**BUYER BEWARE ** Foster Rad Exhaust

Discussion in 'Mechanics Garage' started by FasterFoster, May 28, 2003.

  1. TOE CUTTER

    TOE CUTTER Mullet Man

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    OK. Alaskan is to be the first.I would like Bitterpil to be second.Who is third?
     
  2. drewl

    drewl Insider

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    won't that be expensive to ship around the country?

    Glad you are getting your money back, though.
     
  3. Lgn001

    Lgn001 Member

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    Perhaps you can ask BadBilly to write them a letter; sort of a summary statement of your feelings on the matter. :biggrin:
     
  4. SilverSurferRWB

    SilverSurferRWB Member

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    I'll be third! I'll put it on the melted bike! :biggrin: Glad you got the $$$ back TOE!
     
  5. GreyVF750F

    GreyVF750F Member

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    Then send a picture to Foster Rad and Lazier and tell them it caught your bike on fire and your going to sue because of a defective product. See if you get any response from either then.:flame:
     
  6. BWeiss

    BWeiss Johnny Partseed

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    [​IMG]
    ............
     
  7. Alaskan

    Alaskan Member

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    TC, check out the shipping charges to and from Alaska! I would rather have a scale-model replica. ;-)
     
  8. Alaskan

    Alaskan Member

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    Yes! BadBilly has a certain flair with words. Great idea!
     
  9. steben

    steben New Member

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    Wow old thread but was just looking it over. I have laser pipes on mine and I thought my issue was bad. One of my pipes just touched my new tyre (2 up) but with a bit of bending and banging its fine now. My pipes do look different to yours though Toe. Hope you got something in the end as mine sound awesum.
     
  10. Meatloaf

    Meatloaf New Member

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    Not to bring up a bad subject here but I thought I would add a little information here for those that might be interested.

    As some of you know I have been pretty set on getting the Lasers for my VFR for quite a while now despite what has happened to Toe. I refuse to deal with Foster and it does appear that they are close to going out of business from what we have seen through Toe's escapade in dealing with them. Going to Laser's website you will find that there are only 3 authorized distributors of Laser in the good ol' USA. Those would be Foster, Speigler, and Annitori. We can go ahead and scratch Foster off the list leaving us with 2.

    My mechanic is a dealer for Speigler. About 3 weeks ago I had him quote me the price from them to get the Lasers and he did so. I gave him the go ahead to order them at the end of last week. Yesterday I got in touch with him to find out the status on them and he said that Speigler is no longer a distributor for the exhaust and he can't get it for me. Now we can scratch Speigler off the list and that leaves us with Annitori.

    I did a LOT of research on the company last night and found lots of praise for them. They are a bunch of cool guys that care about their customers and have been around a little bit. I decided what the heck, I would give them a call this morning and feel them out. If all was good then I could take my chances. I spoke with a guy on the phone and was probably talking to one of the best customer support guys I'd ever spoken with and found out quite a bit about them. Yes, I went ahead and ordered the exhaust.

    You're all probably wondering what I'm ranting about here so I'll finish this up. At this point you would think that we have one reputable place to guy our Laser exhaust from right? Well as it would turn out, they are no longer importing Laser exhaust products into the US and the one that I bought was the last one to be imported by them and was simply overstock. I spoke with the guy about Toe's problem, Foster's apparent policy of having no customer support period, and Speigler no longer carrying Laser as well. You guessed it, there are no longer any importers of Laser in the USA. The guy I spoke with noted in my file of a potential problem up fitting and that the item may be returned so long that it has never been used and is not damaged in any way.

    What all of this is for is to inform anyone still considering a Laser exhaust. At this point and time, I have the last set of the Laser Xtreme Quad Taper Inox exhaust in the USA scheduled for delivery tomorrow. Any that you find for sale and other random places around the web or local shops have been ordered from one of the three distributors that I listed above. Be aware in purchasing them if you choose to do so and make sure that you know that you will have little options if you run into problems either in installation or later down the road. Make sure that you have the option to return them if problems arise during installation like Toe experienced and be cetain they will honor their word.

