Gents,

I ordered one of Blackbird's adjustable spoilers on 29 Feb from Aurora Design, to replace one I fuckificated at VIR. I received an invoice, but no tracking number as of today, 17 March. No reply to an email inquiry on 8 March. No response to a phone message I left Friday (15 March) morning. I also sent Moti some kind of private message to his profile last week, but it wasn't an actual PM. No response yet.

I'm very happy with the Blackbird spoiler, but if they're no longer available, I need to work something else soon.

Thanks,

 

Gents,

No response seems odd. Can anyone chime in with the last time they received an order from Blackbird Fabworx/Aurora Design?

Thanks,

 

Goodwin sells the spoiler, but it currently shows as out of stock. Their customer service is usually pretty responsive and realistic about backorder timing. It wouldn't hurt to reach out to them to try a parallel path on getting info.

 

I have ordered 3 things from him.

ND roll bar which showed up about on schedule, good comms, etc... This was in 2021 give or take... Had an issue during install and he called me on a Sunday... I thought "man thats great customer service".

Coolant reroute hard pipe. Dont remember much on comm's, but it showed up reasonably quickly. Mid 2022 I think.

NB front tow hook relocation bracket thing.... Spring of 2023. This is where things went off the rails. No product after like 5-6 weeks. No comms. Repeated phone calls, emails, facebook messages, text messages, etc... nothing... I saw him at the time posting on a few various facebook groups so I know he was alive and well... After like 6 weeks I sent an email that said "I need a refund by Monday otherwise I will initiate things with Paypal to get refunded"... Still no reply to comms but on that Monday at some point he sent a refund to my Paypal. There were others at that time frame saying the same thing on a few facebook groups... He could have emailed me and said "hey man a batch of those brackets are going to be produced on xx date, then go to powder coat, then ill ship them on xx date if everything goes according to plan" and I would have said "great, thanks for the update, ill standby"... but instead zero anything.

Thats been my experience. He makes some killer products, but I dont think I will be ordering anything else from him.

 

Thanks for sharing. I've received nothing more from them since my original post.

I've been running the Blackbird spoiler for several years. I don't want to take her back out on track without some additional rear down force.

I'm probably going to install this https://www.miataturbo.net/aerodynam...advice-109209/ on the messed up trunk lid, just to see what happens. I hear it calling out to me from the garage floor...

I'd really like to go with the Street ****, but the car would no longer fit in the garage. I have to leave the trunk lid open with the Blackbird spoiler to clear the garage door.

 

I'm kinda sad now... I cancelled my Blackbird order this morning via email response to my invoice, and they credited my PayPal account in less than two hours. If they had responded to just one of my status requests, via email or phone, we might have been able to work something out. We certainly could have avoided this thread.

 

My assumption is that Moti is just to busy working on cages and stuff for much higher end cars with much better margins, then to work on miata parts any more.

 

Are you saying my slightly bent, dented, 186,000 mile, six-colored HPDE-only Miata is somehow unworthy? You and your Second shall meet me at the Oak Tree Turn at VIR at a time of your choosing. Pistols at 10 paces...

 

That may be the case...but

Communications would go MILES AND MILES AND MILES to his cause...

He's to busy to communicate why he cant or wont build Miata parts, yet has time to refund people's payments... got it...

And if he is truly to busy to build Miata parts then delete them all from the website or dont allow people to order them in the first place. Why keep taking orders for products you know you wont build and then pissing people off who never get their product and deal with shitty i.e. zero communication?

 

He's fairly active on FB...

 

I am not, I will gladly sell you a turbo setup. I will even drive up and hand deliver it to you. I am saying Moti may feel that way.

Do they have a range at VIR, I will also gladly come up and do some target shooting there with you!

I don't disagree with any of that. You are not wrong. But running small 1 person companies is cray cray. There are trade off's and business owners don't always make the best decisions. Also being a good fabricator does not mean you are also a good business person.

 

The lack of communication about if they are doing business is in line with my experience with extremely small companies in Miata world, with very few exceptions. Given that BBFW barely ever had a real website anyways, it shouldn't be that hard to make a note that they're shutting down Miata parts production. I'm glad I bought my roll bar years ago, before he began really raising prices and no longer being in the market.

The thing I find frustrating about all these one man band type operations is that it really does not seem that hard to have a FB page or something for your products with vaguely recent posts about how or when stuff will be sold. It's hard to believe that a market just completely dried up, or that certain products such as the spoiler could not be licensed out or sold exclusively to a single retailer, much like how some Trackspeed parts are still in production sold through Tarmac 88 or Flyin' Miata.