T-rex slider manufacturing error!!

[T-Rex sliders tech manager]

This is Tom. I am the technical manager at T-Rex Racing. We did have a batch that was tried with injection-molded method a little over two years ago. We found out that on some sliders, there was an issue with a bubble at the base of the sliders causing it to fail. We totally scrapped the project then. We have been machining the frame sliders from solid rods, the same plastic the R&G uses. All the frame sliders have aluminum inserts inside. We use the highest grade bolts available, 12.9. We tell our customers that if they can break the sliders with the biggest hammer they can find. We will refund him 2x the amount that he paid.

Although the problem only happened to SOME of the older sliders, we encourage our customers that have them to contact us at [email protected] for replacements. The sliders are 5” in length for the 06-07 fjr1300 models. If your sliders are shorter or have two small grooves on them then they are good.

Many people think that R&G sliders are more expensive so they must be better. T-Rex’s are cheaper so it must not be as good or better. This is not true. We use the same plastic as R&G does. We use higher grade 12.9 socket hex bolts which is about 2x stronger and about 2x more expensive than grade 8.8 regular hex bolts that R&G uses. Quite often with many sizes of the grade 12.9 bolts, factory requires a pre-order and longer lead time. Whereas with grade 8.8 bolts much more number of sizes are readily available.

Customers pay for R&G marketing, distributor, Ocean Freight(from the UK) and retailer.

T-Rex has no middle man(distributor or retailer). We rely on words of mouth from our customers. We are direct manufacturer. I hope this clears up any concern with our frame sliders. Please feel free to email me directly at [email protected] if there is any other concern.

 

[FJRONAMISSION]

I like his attitude and statement..!!

B

 

[Joe2Lmaker]

Learning from their mistakes and making things right.

:good:

 

[pmspaul]

This is Tom. I am the technical manager at T-Rex Racing. We did have a batch that was tried with injection-molded method a little over two years ago. We found out that on some sliders, there was an issue with a bubble at the base of the sliders causing it to fail. We totally scrapped the project then. We have been machining the frame sliders from solid rods, the same plastic the R&G uses. All the frame sliders have aluminum inserts inside. We use the highest grade bolts available, 12.9. We tell our customers that if they can break the sliders with the biggest hammer they can find. We will refund him 2x the amount that he paid.

Tom,

Being a small business person myself, I can appreciate the fact that mistakes will be made. It's unavoidable. But I think often what defines your business is how you handle the mistakes and the customer service you provide along with it.

Stepping up to clarify the issue and offer resolution makes your company one that I would want to do business with. So I will be ordering a set of frame sliders from T-Rex to fit my '05 FJR.

Thanks,

-Paul

 

[Bike Design Benelux]

I'm not that surprised really. There's no way he can make those sets at a decent quality if you have a look at the price. How I know? Because we make the same sets. And when I say the same, I mean that out sets are optically identical except for the sliders themselves. We've been making those sliders for ages; in fact, they are our core product since 1999. We've sold over 60.000 sets and we've never EVER had an issue like that. T-Rex must have liked our stuff, because he bought a pair of each set of no-cut sliders frome one of our distributors so that he could make a shameless copy of ours.

In the FJR-case, we've been making them since 2003 and we're the official supplier for the Belgian Police Force, who's motorcycles are about 50% FJR's. Sold hundreds of sets to them, never had a complaint... We've even been contacted by Kawasaki Europe with the question if we would be interested to be the official supplier of their aftermarket catalogue sliders. Unlike T-Rex, we don't tend to use cheap stuff (this thread proves what his sliders are worth)... We've ordered some of his sets through one of our foreign relations and examined them at our workshop. I'm not going to jump into details, but, we were astonished by some of the things we found. Materials, weldings, ...

Yeah well... Making shameless copies without knowing what you're doing can do that... Alas for you guys...

Regards,

Christophe, in name of Bike Design Benelux

 

[pmspaul]

...And when I say the same, I mean that out sets are optically identical except for the sliders themselves...

Christophe,

I'm no expert, but this:

does not like identical to this:

Did these guys do it too?

First:

T-Rex must have liked our stuff, because he bought a pair of each set of no-cut sliders frome one of our distributors so that he could make a shameless copy of ours....

Then you said this a paragraph later:

We've ordered some of his sets through one of our foreign relations and examined them at our workshop.

So he only ordered to make shameless copies, but your intentions were what? Isn't it common to examine the competition's product when you're developing something so you can make changes or improvements to your own?

Christophe, if you want credibility, at least with me, you'll need more than allegations. I'm thinking proof. Otherwise your liable to just come off as the competition trolling.

