POWER TOP VERT SUBWOOFER...finally.

[dougsic]

I don't know the guy personally, but I've watched him be a big supporter of this site and many of its members. I hate to think that his expansion and moving to a new shop caused some issues here.

Like you, I don't know Luke but I believe he is immensely capable of his trade. Perhaps more so than anyone I've ever met.

I sent Luke a PM a few minutes ago hoping he will post here giving us all good news that the power top boxes have shipped.

[Bearmw]

FYI I just got off the phone with Luke. He has had some issues with his move and currently has no internet (to be resolved soon hopefully). He provided his cell number 360-269-4840 so that people can reach him more easily. He is working on resolving any issues.

[CrusherCurtis]

To back up dougsic
I paid for mine a while ago as well and still don't have it. I think it was somewhere around $550. I even paid a little more for the speakers through Luke to support a forum member. I bought mine almost solely because of the below post, and have since been looking forward to it, even cutting the holes for it in my trunk fire wall. I hope I get it soon.

What a bunch of fucking weenies!

I get fucking PMs, messages, emails, whatever, all saying "when can I get a sub for my vert, I can't get laid" and for 4 fucking years I put up with this shit...now I have invented a fucking brilliant way to get good solid bass with the top down AND leave some luggage room...and not fucking one of you queers has actually ponied up and sent some fucking money WHILE I HAVE A FUCKING CAR SITTING HERE! WTF, assholes, what the hell do you think this is? You fucking BEGGED me, I am fucking DOING it and I have not fucking ONE actual payment except from Cabriolet, and that was before the car came up here.

I am gonna put this out right now: get some fucking money to me STAT or I drop the whole fucking thing and say a big fuck you to the power top vert.

I am doing this fucking stupid roofless pile of shit for YOU, so fucking send money or the whole deal is off.

Cash NOW or get stuffed, got it?

Luke

[PootieTang]

bummer, i would think after a post like that and big forum support, op would deliver

still got my fingers crossed though, if he can pull through for you guys i'll gladly send him the funds for my setup

[Cha Ching]

Has anyone actually called Luke to see what the status was?? I read his earlier posts about this product and he put a lot of time and effort into actually making something that works for a very small, niche crowd....and his response was a big Cherri-O from the 'vert crew!

I'm not surprised if he's holding out a big, "eff you clowns" attitude. Which is a shame, because this looks like a great product.

[StereoInstaller1]

Guys, it isn't exactly like that.

The fact is that I made the classic mistake of counting on sales that had not happened yet. Too little capital, too few options, just can't quite stretch hard enough.

I made some choices that I thought I had researched to the fullest...but were wrong.

For example, we called well over a dozen internet providers for our lovely house in the boonies and we were assured that some form of adequate internet would be available. Long story short, nothing. We lived on 5gb a month of insanely high latency cell phone internet, most of the time would not even connect to our email carrier.

We were told AFTER signing the lease AND moving out there that there was "nothing that could be done". I am not even gonna get into the fact that my tablesaw was destroyed in transport, that it took nearly 3 weeks to build our new tablesaw and get the shop up and running to any level at all.

This is, by the way, the tip of the iceberg. There are literally dozens of similar missteps, all of which are my fault, but all of which were as carefully researched as I could possibly do. Simply enough, I failed.

We spent tons of time, literally hundreds of hours developing these products...after being told by not just the 5 or 6 guys that actually stepped up and bought them, but literally dozens of guys that said "if you make it, we will buy it"...well, bullshit.

So, lets get this straight...we have roughly 140 hours into thinking up, designing, measuring, making jigs and templates...and we sold what, 8 boxes?

Lets not even talk about the amp rack...just a big FU to me.

So, lets make that more fun, while we have 3 guys working their asses off in the middle of nowhere, making about $2 an hour (yes, do the fucking math, that is what we made) in an attempt to get this business truly off the ground...and along come 2 or 3 really great guys.

