or sold rather, were not even made by us and to my knowledge we replaced all of the parts over the years. Now the first batch of Kodiak wheels were sized based on what some customers told us they wanted, that turned out to be a problem. They worked but were almost impossible to mount without damage. We thought we were doing the right thing. We have since changed our process and rim shell thickness and haven't heard much from anyone. Now in Jay Novaks case we made only the rim shells and at the time we w! ere having some teething issues with our new spinning machine and we made some parts that were not up to Jays standard. We replaced them and then at the runoffs they had a wheel failure, now, Jays car doesn't have a wheel center like a conventional three piece wheel and after much discussion with Jay it was decided that since the Douglas wheels were welded together it stiffened the area where the rim shells took the most load and that was why they didn't have any issues. We are in the process of redesigning the tooling to give a larger radius on the nose and hopefully that will suffice, but what if it doesn't. Is that our issue or the customers? I think that customers sometimes forgot what business we are in. We make custom, one off sets of wheels the best we can. Can we make them stronger, you bet. Will customers complain because the wheels are now heavier? you bet again. Racing is a fine line. Things do change. Whether you like it or not the wheel loads now are higher th! an they were say five or six years ago. We don't really get much feedb ack from f500 customers. We haven't sold an f500 wheel in probably over a year. I thought that I was being perfectly fair in offering to sell the replacement rim shells to Phil Green for wholesale. I don't remember him mentioning that he phoned the shop at about 6:45pm and I was still here working. I wasn't full of excuses at all, rather suggested that I didn't have an exact answer as to why the part cracked. I looked into our stock on the floor and told him that we could ship him replacements on Monday. What is wrong with that? I would like to see other companies treat there customers as well after they purchased product three or so years ago, then call up and complain. If you think our wheels are no good why would you run them in the rain? By the way, for safety reasons you cannot just weld the wheels up and continue to use them. If they crack they are done. I'm sure you'll say that the welding worked but it is not a good idea. Ask Jay, he'll tell you why, remember this ! stuff is T6. Anyway, it may not matter at all what I have said but I feel better now. I work hard for my customers and have always tried to do what is right. If that is not good enough for the f500 crowd well I'm sorry for that. Best wishes.
Daryle Redlin Kodiak Motorsports Inc. _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
