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Thread: Cobb Tuning to stop Mazdaspeed development

  1. #1
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    Default Cobb Tuning to stop Mazdaspeed development

    Here is a quote from the Cobb forums, regarding the Mazdaspeed:


    For quite some time, the MAZDASPEED community has, in large part, been confrontational, disrespectful, unprofessional, vulgar or childish regarding any announcements and/or business decisions COBB Tuning has made on public forums. Responses ranging from outrage and profanity to threats of intellectual property piracy have become the normal reaction when things don't go exactly to their wishes. No amount of professionalism, realism or rationale has worked in turning these communications into more constructive discussions.

    Although COBB Tuning is a business, it is made up of enthusiasts that work here and they love what they do. Everyone gets a lot of satisfaction from taking on the hard projects like cracking and controlling the MAZDASPEED ecu and making it do what no one else does. When ongoing criticism to these efforts is "**** COBB" or "I'm going to hack your software and give it away" or "**** these OTS maps" or "Hopefully Cobb will get it's head out of it's ***", it tends to make everyone less enthusiastic about working on it.

    We have decided to bring MAZDASPEED development to a close because no one at COBB finds it rewarding to put in the hours and hours of effort just to have so many people spouting negativity and insults. In fact, many of our pro tuners have been monitoring the MAZDASPEED forum discussions to gauge interest and have come back with "Uh, nevermind...not worth dealing with it" responses. It's a shame that while the MAZDASPEED community is demanding more performance products from manufacturers, the tribal infighting, Lord of the Flies atmosphere and unrestrained attitude displayed on the forums is actually driving choice and new development out of the market. It might be fun for some, but the entire community suffers as a whole.

    Regards,

    Gary Sheehan
    Director of Marketing
    COBB Tuning


    Source: COBB Tuning Forums.
    Last edited by armthehomeless; 08-04-2009 at 04:42 PM.

  2. #2
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    Ouch that's a bit rough (meaning the way the reported Mazdaspeed forums sledge) I am so glad we're not like that here, much better to be constructive in the way you share feedback. 'Tis a shame that Cobb are no longer going to play though!

  3. #3
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    Matt you're pretty active on MSF, care to give us a 5 min backgrounder on what's been happening with the alleged COBB bashing?

  4. #4
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    Ouch.

    COBB - we still love you!

  5. #5

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    yea whats with that ?? Obviously a US thing ?

  6. #6
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    They had recieved stick since day one from a few due to the -

    1/ Ever moving release dates
    2/ Sub par maps for AP
    3/ Sub par/Varying quality on hardparts

    This is from the community not myself. Just supplying the info.

    Rumour has it that they (like other tuning houses) had struggled to really work out our PITA Ecu. Also the Pro-tuning equip etc was being released shortly and it has been speculated that they bailed pryor because of the same problem.

  7. Default

    I 've been posting on another forum about this development, Its a shame that it has got to this point. But the forums only can blame them self's

  8. #8

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    I work at a large and successful company, dealing directly with the public
    we get whinging and complaining every day and every night.
    This we deal with. All successful businesses do.

    But we still go to work every day and take their money off them complaints or not.

    Do you see Ford, Toyota or any other large company stop making cars because they get complaints.

    Who cares what the customer says as long as you get their money

    No the Cobb thing appears to be a case of "we can;t do this any more" in the case of this platform
    What until after the ATR is released and more might surface

  9. #9
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    A big shame to see but as teedee has said, its something businesses have to deal with day in day out.

    Shame though, there stuff was top notch and I my "todo" list for an MPS (if I got one) had a fair bit of gear made by them.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by PaulG View Post
    yea whats with that ?? Obviously a US thing ?
    Yes, I'm extremely proud that our forum hasn't been subjected to the same 'aggressive' discussion that has appeared on other boards.

    Well done guys
    2014 Mk7 Golf R | DSG | Reflex Silver | Leather | Drive Assist | Bi-Xenon Headlights
    1981 Lincoln Town Car | Auto | 80s Cream | 90s brown interior | 5.0L V8 | Currently no working headlights



  11. #11
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    ditto...I have jumped on the US forums a bit and they are very "in your face" at times.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by teedee View Post
    I work at a large and successful company, dealing directly with the public
    we get whinging and complaining every day and every night.
    This we deal with. All successful businesses do.

    But we still go to work every day and take their money off them complaints or not.

    Do you see Ford, Toyota or any other large company stop making cars because they get complaints.

    Who cares what the customer says as long as you get their money

    No the Cobb thing appears to be a case of "we can;t do this any more" in the case of this platform
    What until after the ATR is released and more might surface
    Thats it.


    Excuses!
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  13. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by teedee View Post
    I work at a large and successful company, dealing directly with the public
    we get whinging and complaining every day and every night.
    This we deal with. All successful businesses do.

    But we still go to work every day and take their money off them complaints or not.

    Do you see Ford, Toyota or any other large company stop making cars because they get complaints.

    Who cares what the customer says as long as you get their money

    No the Cobb thing appears to be a case of "we can;t do this any more" in the case of this platform
    What until after the ATR is released and more might surface
    I disagree, at my last job as a vendor of software we had one company that would always dispute any support charges and were generally a pain in the ass, so we cut them off and stopped supporting them. We don't have to take crap from any customers especially if they're more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. Our time was better spent (business wise) on getting new clients and providing better support for other non pain in the ass clients.