First is Doug. Doug wants a really REALLY nice install. He and I agree on a price, sends me money...and way more importantly, trusts me to do what I say I will, which is build a bad ass install and send it to him. So, I take his deposit and buy a ton of stuff, his amp, speakers, etc...then, the car I had set up as a model did not show up.

Keep in mind, the only reason I agreed to this is I was certain I could do this. I was 100% sure I had a model, as you all know, the power top vert is not all that common.

the model was 3 weeks late in getting to me.

So, now, the money that was supposed to be profit for that job got used to pay bills...duh, right? Well, in the meantime, the shop was tied up for weeks...and sales were shit AND all of our money was tied up in materials to build the shit that was supposed to be sold...but no less than a dozen people backed out.

So, the stuff that was and is just almost ready to ship...is still sitting here. FML.

Oh, lets make that more fun. That same car that we killed ourselves to get sounding all killer and looking stellar was SUPPOSED to be at the Picnic...but was not there, not at all.

Again, fucked by trusting other people, fucked by my lack of capital. Zero sales from the Picnic, 2 years in a row. Wow, sign me up for more promotional shit! Let me know where I can donate that $250 worth of box...that one I made dick off of.

Lets just say I have learned my lesson. I gave up $500 in free labor AND $600 in free product...and got nothing at all in promotion, nothing.

So, next is Crusher Curtis. I told him that I would build him a special box, as he had to have the square woofers. Well, I put in a solid 20 hours trying to achieve just that.

For those who don't understand why this stuff takes so long, come watch what we do. The level of precision is unreal and every single thing we do has to be repeatable.

So now, we have 2 huge orders we cant seem to finish...lets add another wrinkle.

All of my bank accounts were seized by the state of california for my obscene past due child support. Lets not get into it, but here are some facts: I paid $850 a month for 12 years and yet they say I still owe $131,000. My kids are 21 and 23. Do the math.

I checked and asked and did my best to make sure the companies money was insulated from my prior mistakes, my child support obligation. This was not MY money, it was the companies money...yet it was seized not just once, but a total of 4 times AFTER I asked the child support enforcement people what to do...even when they themselves said they would not seize the accounts again.

Keep in mind, we don't exactly make piles of money here. We are trying to get a business off the ground and have virtually no capital to work with, and no credit available, either. A few hundred dollars will make or break us, literally.

So, to make a very long and ugly story shorter, we have moved. Our shitty sales means we could not afford the house we had, so we lost it. Since we had so little cash, we got stuck in a shitty little house with virtually no shop space...hell, we have to put our own electricity out there...and since no one was able to help us move AND it took literally 6 weeks to find a house we could rent, we got very little done.

Hey, lets make that more fun...we built a few E30 10's and 12's and 8's, which are still sitting here, unsold...well over $4,000 in product that IF it sold would get us all in the clear...getting the idea here? Seems the stuff that sold so well just a few months ago now sits in the storage room behind out kitchen.

So, one way or another, I am gonna get this shit shipped out to the kind, patient and trusting men who were kind enough to trust me and send me money...which I promptly fucked up.

I still want to keep this business alive, we have TONS of product ideas that BMW owners all over the planet are gonna want. I know there is success at the end of the tunnel, what we do and how we do it is too good to fail...but simply enough, the E30 crowd just cannot support enough, no matter how bad it tries.

So, what this means is a big FU to me. I am going to go get a fucking job, so instead of using my time profitably developing, building and selling BMW products, I am gonna go slam car stereos into other peoples shitty cars in an attempt to get back to where I started 2 years ago.

No matter how lame we are right now, we are still trying to get all of these issues resolved.

Luke

[dubdub]

Wow... that's a string of getting screwed. Life can suck sometimes. You make decisions based no the best information you have, yet sometimes things still go sideways.

As someone who had a great buying experiece with Luke earlier this year, I know he must have really hit a hard patch to have things go this awry.

My box pounds; I know the product is good.

