Reflections on GTM over the years

dmhenderson

Wow so do I have some questions for you! You don't have to answer if you don't want to but I'm going to ask anyway so feel free to ignore me. I was the super annoying guy with the 1.5 SC kit last summer in Maryland who you accidentally shipped a twin SC kit to.

1) Were you guys screening your calls? After a while, none of my calls were answered or if they were, they were answered by you and Sam was never around. Sam was always available to talk prior to taking my money so I thought that was a little odd. Most of the time, it would just ring to voicemail. I had a little luck calling from different numbers but then I suspect the area code gave me away.

2) Why did you/Sam try to blame my shop for a poorly machined bracket? I mean, that's not something a shop would screw up. They showed me the bracket and it had clearly been drilled improperly. It took them weeks to get a replacement. Sam told them to "F off" more or less and you were the one who eventually caved and sent us a new bracket. Why bother being so awful over one small part? We wouldn't have even been so uptight about it except that it was proprietary to your kit.

3) What would have happened if we had kept Sam's twin SC G37 kit that was supposed to go to Canada? At that point, you were several months overdue in shipping my kit and neither me nor the shop were very happy. We did the honorable thing and let UPS re-route it but I gotta tell you, I was really considering holding it hostage until I got my kit.

4) I really raked my shop over the coals because GTM (at that time) had a pretty solid reputation and I assumed they were the ones screwing up. I know they'll never get it, but GTM owes Moore Auto in Fairfax a serious apology after what you guys put them through (not blaming you - but the business really put a hurting on a small, enthusiast-owned shop). Thing is, they wouldn't throw you under the bus either. They just let me think it was their fault right up until the very end. I found out later that they were being given the same runaround I was.

As I said in a previous post, you were always decent to me and I much preferred talking to you over Sam's dumb *** so thanks for that. I was so mad at the two of you by the end of the ordeal that I asked the shop to deal with you - something they should not have had to do. I was afraid I was going to lose my temper and then Sam was never going to ship my kit.

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Mike@GTM

1) GTM doesn't have caller ID. So no, there was no screening of calls in that respect. However, Sam does screen his calls through whoever is answering the phone. I would spend more time running around trying to find Sam only for him to tell me to tell whoever was on the phone, to take a message or tell them he wasn't there. That said, because Sam is the keystone of the business and EVERYTHING must go through him, he is an extremely busy person and doesn't have enough time in a day to do everything or take every call.

2) Again, EVERYTHING must go through Sam. I barely had enough autonomy to answer e-mails or PM's without his blessing. There were no fixed policies and everything was whimsical. I could never second guess what Sam's decision was going to be because it was different every single time. So, I have no earthly idea why it was such a mess.

3) Well, regardless of how you felt about the situation, it would have been wrong. There is simply no justification for stealing. You did the right thing.

4) As far as I am concerned, Sam owes a lot (and I do mean a ton) of apologies for the things that he has done to just about everyone he comes into contact with in this industry. That's why there are so many haters of GTM, because he tends to make it abundantly clear that he just doesn't give a ****. The times that he does seem to care actually surprise me because it is quite rare.

He's kinda like Darth Vader, there's still good in him...somewhere.

dmhenderson

Thanks for the answers. I would never have kept the twin SC kit - I just wanted my kit and was thinking about holding onto it until Sam/GTM delivered what I was owed. I'm not a thief.

I'll tell you, the only reason I didn't was because I didn't want to screw someone else over who was in the same boat I was in.

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Mike@GTM

No worries. I can certainly understand that it was tempting, but you are absolutely correct that someone else was in the exact same boat.

As for your question about the group buy. It looked like it was going to be a big hit. We were excited, the members were excited and it looked like it was going to be the veritable A-bomb in the Z world. But Sam kept giving me the runaround and lying to me about the cast manifolds. I learned that the tooling hadn't even been paid for and was still outstanding when I left back in December/January. Why? I have no clue. I suspect that the issues with the mandrel bender and the associated tooling played a role in that.

Let me just say that outsourcing manufacturing is a bitch and the only way to really pull it off is to have a rep there or within driving distance so that you don't just become another number. The double sided sword of that for Sam is that if his suppliers are within driving distance, they too could pop by the shop and say "where's my money?". A threatening e-mail carries very little weight, but a 6'5' guy looming over you is a bit more uncomfortable. While the law states that you cannot open a can of whoop *** on a deadbeat buyer, you never know how clearly that guy is thinking and whether or not he is willing to go to jail over $30k. I guess that's why Sam keeps his gun at work.