Originally Posted by tbyrne

I'm just going to make this post and leave it. I won't be coming back into the thread to discuss anything. Why? There are alot of good people out there and then there are the people that have nothing better to do than to make up stories, speculate and bash others. I've been reading alot of that in the threads about me. People can say what I want, I know who I am.

Contrary to what some think, I'm not sitting on a tropical island sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas. It's actually far from that. TBYRNE Motorsports was open for 11 years so it was a tough decision to pack it up. Why did that happen? It was a combination of alot of personal issues and the economy. I've found that I've sometimes talked about my personal life to much online so I'm not going to get into many more details about that. Yes, there were discussions about an upcoming divorce. You never know what life will toss at you. The last few months have shown me what's really important. That is my family. I could have no physical possessions but as long as I have my family, then I have everything! I was working way, way to much and setting the wrong priorities. Sometimes it's better to see that late than never.

The economy really didn't help either. Business slowed down alot over the last year and then there are always new vendors popping up. Many customers talk about good service but I've found that most go for the lowest price. There were times when I'd spend 45 minutes on the phone with someone and then have them purchase from somewhere else because their price was lower. Our price match policy helped and we deeply discounted some products at times to capture the sale. But you can only do some much without losing money. I hoped the economy would turn around but that didn't happen so I just had to make the decision to draw the line. I've read that I was out to screw customers. Take their money with no intention of delivering the product. That's not even close to being true! There were customers that received a refund if we knew the order wasn't going to be filled. Some weren't even charged if it was questionable. I've found that in the end, there were some orders that weren't filled. That wasn't intentional. The only thing that I can do is apologize. The credit card company can help with that so nobody is out any money. Didn't want any customers to lose out! There will be some that will say that their orders were delayed. We did our best to make things happen as quickly as possible. All companies have backordered products sometimes. In the end vendors have to rely on the manufacturers to provide accurate dates to provide us with product.

From here, there isn't much more that I can say. I probably should have posted just after we closed but I know how the net is. I figured there would be stories floating around. Those are going to happen no matter what. Of course there have been a bunch of them. I liked being in the performance industry and who knows what will happen in the future. There are alot of things that I would do different. And as they say, live and learn.

Take care.
Tom

PS - I'm not going to be posting this all over the net. I'm sure some will help it find it's way to other car forums. That is fine.

Originally Posted by maddboost

I love how Tom complains about other shops undercutting him on price when he was the ***** that started that **** first.

And as far as the economy effecting his business that is what happens when you build your business on just having the cheapest prices. All the good shops I know haven't been effected by the economy because their customer base was built on quality service not just price.