Luke any way to expand to newer 3 and 5 series cars? I know when my friend with a 540 heard and saw it (with the amp rack) he wanted one.

Hope you can find a niche that can make this profitable for you.

[StereoInstaller1]

Wow... that's a string of getting screwed. Life can suck sometimes. You make decisions based no the best information you have, yet sometimes things still go sideways.

As someone who had a great buying experiece with Luke earlier this year, I know he must have really hit a hard patch to have things go this awry.

My box pounds; I know the product is good.

Luke any way to expand to newer 3 and 5 series cars? I know when my friend with a 540 heard and saw it (with the amp rack) he wanted one.

Hope you can find a niche that can make this profitable for you.

WE have an E46 available as a model...promoting the newer chassis is gonna be rough. We also have an E39 on tap...so yes, we will, but since we are struggling so hard just keeping our bills paid (and failing miserably at that) I don't quite know how we would pull that off.

2 years ago, we averaged 10 to 12 boxes a month. This month, we have sold 3...and it is the 20th. The usual method of increasing sales is to lower prices...well, as it is, we put a ton of time and effort into each box.

Is it really worth the effort to continue building for $8 an hour?

Thanks so much for the kind words.

Luke

[dubdub]

I think you're right... you're a victim of your own success. You've saturated the market for E30s. The vast majority of people who would put systems in their E30 have... whether it is your box or a POS non-custom box. The pond of customers is drying up.

I hope you're able to develop a product you like for the newer cars. That custom fit alone makes it better than what is available on the market!

[e304lyfe]

So I was one of the customers waiting on one of these mythical power top vert sub boxes.

Although I find the sob story interesting, it really doesn't explain why customers that paid money get ignored, while it is business as usual posting responses to threads online, or advertising and promoting products both here and on facebook.

I paid for a sub-box in the beginning of July, and got very sparse, and eventually no response on the status of my order. I eventually put a dispute on paypal, and eventually a claim, and got my money back. All through this process, and even up till today, not a word from Luke. Honestly, this has not really painted the picture of an honest person/business.

And by the way, I am also a return customer. With the rave reviews of Luke in general, this outcome was pretty shocking/disappointing. A simple tail between legs response of "Hey, I'm having some issues and sorry it is taking so long getting you the box" would have gone a long way.

[Sean S.]

Add me to the "still waiting" group...

I have a manual top vert, paid for the box and amp rack as a "special" on MARCH 21, 2012. Box arrived on May 7... I can't say enough about the box, it is exactly what was advertised and sounds astounding, especially considering the challenges of bass in a convertible. BUUUUT, I'd really like the amp rack to go with this, especially since I already paid for it 6 months ago! Since then, it's been promised and re-promised, through FB posts, messages, phone calls, PMs, etc. Like others, I've noticed there's been no problems posting ads and pics of "available product" or this week's special deal, yet I still haven't received my amp rack.:letitout:

It's hard to support an independent business when what was promised seemingly cannot be delivered.

[achtunge30]

Add me to the "still waiting" group...

I have a manual top vert, paid for the box and amp rack as a "special" on MARCH 21, 2012. Box arrived on May 7... I can't say enough about the box, it is exactly what was advertised and sounds astounding, especially considering the challenges of bass in a convertible. BUUUUT, I'd really like the amp rack to go with this, especially since I already paid for it 6 months ago! Since then, it's been promised and re-promised, through FB posts, messages, phone calls, PMs, etc. Like others, I've noticed there's been no problems posting ads and pics of "available product" or this week's special deal, yet I still haven't received my amp rack.:letitout:

It's hard to support an independent business when what was promised seemingly cannot be delivered.

Get in line brother!! I paid for my manual top vert box in Dec 2011 and got my box in Mar 2012 and I believe that only occurred because I had a special friend call Luke and ask what was going on. I also paid extra for an amp rack since it completes the package but never received. I've since given up and am just going to install as-is.