    Your big car company example is flawed because it's not the same market. You don't see the upper management personally involved in forums, and there's a good chance they don't even know about any of the complaints coming in. Out of sight, out of mind. When you're a company the size of Cobb, everyone is involved in the community (including Trey) and that kind of abuse and attitude from people is enough to do what we did in my last company.
    Nuliaj: Hatches are only really half a car anyway.
    shinslinger66: And you forgot to add that they are also a girls car!

  14. #14
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    An update, we now have a slightly better wording of the original statement, from the man himself, Trey Cobb.

    I still think he should sack his Marketing guy.



    The decision to cease NEW development for the MAZDASPEED platform was made unilaterally within the organization. Everyone from our support staff to the engineers to the calibrators agreed that given our already limited resources, it made sense.

    It should not be read that all COBB products for the MAZDASPEED platform will just go away and we won't provide warranty and our normal support for our products. We are simply stating that no NEW development will occur for this platform. We are stating this in as straight forward of a manner as possible in an attempt to set proper expectations. We have been fairly criticized by the market for not properly setting and/or meeting expectations in the past so we are trying to be more transparent in our plans moving forward. We also decided to be forthcoming about some of the reasons for our decision in hopes that the community as a whole would begin to take steps to insure a rewarding relationship between enthusiasts and companies that continue to participate in it moving forward.

    The predominant opinion here at COBB still is that the MAZDASPEED vehicles are a fantastic platform with enormous potential. That's what led us into this market to begin with. One area where I think there is a lot of misconception about our company is our motivation to take on some markets/vehicles. While there has to be some degree of a business case for it in order to stay solvent, the larger factor is our enthusiasm for the vehicle and the people that own them. We want to develop relationships with the community and work WITH them to maximize the experience in owning that vehicle. Knowing you're working WITH a group of fellow enthusiasts to make the vehicle better, learn more, and having your work appreciated is extremely motivating and exciting.

    As stated by Gary, the MAZDASPEED community in large part (though clearly not the WHOLE part) has been rather negative towards us for quite some time. In part, we've earned some of this negativity and we don't shy away from that. On the other hand, there are often cases were expectations are so high that we are destined to fail regardless of skill or effort. We have always sought to improve on our weaknesses and learn from our mistakes, but for quite a few people our actions will never be enough. We're quite use to facing criticism in honestly EVERY market we participate in. We've always thrived on it, as it makes our company and products better. However there is a significant difference between constructive criticism from those that want to see things improve and
    destructive criticism from those that only want us to fail. The former certainly exists, but it has been the growing predominance of the later that has weighed heavily in this decision.

    For those that are upset that you are being "punished" by the decision, we have a lot in common. I'm also upset that the motivation to continue development of the MAZDASPEED products has been sucked out of the company, and myself. We're both being punished by the same negative elements that flourishes in this community. Some may argue that it makes little sense for a business to take this action when there's money to be made. If money were our primary motivator, that would certainly be a valid argument. In our case, we prefer to go where we can interact positively with fellow enthusiasts and feel as though the work we are doing is appreciated. Silly notion for some, I know, but I get more enjoyment from that than from looking at some numbers on my bank statement.

    Finally, I do feel things are concluding on a positive note considering that we do have the AccessTUNER Pro out now that will address the needs of MAZDASPEED AP owners for years to come. The Race version is coming shortly that will also provide the solution so many of you have been asking for. My sincere hope is that we helped the MAZDASPEED enthusiast community by providing more tools, knowledge and resources than what was available when we started. That you, and the others that purchase these vehicles in the future, will be able to achieve their goals and that our effort will have been a positive contribution.

    And for those that have been so willing to work with us, it has been sincerely appreciated. We apologize that we've been unable to meet your expectations, and hope that the fruits of your effort will be enjoyed by you and others by the tuning tools we have and are making available to the community.

    Best of luck to all and happy tuning,
    Trey Cobb


    Link here : COBB Forums - View Single Post - AccessTUNER Race for MAZDASPEED3 & MAZDASPEED6 Discussion

  15. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nuliaj View Post
    I disagree, at my last job as a vendor of software we had one company that would always dispute any support charges and were generally a pain in the ass, so we cut them off and stopped supporting them. We don't have to take crap from any customers especially if they're more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. Our time was better spent (business wise) on getting new clients and providing better support for other non pain in the ass clients.

    Your big car company example is flawed because it's not the same market. You don't see the upper management personally involved in forums, and there's a good chance they don't even know about any of the complaints coming in. Out of sight, out of mind. When you're a company the size of Cobb, everyone is involved in the community (including Trey) and that kind of abuse and attitude from people is enough to do what we did in my last company.
    OK you dropped ONE customer we all do that. BUT did you stop developing
    software for that platform because of the complaints.
    That is what Cobb is doing.

  16. #16

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    Actually we did, we were in the process of negotiating modifications for them to the tune of five hundred thousand dollars and we dropped all that. That one customer was actually a fairly big franchise with multiple stores - the equivalent of dropping a platform.

  17. #17

    Default Cobb apologizes


  18. #18

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    I'm impressed by what they're offering to make things right - Launch Control, No shift lift and a free full featured beta of the ATR. If this is all true, then it's the best outcome we could hope for apart from Cobb deciding they want to develop for us again.

    Sell your WOTBoxes! :P

  19. #19
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    My 2c . I run my own business if someone is happy with you they tell three people if they are pissed off they tell nine

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