Coastaltech in business?

And when you constructively suggest ways that he can keep the communications going without getting people mad, Dave simply deletes the topic that he moderates after being defensive rather than appologetic and corrective.

 

There is this recent thread at PriusOnline on CoastalDave: http://www.priusonline.com/viewtopic.php?t=6293
He hasn't deleted that one yet it appears.
It does seem like something of a joke that he is listed as the moderator of the PriusOnline Q&A section. He's only posted to that site a total of 35 times in over a year that he's been the moderator and his last post was 2 months ago. I bet the bulk of those posts were in defense of criticism against his freakishly poor business customer service.
I just cancelled all of my orders to CoastalTech two days ago. Figured half a year without delivering on products they list as "IS HERE!" was at best inept, at worst dishonest. Of course in keeping with CoastalTech tradition I received no acknowledgement from them that they cancelled my orders. I ordered the VidToyo1 instead and would have done it six months ago had I known awaiting CoastalTech was a waste of time. Sure, they didn't charge my credit card, but baiting people for six months and counting isn't right either.

Actually, after visiting their website I think I might have the answer as to why their customer service is so bad...just look at who they hired as their new staff member. :blink: If you ask me, it was a bad management decision to put a three-year-old in charge of answering the phones. :lol:

 

Not to take money away from anyone, But are the items copyrighted? If not why doesnt someone "Clone" the items and sell them. It sounds like simple enough to design. I think the issue is volume has exceded manufacturing capacity.

if it is copyrighted then my idea goes out the window.

Just my 2 cents. I am not a electronics Eng. but I can follow a simple diagram and instructions. Maybe he should sell the instructions or a parts kit and then do it yourself.

 

I doubt he has patented his products (copyright doesn't apply to inventions). Anyone could engineer similar items and sell them, but it's not a trivial thing to do. I suspect that many of the items out of stock are because he can't find suppliers for the specialized connectors or other parts. Anyone who tried to sell similar products would face the same issues. But if they just let people know what's going on, they'd do much better.

 

I would like to see the diagrams for the products. Maybe if someone has them they could post what componets are used and how it is put togather.

 

I recall that Dave posted a number of schematics of his early products for the Classic Prius on the Yahoo groups for opinions and troubleshooting advice; he went and deleted most of them at some point, but because they were posted to a public forum, legally, those designs he posted are now part of the public domain and can be reproduced (you'd have to read the Yahoo terms of use for specific details, but in general whenever you post a message to a public forum, you effectively assign copyrights of anything you write to the forum owner, who then turns around and allows reproduction of forum content for non-commercial use; going back and deleting after the fact doesn't change the status according to legal precedent).

Of his other products for which no schematics were ever posted, it's more of a gray area.. Although they are not patented designs, they are proprietary, meant for use in a commercial product, so they seem to fall under trade secret protection, however if someone reverse-engineered the design and posted it for public non-commercial use, it could be potentially be argued that no harm to Coastal's business has occured, especially given Coastal's recent record of non-delivery of product, however regardless of the disdain I hold for Dave's business practices, I wouldn't want to be the one to test out that argument in a court of law..

All that said, reverse engineering of most of the product line would be a wasted effort in most cases: schematics, even if available would be of limited use as many of the products seem to use a small microcontroller- without the software code, the circuit won't do anything, and even if it were practical to extract the code out of the controllers, now, you're not longer in a gray area- it is clearly a violation of copyright to extract and reproduce software..

 

I think that some of the recent products like the Nav Mod have run into trouble because they use proprietary Toyota connectors. You can buy one but try to buy 100 or 500. No deal. As for the engine run, brake indicator I have no idea. Dave appears to have incite into the Prius system but getting the products to market in quantity is a problem. It may not be entirely his fault and I would not hazard a guess about getting some one to make a proprietary connector.

 

I really don't think connectors are the real story.. Certainly there's a problem if you want to order genuine Toyota connectors in quantity, but if you don't care about using genuine parts, there are any number of contract manufacturers that will do small runs of custom connectors and such.. We use a number of such manufacturers at work for various components- all it takes is a CAD drawing or an original to work from. Most places will even do "sample runs" of as few as 50-100 connectors, so you don't need to buy several thousand.. These small runs do cost more per connector, but it's still cheaper and faster than ordering from Japan a handful at a time..

If you can't afford the up-front costs of manufacturing, it's not actually that difficult to make home-made connectors. There are number of inexpensive mold making compounds available, and even epoxy and hot-melt glue can be used in a pinch..

 

I don't much care anymore WHAT their excuses were/are/will be. I cancelled my ViewTech order last week via email after waiting since February. Of course have not and don't expect to receive a reply.

Since Dave did not, even though he should have quit his "day job", let's hope he doesn't decide to do that now. It's too late Dave! Your reputation will never recover!

Thank goodness for competition!

