Re: Dinan Bashing

[Brian ///M Kennedy <kennedy@xxxxxx>]

Duane wrote:

> But they also do some really ridiculous stuff like take off-the-shelf
> aftermarket parts, grind off the mfg. logos and paint the damn things blue
> - claiming these are THEIR parts (AutoThority does the same damn thing,
> too, and is even a WORSE offender). That's why they get bashed sometimes by
> us 'garage' tuners who do our own thang. Why pay twice the going rate for a
> set of re-valved Koni shocks that are painted blue?

This is a little misleading -- it makes it sound like Dinan is trying to pass
off Koni shocks as Dinan shocks.  In fact, Dinan literature plainly advertises
that they are Koni shocks.  You are actually given a choice between Bilstein
and Koni shocks.  When you are delivered the shocks, they have Koni logos on
them and in fact they give you some extra Koni stickers that you can put 
wherever.  In contrast, they don't give you any Dinan stickers / logos (unless
you've bought 10 points of stuff ;^).

In my experience/research, Dinan's customer satisfaction ratio is very high.
Their customers know the prices are high, but they also know that the quality
is high and that the separate components have been selected and/or engineered
to work well together.  They know they could go out and buy a set of springs,
a set of sway bars, and a set of shocks/struts for half the price -- but would
the selected combination work well together?  Maybe -- if you've benefited from
the expertise of a Duane or this digest -- but I suspect the average DIYer could 
easily end up spending a lot of money and actually make their suspension 
functionally worse.  You pay for the _tuned_ packages.

There's another reason to go with Dinan -- to the extent that you don't like
warranty hassles from your dealer, you can actually get Dinan stuff installed
by some BMW dealers!  That makes the warranty issues moot: "You installed it!" ;^)

OTOH, I must agree that some things are a little more dubious.  For example, I
don't understand why they don't resell LandShark software -- even have JimC
custom develop software for their other mods -- OR have a damned good 
answer why they think theirs is better (or at least competitive).  And the
quality of the people you get on the phone can vary wildly.

FWIW,

Brian
98 M3/4, Shark-infested, Dinan-suspended, X-braced, Forgeline-wheeled

------------------------------