 

[SnowAviation]

Agreed and like pmspaul, I had a detailed reply but accidentally hit the back button.

Summary:

• Euro vs Dollar, isn't helping you Chrstophe, your prices are over 10 times higher with shipping to the US.
  
• You don't have a presence at all in the US, no wholesale or retail outlets.
• You could probably make the "Theirs is just like ours" about any of the US madesliders, only so many ways to make a round plastic thingy.
  

 

[FJRONAMISSION]

This is exactly how product improvements are made......

Isn't it common to examine the competition's product when you're developing something so you can make changes or improvements to your own?

and with out DETAILED proof this statement isn't anything but ( a good offense = a good defense ) move... you'll need more than allegations. I'm thinking proof......... maybe........ you just charge too much for your product sport..... YMMV........

B.....

 

[FJRBluesman]

I have not had the displeasure of using my frame sliders, and I hope I never do. But what I got from T-Rex for my Gen1 was what I thought a nice quality product, at a fair price. Most other frame sliders were twice the price. No I don't have the cool machined mounting plate that is hidden; however, I feel the mount T-Rex supplies will do the job just as well.

On my post about installation, I explained about getting longer screws etc. I also E-mailed T-Rex and told them. They replied and thanked me for my input and said they'd look into possibly changing their bolt lengths.

Those that have an issue with the void in the part can get it corrected by T-Rex. I'd say they are doing a smashing job at customer service. That is worthy of my business and word of mouth props for them.

All will have to make their own decision on what to buy. From other threads I've seen on this forum about people getting flat out ripped off on items, I'd say T-Rex wants our business and will do what if takes to get and keep our business.

Christophe - No offense, but on your first couple posts you come out dogging the competition. You'll have to earn our business. So far you're off to a rocky start at best....

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Bike Design Benelux]

Hi guys,

Can't give any exact details right now because I'm back at home and I'm going for a week's holiday in Italy. I'll just fill you in a bit... At first T-Rex' sliders were exactly the same as ours. He then changed the design a bit, but all of the no-cut constructions are copied from ours. We have been able to trace his purchases thanks to one of our foreign distributors. He purchased them over there and then made copies. It was impossible for him to know our technical details unless he'd buy them, so that's what he did. Our former distributor in the US was the one who notified us about T-Rex. We had a look at the kits he offers and clearly saw that he must have copied them from us. At that time he didn't have one single kit that we didn't have and not 1 kit was different from ours. We clearly saw that he must have copied our kits because we have some really unique solutions for e.g. the Hayabusa en TL1000R kit.

Why we ordered some of his kits? To see if he's at least doing it properly. He used all wrong materials that you should never use because they can't cope with the forces of a severe impact. The weldings were rubbish, the material of his sliders wasnot good enough, ... As we feared, he just gave the no-cut crash protectors a bad name. I'm not trying to steal his market here, I'm trying to explain why I'm not surprised about the content of the topic. We've got enough market in Europe and the non-US countries, don't worry.

SnowAviation, I'm not talking about the plastic round thingies as you call them. I'm talking about the constructions on which they are made. Sure, they're prettie simple on the FJR, but try making those things fit a CBR600/1000RR, ZX10R or Triumph 675 without having to cut the fairing. You need ingenious solutions and you can imagine that we're not really happy when someone just comes copying our design after purchasing one set of each...

I'm off to Italy in a few hours, but when I'm back, I'll make sure I'll post a few original pictures of our sliders (development prototypes on the motorcycle including date stamp) compared to pictures of the content of his kits. Why do you think he doens't show pics of the sliders fitted onto a bike? Because he hasn't had the bikes. We go get the bikes as soon as they are released and we develop a kit. Then we make the pictures of the prototypes fitted onto those bikes... He can't do that...

Anyhow, you'll hear from me in on Monday the 21st... Some concrete pictures that prove the allegations I make...

 

[pmspaul]

Why do you think he doens't show pics of the sliders fitted onto a bike? Because he hasn't had the bikes. We go get the bikes as soon as they are released and we develop a kit. Then we make the pictures of the prototypes fitted onto those bikes... He can't do that...
Anyhow, you'll hear from me in on Monday the 21st... Some concrete pictures that prove the allegations I make...

See, now this sounds like a reasonable and logical argument. I have "no horse in this race." I'm sure this type of thing (design copying) has happened before, but if it's true, it might be enough to make me rethink finalizing my purchase.

My main reason for looking at t-rex is the same as FJRBluesman. Cost effectiveness, customer service, etc. My main reason for even getting a frame slider is tip-over protection. I have insurance if it gets wrecked. But I want to avoid damage from a costly slip or bump in the garage.

