Ok, let me clear things up a bit.
If you are ever unhappy with our product, please let us know. If the product does not fit, please let us know. We need feedback to correct our problems. If people continue to complain on these forums and never let us know, how can we get anything fixed? Zip-ties do correct some problems, but not everything.
All of our products are vacuum-formed reproductions from original parts. The vacuum-forming process is different from the original injection molded fenders and side panels. Maier is using a high gloss product called TPO which is basically the same plastic that we use only with a thin layer of clear coat on the top. We have looked into this product, but found the price to be nearly double of what we are currently using!
I know that we are not perfect. Some of our fenders and side panels have small blemishes, etc, but we are improving our molds daily. Slowly, we are converting all of our molds to a new generation material which makes a better product with less blemishes.
We are searching for an affordable gloss plastic to use, but have come up empty so far. The product is out there, but it needs to be affordable. Not many people would pay $120 for a set of side panels.
Just to give you guys an idea, we are required to buy 5,000 lbs of every color plastic that we have available. We have gotten rid of the "neon" yellow that we used in the past and switched over to different colors for yamaha yz and suzuki plastic. One of our main problems is that when our plastic is made into sheets at the factory, the color can differ on the top of the pile and at the bottom. It is a case of the plastic company not mixing their resins good enough and the color is actually different on the top and bottom of the pile. It's very frustrating for us and our customers!
I know that we have both satisfied and unsatisfied customers, but understand that we are vintage racers also. I have about 10 bikes and use our plastic on all of them. Our products are not meant to be on restored bikes.
When we make a mold from an original part, the mold actually shrinks during production from the heating and cooling process. We do up-size molds by cutting them and filling the gaps, but we can only do so much. The mounting tabs on the side panels are not going to be exact. Sometimes, you will need to drill the hole to one side or the other.
Many of the molds for these fenders and side panels have been thrown away by the manufacturers. They aren't interested in making these vintage products unless they can produce thousands of parts. Just to give you an idea, the most we have sold of one fender is about 250 in 4 years. Can you imagine yamaha doing that? The profit is so small that they wouldn't mess with it. Injection molding is an alternative, but the volume that you have to take will be hard to pay off. There are only so many vintage yamaha's that actually still run and are being restored.
Hope this clears some things up. Please call or email with any comments or suggestions for our products. As long as the plastic hasn't been drilled, you can return it. If something doesn't fit, let us know and we'll see if we can change it for you.