    This also carries over to other bikes that you may want to purchase Laser exhaust for. With these three being defunct when it comes to Laser, essentially all Laser products that reside in the US are the last we will see unless another distributor pops up. At this point, any Laser product that anyone purchases is done at their own risk with little to no support available other than directly from Laser in the Netherlands and we saw that was little in terms of what was offered to Toe.

    Of course all of this might show why Toe had so many problems and shed a little light in the subject. I would say that all three of the distributors above and Laser themselves have known for quite a while that Laser was pulling out of the US market. This isn't a decision that is simply made overnight so don't dismiss it as that.

    I hope that this helps some of you in the future or provides a little more clarification for those interested in Toe's situation with all of this. Good luck if you choose to do so and I'm crossing my fingers that all is well on my part.
     
  11. Keager

    Keager Member

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    Hmm... I wonder if the google bombing we did her made them pull out of the US (Canada as well?) because of the Foster Rad bad reputation?
     
  12. steven113

    steven113 New Member

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    From what I hear a member on this site has a damaged one from the factory that you might be able to pic up cheap :) hahaha!!!
     
  13. CandyRedRC46

    CandyRedRC46 Member

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    this was definely worth peaking on vfrworld for!
    fucking outstanding!
     
  14. TOE CUTTER

    TOE CUTTER Mullet Man

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    Thanks Candy.

    I spent the three day weekend cutting the suspect exhaust and fitting it to my bike. What a pain in the ass. Had it on and off the bike 26 times, goofy f'n angles and a piss poor welding option given the oval shape of the joint, opted to leave the bad bend in place and cut it at the Y as it is under the tail section and fugly repair would be hidden.But it is on and the fit is very close to perfect, still about an 1/8 of an inch off but need to run it and let it settle and then I wiil tig the slip joints and do a final fit and shim the cans to a dead center fit and make a heat shield.Oh and mount the liscence plate.I owe a huge thanks to all of you that had my back on this, it really did help, it is tough to be on the short end and not let it mess with your head a little.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    THANK YOU ALL!
     
  15. Meatloaf

    Meatloaf New Member

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    Toe, thats fekkin sexy. I can't wait to get that on my bike. I'm very curious as to the why, what, and where you are going to be making a head shield. Please enlighten me as it might be something I consider during my install.

    I'm glad that things worked out in your favor after all of it and sorry that you had to go through so much trouble.

    As for the Google bombing, I don't know if we will ever know as far as the public is concerned. I would definitely say that it didn't help things any and they surely have lost some sales of some sort over the ordeal, if nothing more than a few members from here.

    A small part of me does feel bad for ordering the exhaust after knowing what all Toe has gone through in the ordeal as I feel that I am even if in a very small way condoning what was done to him via making the purchase. Had there been an alternative product that offered a look that appealed to me even close to what the Lasers offer me, I wouldn't have hesitated one bit in going with a different product. The Lasers just appeal to me so much more than anything else out there that I simply couldn't turn them down. The only other sound that appealed to me was the Staintunes but I just don't care for the dual can option after seeing the Lasers. I would prefer either a single can like the CBR's or Ducati's have or the quad's that I can get through Laser. Other than rigging up something that wasn't designed for the VFR I can't say that I've seen a single can design that was meant to fit the VFR. The Laser exhaust offers me a small piece of something that I know I will probably have because they remind me deeply of the organ pipe exhaust from the MV Agusta F4. Even if I do ever end up owning one, it will be a LONG way down the road.
     
  16. Alaskan

    Alaskan Member

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    whoa, Dude . . . . I am knocked out!
     
  17. supertex

    supertex New Member

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    I spent the evening with the infamous exhaust and I do have to say they look very cool. Toe did a very good job fixing the fitment issues so I expect they will reside there for some time.
     
  18. vfourbear

    vfourbear New Member

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    What year Chevy Cameo P/U is that in the background?
     
  19. TOE CUTTER

    TOE CUTTER Mullet Man

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    The Cameo

    It is a 57.
     
  20. Bubba Zanetti

    Bubba Zanetti Member

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    Good job fixing the Lazer and putting on your bike.

    BZ
     
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