Summit pulls Speedmaster products after finding counterfeit parts

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

Given how Summit's website works, and how they have a pretty strong eBay presence, it's possible that he didn't know what brand it was sold under until he took the freshly inoperative unit out of the transmission.

Nah Fam.  

I watched the video.  Its a "Broader" valve body in a "Speedmaster" box.  It wasn't sold as a "Broader" part.  Summit would not have described it as a "Broader" part unless they were in on it.  As a customer who had never heard of "Broader Performance" (Totally reasonable, its a peanut shop in E36 M3sburg, TX), I would have wondered where my part that was supposed to say "Speedmaster" came from, and I would have reached out to Summit or Speedmaster for warranty work.  

What I feel happened - nothing to back it up of course - is Broader is/was making or at least prototyping items in China.  Once that dried up or there wasnt enough volume to support, the prints and engineering were repurposed by Speedmaster to run parts.  Sloppiness ensued, and Speedmaster shipped parts that were supposed to be a copy that said Speedmaster with the original logo.  I just don't see someone in mainland China digging up a valve body from a 2 bit shop with very minimal online presence to copy on their own volition, right down to the logo, and not go through the effort to copy the packaging -  when there are so many more popular items to copy.  Heck even if I was at Summit or some other major retailer and I wanted a chinese clone of a trans brake, I would just send them some parts I already knew how to support and had access to, instead of a brand I had never heard of that I had to order direct.

I watched both videos, including the one with the toothless hillbilly in front of the primered turd ranting about "Buy American". I still don't see the whole picture.  

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

Summit has ultimate responsibility to know and back what they sell. That's just how it works- ford was responsible for Firestones problems, Boeing is responsible for Spirit Aerospace problems. If they don't know, that's their problem. 
 

Especially if they claim to care about counterfeit parts. 

Another closely tangential rant...

I'm starting to get a whiff of something very troubling about Summit lately. I've been buying speed parts from them since before the internet, but in the last 1-2 years, there has been a subtle stink of corporate ambiguity and profiteering entering the scene. Newly revised returns policy/operation is one example...how many of you were pissed when you had to pay return shipping on a Summit return for the first time? Summit made themselves what they are by developing the business around us enthusiasts and our bizarre proclivities. It almost seems like the board room meetings recently have shifted from "how can we do best by car people?" to "how can we improve profit margin, even if we depart from the core customer base?". Summit, don't lose the recipe. Plenty of other large corporations have lost the fox on this same subject and it doesn't end well for anyone except shareholders with the foresight to sell now, or execs with golden parachutes.