If it's just not made quite as good, I can live with that, I expected that.

Look forward to hearing from you Christophe.

 

[FJRBluesman]

I do not know anyone from T-Rex or Bike Design. I did do business with T-Rex. That being said....

Lets see.... I never heard of Bike Design until now. T-Rex has been around a while, their website was form 2007, and BD (in Brussels) is from 2008. Who came first the chicken or the egg? Who copied who, if any? I don't really know.

Technically to be different from "a copied design", the copied design must be 30% different from the alleged copied article. I can't see the parts from BD but looking at Motovations bracket Vs T-Rex (from post #45 pmspaul), they are at least 30% different. That is legal here in the US. It's obvious for the Gen1 and Gen2 mounting points for the brackets or slider, the real question is how does the design evolve from there.

Anyway, BD I'm just a little skeptical at the attack on T-Rex Vs how your product is better. The, they don't have a picture of the bike therefore they copied us, is lame at best. Just MHO.

 

[Bike Design Benelux]

Hellow there... I’m back. Two days later then I expected to be, but lots of urgent stuff was waiting for me when I came back from my holiday... Yeah wel...

I’ve made some pictures of some of the sets we both offer: a Hayabusa, CBR600RR, CBR600F4i and a TL1000R kit. I chose to take these because these have complicated designs for the mounting pads. I spread the kits out on the floor in the same way T-Rex took his pictures, which makes it easy for you to compare them. I’ll add some of our development pictures as well, just to prove that we’ve been working on the bike, starting from scratch in stead of stealing some other company’s ideas. Keep in mind that even though it looks identical, it isn’t... You have to have the right materials and that’s where he doesn’t do his homework (well, cheating) properly.



CBR600F4i

The difference? He makes more weldings while we do more laser cutting for a stronger bracket. This also improves the fitment because the material tends to bend when you heat it in the welding process. Other difference: he welds a nut on the mounting bracket and therefore makes a hollow interior in the aluminium crash pad holders. We used to do it too, but were able to improve the design by creating a thread in the mounting pad. This makes the construction more solid. We learnt that from our experience with other kits we developed.

The development pictures date from October 20th 2001. T-Rex wasn’t around at that time; he only started doing frame sliders late 2006. ... The huge black slider was our first type, but we’ve changed the design to the white type of slider in 2001 and to the round conical type in 2007.

CBR600RR

The difference? None, I think. I see that he doesn’t use the soft (grey) pads on the mounting brackets though. They don’t compromise the stability of the kit because of the way it’s mounted, but they make sure you don’t damage the frame and they dampen high frequency vibrations caused by the engine. These could compromise the strength of the bolt, especially if you don’t use Loctite. The M12 bolt he uses, has an allen head just like the others. I don't know why he didn't use a hex head like we do, because that's what you should do on the place where that bolt comes. The allen head bolt is longer, too long, so it touches things it shouldn't. he kit will damage the bike because he didn't choose to use a shorter hex head...

The development pictures date from May 19th 2003. T-Rex didn’t even exist at that time. You can see some writings on the prototype mounting brackets, indicating where reinforcements and weldings should be made. You also see that they aren’t black yet, as all our prototypes...



TL1000R

The difference? We just started making black holders for the sliders, but before, they were aluminium, just like T-Rex. I spot a change on the right hand side bracket that he didn’t make. Probably because we update our kits when we find improvements...

I haven’t got the original development pictures, but I found these ones, dating from June 3rd 2003. Once again: T-Rex didn’t even exist at that time.

Hayabusa

No difference to spot. He’s even made the bar narrower in the middle to that it doesn’t touch the radiator.

I haven’t got development pictures, but the oldest ones I found are from June 18th 2001. T-Rex didn’t even exist...

And then, some more answers to what you guys were saying...

pmspaul: you say that you can live with T-Rex’ sliders not being as good as ours. Rest assured, they don’t even come close because he’s not using the right materials. They don’t last and they’re too weak. They’ll bend to fast.



FJRBluesman: don’t look at the dates our websites have had their latest upgrade, that doesn’t prove a thing. Our website was last modified in 2008. You’ll see that our website has been around for much longer then 2008 if you check e.g. the product news (oldest item June 12th 2006). https://www.bike-design.com/articles.php?id=4 and scroll to the bottom. Check our VAT-number (BE0451.634.077) on the offcial Belgian VAT website. https://kbopub.economie.fgov.be/kbopub/onde...in=0451.634.077 We exist since December 30th 1993.

I hope this helps you see why I’m so angry with T-Rex... They copy us and while doing it, they get it al wrong and give no-cut sliders a bad name by using cheap materials...

