New Nitron Racing Reds.

[Victor Meldrew]

You should be asking for compensation for getting the run around.

[Kev]

Hi Neil,

Hi Neil,

Sorry that you've had to deal with this and I wasn't consulted. Don't know how much you've been told or who you've spoken to, but I have been investigating this as I supplied the dampers to you.

I think its important to point out that this is not a design problem but simply an assembly one. It is embarrasing to say the least for Nitron and I'm sure they will do their best to sort it out with the minimum off hassle for the customers.

It is unfortunate that there are no spare sets in the country but the situation was that the first 10 sets would be evaluated before they went into full production. The good news is that there don't appear to be any issues with the design of the dampers and they seem to perform very well so once your's have been checked and rebuilt they should be excellent.

Sorry I haven't managed to give you a call yet regarding this but as I'm sure you're aware things are a bt hectic for me at the minute. I will give you a buzz tomorrow to see if I can help. If you do speak to Nitron, make sure you ask to speak to Guy and I'm sure he'll sort things out for you.

Cheers

Dan@JPS

By the way congratulations to your good lady and yourself on your newborn. No wonder your busy. Take it easy.

Congrats mate. Hope your little one and the missus is healthy. Now hurry up and finish my car before it starts raining all summer

[Shug]

You should be asking for compensation for getting the run around.

I sympathise here, I honestly do - but these are the first production examples. By taking these on, it was inferred (if not actually said) that the first 10 would be doing the final bit of testing before the full production run started. Nitron are a small british motorsport company, mistakes occasionally happen. It's really sad that it happened to Noops, but WTF is the cry for compensation? They are getting replaced. If I'm being totally honest, it might have been better not to let people who depend on their cars have this run, which could be argued are still technically pre-production examples. Some perspective please guys....

[jj]

You should be asking for compensation for getting the run around.

I sympathise here, I honestly do - but these are the first production examples. By taking these on, it was inferred (if not actually said) that the first 10 would be doing the final bit of testing before the full production run started. Nitron are a small british motorsport company, mistakes occasionally happen. It's really sad that it happened to Noops, but WTF is the cry for compensation? They are getting replaced. If I'm being totally honest, it might have been better not to let people who depend on their cars have this run, which could be argued are still technically pre-production examples. Some perspective please guys....

Agree with Shugster here - all the chat that I read on SELOC was that the folk getting them would be volunteers - still a bit annoying that its been a hassle. I did like this line from Geary

Nitron are a very reputable company and they would not release something unless they were confident in its quality.

[mac]

I did something very similar with the 165 PTP kit when fitted to the S2.

Was a bit of hanging around and then various parcels back and forth with different ECU maps etc - but all in all it was worth it.


Mac

[bertieduff]

I don't know all the facts admittedly - did you pay full price for 'em? If so fair doos being peed off, I'd have thought - regardless of size, any company taking your cash before fully testing a new product is being pretty shoddy, and more so if they don't come good when there's problems.

Bit different if you entered into it with explicit agreement or got them at a discount...

(IMHO)

[Victor Meldrew]

However the aftercare has not quite been what I would have expected from such an experienced all be it small company.

Hi Shug
I know where your coming from on this but it is the above that I am talking about, not the fact that they were "testing". All for trying stuff but you expect better back-up if your expected to be a test jock for the kit. Lucky Noops knows which end of a spanner is which. Nitron have made some fundamental assumptions and statements and they got them wrong. Hopefully they will correct the mistakes but the one size fits all is just incorrect.
I know more about shocks than I care to admit, they messed up, then they tried to deny it, then they admitted it, now there fixing it. It should have been spotted when we were at Donny this year but its taken them this long to recall them. Lets hope it isn't too long before he gets them back again. Its going to need a change in spring length and a change in internal bumps or shorter rods to cure. All fixable.

JR

[Shug]

Nah, fair dos guys, the backup hasn't been what you'd expect.

Not in posession of all the facts, but is it possible you were unlucky and managed to get the wrong guy on the phone? (can't imagine Nitron have more than a couple of people answering phones as part of the job, so it only takes someone to be off sick and the other to be on a call for you to get one of the production guys who might not have the customer service bit foremost in their head...)

Just out of interest, the 'one size fits all' thing - are we running into issues because you like the car low? Did they give you a recommended ride height?

[r055]

I don't know all the facts admittedly - did you pay full price for 'em? If so fair doos being peed off, I'd have thought - regardless of size, any company taking your cash before fully testing a new product is being pretty shoddy, and more so if they don't come good when there's problems.

Bit different if you entered into it with explicit agreement or got them at a discount...

(IMHO)

the only thing being that demand is so high for these that if it wasnt neil that carried out the trial, then someone else would have without a doubt

[r055]

This is Guy from Nitron. Just a quick note really to have my say on this.

We made an initial RR set here for testing purposes, to check the fit etc. and ran them with Geary on a test car and the results were good. We adjusted the valving (the first set was adjustable) to provise a good compromise for road and some track use, and put some test miles on this set.

We then ordered a batch of 10 sets for further testing with willing customers who would provide us with feedback and rather than go to the forums, speak to us first if there were any issues. This was the whole idea of these first sets. If the shocks are noisy, knocking, don't fit, squeak etc. then we can address that situation. By using 10 different cars driven in different ways with different viewpoints, we have a pretty good broad spectrum of feedback. I am disappointed we now have to search the forums for this feedback.

However, the first sets arrived in parts, and some of the parts were missing. With customers pressing for shocks, we made the mistake of assembling them using some alternative parts, and in the event not using Loctite on one of the parts. This resulted in noise as this part became loose, and in the event of the shock having it's spring pre-loaded prior to fitting to the car, the part coming off and oil coming out under the internal gas pressure.

We have recalled all the shocks to rectify this, by fitting the correct parts and ensuring the parts cannot come undone. At no time were we made aware from anyone that there was a separate noise to the noise of this part coming undone - only some shocks have experienced this part coming loose.

I remember the very first days of Nitron making Elise shocks, they were very noisy, but we solved the issue and I can hopefully say we have a lot of satisfied customers out there. To say there is no point contacting us doesn't make any sense to me, there is every point. How are products improved without feedback?

I would also like to say that I hope our customer service would be classed a friendly, fast and efficient, I think it is the cornerstone on how we have expanded our business.

We have flown over some samples of the production shocks we have had assembled for us over in the last few days, dyno tested them and stripped them, and I am pleased to say they will not come apart and I am confident they will not be noisy. Although these are not technically our shocks, they are of a similar principle and I am extremely confident that they will lead the market in the medium price sector.

We have completed the same exercise with RR shocks for TVRs, but in their case when they arrived in bits we just returned them for full build, we them returned fully built and they are all on customer cars now without a single issue.

I am happy to answer anyone's questions about shocks or Elise suspension, and as always Nitron is just a phone call away. Thanks, Guy

i suppose thats fair enough...

[Andy G]

good reply from Nitron - sounds as if things possibly weren't made clear when they shipped them to Noops though

Still sounds as if the next set back will have you sorted mate

[Andy G]

Good news

sidc surely the best proving ground! Are you coming over?

[r055]

nice one neil...

Did you get any feedback from when yours went down - ie was there anything wrong with them?

Can you get RRs refurbished the same way as full FAT nitrons?

Ross

[Andy G]

How are you getting on with them any Noops?

[Tom]

Just read on selco*k that Nitron have canned the Racing Reds, and are giving refunds.....