 

I think Dave's viewtec for the prius is the stock video interface available at varius sources, but with added/modified circuitry to properly interface with the AVC and control it more intuitively, as well as integrate an audio interface into it. Basically he became a VA (Value Add). I would say VAR (Value Added Reseller), but he hasn't resold anything yet.

 

Today I ordered Mud Flaps, and EV Switch over the phone from Coastal Teck. She said the items I ordered where in stock, and would be mailed out today. I also asked for 3 day select shipping. Lets see if it all comes by next Tusday. (11-8-05)

 

Re Coastal; in late May-05 I ordered the MudFlaps & Nav defeat kit. Received the MudFlaps the next week, then ....

.... Never heard anything.... Phoned, no answer; emailed, no replys...

I knew when I ordered that slow to deliver and lack of communications was their known history, but unfortunately one of my pet peaves is bad service.

And vaporware products are, in my opinion, bad service.

They probably could have taken care of the situation if they would just bother to reply to emails, but obviously they have their own "business model". If just happens that it no longer includes me.

Last week I cancelled my order. I can't help but wonder what % of their Nav kit orders have walked away.

Ceste La Vie.

 

Hmmmm... I guess I won't be ordering that item then. I was strongly considering it, since the Griffin SmartDeck doesn't seem to be a good option.

I've ordered two things from Coastal. For both, they didn't charge my credit card until it was close to shipping and the items were in good condition and worked as advertised. Well packed too, and the instructions were pretty good.

However, when I asked them for a paper receipt for one of the items (twice) I never got a reply. In other words, I think their products are pretty good and the consensus is that usually they seem to deliver as advertised when they take your money, but their overall customer service isn't so good which is unfortunate.

Anyways, if the Coast ViewTech 2005 device were truly 6-8 weeks shipping, I might have ordered it already, but if they're having severe backlogs with the item then it might not be worth the wait.

So, what's the best non-Coastal ViewTech A/V input solution?

BTW, for those who might be interested... I got an iPod dock to stereo connector off eBay. I can't test it on my Prius (since I don't have an AUX input), but it works much better with my stereo than a headphone jack adapter. Using the dock connector bypasses the iPod's amplifier, which basically means you get 100% volume without the potential distortion introduced by the amplifier.

 

These are all the A/V interfaces I know. Personally, I'm waiting for the Vais AVIC-100i.

Bob

http://www.avelectronic.com/products.htm

http://www.gnetcanada.com/navvideo-models-...GNET_RGB_TOYLEX

http://www.logjamelectronics.com/soundvidtoyo1.html

http://www.audioandvideointerfaces.com/pro...ail-TOYOTA.htm#

http://www.audioandvideointerfaces.com/products.htm

http://www.vaistech.com/home.html

http://www.hybridinterfaces.ca/NTSC.html

 

Oh Puleeze... I run a single man computer consulting company. I reply to all my emails, phone calls and inquiries and STILL manage to order, re-order, install and send out all parts and keep my customers happy. A business is a business is a business. No matter how small or big, the customers are always #1, and should be treated as such. If Coastal Tech was truly interested in making the customers happy, they will make 'Communication & customer satisfaction' job #1.

When someone enters business, you don't throw them anything, including a bone. If they are taking knocks for bad business practices, then they should own up to it and work on better communication.

Seriously, it doesn't take THAT much effort to answer hundreds of emails every night, you can setup an auto-answer email rule for emails and then answer them in a hours work every night. I know, because I do that every night, so to hear someone defending a business that lacks in the customer service department makes me ill. There is no defense that I can think of that would make that kind of behavior OK in any business book of mine.

Coastal Tech needs to give up the ghost - and if they don't want to be in business anymore take down the website and go do something else.

Want to see a successful business model? Look at BT Tech. THEY know how to deal with customers. Quick - timely and efficient.

 

DId they arrive?

 

I agree and not. If someone else delivers the good OK, but who is working on this! I will wait for Costal Tech ( who have provided me with 2 items that I that work) I hope they provide me with others, but I understand about vaporware. Costal Tech may provide me with things I want but not things that I need.

 

I ordered the EV switch (via Coastal's website) on Oct 31, it shipped the next day and I received it Nov 7th.

 

Well they still are.....
I'm pretty sure I ordered the door lock thinggy like 3 months ago. I remember doing it at least. And got nothing...no big deal I didn't have the car yet.
I got "the call" a couple weeks ago. So earlier this week I tried to order it again. I then sent an e-mail saying..."I thought I ordered it and didn't see it, so I ordered again" of course so e-mail responce.
Yesterday I got an e-mail saying it shipped.

 

Even a truthful post on the website explaining the true delay (with apologies) and if it really will be released ever. If you can't, fine. Just don't keep people hanging.

And when you get called on your poor CS skills, admit it, even if you don't plan on fixing it. A defensive posture without correction just makes people angry.