Shoot, I’m all ears...

 

[FJRGuy]

I don't own a CBR or TL1000 or Hayabusa... so guess what, I don't care about those kits! My bike has a very simple direct bolt-on slider and I'm happy with it. Good on T-Rex for offering an reasonably priced slider for our bike. I trust they are learning and improving as they go.

Quit your whining about having competition. There is a mechanism for protection of your designs, it's called a patent. But as far as I can tell, none of your designs meet the criteria to be patentable. Therefore competitors are free to copy your design and you need to compete on price, service and quality. You may very well have the advantage with the latter, but I wouldn't spend the extra $ based on your claims.

Just my $0.02

 

[thewoodman]

I was going to buy some Bike Design rear sliders but they seam to have a real problem with competition. From what I can tell Bike Design invented, manufactured and sold the original frame slider. It also appears that no other manufacture has beat them to market with any design for any particular bike they sell sliders for. If in fact this is not the case I can anly assume they have made one of these inferior copies he refers to.

Anyway, does anybody have a set of the Bike Design rear sliders I can copy? :lol2:

 

[meosborn]

I hope this helps you see why I’m so angry with T-Rex... They copy us and while doing it, they get it al wrong and give no-cut sliders a bad name by using cheap materials...
Shoot, I’m all ears...

Who cares? You don't sell here anyway and are apparently not even interested since

We've got enough market in Europe and the non-US countries, don't worry.

Did you apply for a patent in the US? If not, then I would think you leave your designs open to be copied. Someone with more knowledge of those types of laws would know better for sure.

 

[sin_loki]

hell you better never make anything in the PC world.

EVERY thing is clone of something in the PC world, just depends who makes it.

as far sliders go... they all work in low speed drops, at speed the thats probably the least of your worries. I would me concerned with my own well being than if the sliders worked or not, hell thats what insurance is for.

personally I have not seen too may get offs where the slider saved the bike 100%, they usually slide off the road and flip over causing massive damage.

 

[Bike Design Benelux]

FJRGuy: I just showed those as example because they have very specific constructions. I'm not whining about us having competition, I was just saying that I'm not surprised by the thread and I'm now saying why that is so. I wouldn't say T-Rex is improving that much, seeing the fact that he hasn't changed the cheap-*** materials he started using in 2006. I can understand why someone in the US wouldn't spend the extra dough on our sliders. We have the disadvantage that the euro is very strong at the moment and the US Dollar is rather low... That makes the price difference really big and export to the US is harder... Simple as that...

Meosborn: we don't have distributors in the US, but we do sell directly through the online shop and accept group buys from forums all around the world. We don't patent our stuff, because according to European laws, that doens't allow the competition to freely copy it... We could sue T-Rex in Europe if we wanted to...

Sin_loki: our sliders also work at high speed. I can confirm that from my own experience. My last one was a lowside at Assen (Netherlands) at 180km/h (about 112 mph) and I had scratches on the clutch lever, carbon alternator cover and that's it... I came back into the pitlane for a quick checkup, but was able to finish the endurance race. The one before that was a 120km/h (75 mph) lowside at Folembray (France), wrecking my fairing on a 10cm (2.5 inch) high curbstone, but saving my frame and fuel tank. Those two were with my 2008 CBR1000RR, but I've also crashed (not just dropped) a 2003 GSX-R1000, 2002 GSX-R600 and 2001 SV650S with our crash pads, minimising the damage.

Does insurance also count on the track? That's an actual question... I don't know, because we have only got insurance for accidents with third parties in Belgium. You can have insurance for accidents without third parties as well here, but they cost about 1500 euros per year (2200 USD) so no one takes that...

 

[Bike Design Benelux]

LOL! Check this out... Found it on the Hayabusaforum. This is a picture T-Rex used to promote his sliders... Keep in mind that he has never ever sold white sliders...

https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/general-bike-related-topics/73717-t-rex-racing-no-cut-frame-sliders.html#post1297386 ://https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/gener...ml#post1297386

And this is one of the original development pictures I found in our archives.

How is that for proof that he stole our frame slider constructions? :blink:

 

[SnowAviation]

Well Christophe,

You've convinced me that T-Rex is simply copying your product. It was

your last post of the obviously copied photo was the final piece of evidence

that changed my mind. Unfortunately he will continue to sell sliders over

here because of his price and reportedly good customer service.

He's posted on this thread once to address the defective plastic part, it will

be interesting to see if he posts to refute your claims.

It's funny cause usually when we see "Knock Off's" here in the states it's

from a Chineese manufacturer of a USA made part.

Ed