[David Jones]

Originally Posted by Chris65LeMans

A few years ago, I put a deposit down for some custom furniture just before the place went belly up. My credit card co. got my money back - no problems at all. (I may have had to wait a month for them to get it.)

There has to be some money......

[JLHarper]

Originally Posted by David Jones

I thought they were a Tremec dist when I bought my TKO. After getting the run around on my delivery date I discovered that Tremec wouldn't sell them anymore and that my TKO came through somebody else before Keisler modded it and delivered it to me. They tried doing some remanufactured transmissions they named RS500 and RS600, I forget what they were based on. Then they started with this SS700 when they got everybody all pissed off with their lack of delivery on the RS units. I think they've simply been taking deposits/payment on units and throwing that money towards satisfying people that had paid earlier.
It seems the pyramid hath collapsed.......

I remember your thread now where you were having the problems.

I see reference in some threads to a (owner) lady and her lifestyle.....what's the back story on her?

[pugslyx234]

This is why you run your card as credit and not debit, debit your screwed, credit can dispute.

[400 4spd.]

This was posted on a similar thread over on Moparts.

An Important Message from Shafi Keisler, Founder of Keisler Engineering.

Dear Customers, Friends and Associates of KEISLER Engineering;

On January 16 2014, I halted operations of Keisler Engineering Inc by filing it into Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. The motivation to place KE into Ch7 was a very recent decision, spurred by a run of order cancellations and refunds by concerned customers. Many of these concerned customers had spoken to our competitors that have been pouring on the negativity and rumors of KE shutting down since 2008. These are primarily two (2) competitors - one located in Cookeville TN and the other in Sacramento CA.

The order cancellations created a cash flow problem for KE, and placed new customer orders at risk. I took the initiative to refund all new order deposits going back to Thursday January 9 2014 once I realized the company was at risk of closure.

KE had a bright start to 2013, filling nearly 400 SS700 orders, along with RS, TREMEC and A41. Sales numbers overall were strong for the first half of 2013. KE's second half of 2013 was marred by supply and pricing problems at Legend Gear & Transmission and its gear manufacturing partner Abundant Manufacturing Inc in Statesville NC. AMI's own business problems stifled production of the components needed to build the LGT700 base unit. This was worsened by KE's inability to pay its 2011/2012 past due to AMI of nearly $300K, along with Legend's own inability to pay its 2013 past due to KE of nearly $100K. Then Legend implemented a tremendous price increase to KE of $900 per unit in the 3rd quarter, and changed their selling terms to require a $1000 down payment 12 weeks in advance of shipping the non-customized LGT700 base unit. And every shipment of LGT700 units or components KE received had quality problems requiring weeks of delays while LGT had to replace parts. And no Legend assembled LGT700 ever met quality standard, which required KE to disassemble and rework, causing a major slide in delivery. Every one of these factors impacted KE's financial strength and the ability to fill these sold SS700 orders. I was seeking to replace Legend/Abundant Mfg with a better supplier for 2014.

The Rallye Sport program was well on its way to becoming a brand new transmission, and completely independent of Legend. At the time of KE's closure a majority of the orders were in-process to be completed.

The TREMEC program including the TKO and T56 was the foundation of the Keisler 5-speed so widely known since I developed these kits and the market as a whole starting in the late 90s. By 2005, KE was generating close to $1 Million dollars in NET profit, which is why the competitors referenced above were so keen to do whatever it takes to grab business away from KE. By 2008, my former sales manager GF and supposed friend RH who I gifted an entire business to him to begin his new career, unknowingly began selling the CA competitor's product under my name and customers called us complaining. I confronted them and learned they were not my trusted friends. In fact they used everything I taught them in sales, marketing to get their piece of the market pie at my expense. The new status quo with them and the CA competitor was to insult KE, and this became their method of operation ever since. The greed factor with GF/RH escalated to a new level in 2010 when they hired one of our longtime salesman to slander us publically in the forums and ultimately take more than 1.4 Million in sales from us, according to his deposition in Knox Chancery Court where he was deposed during the 2012 trial Keisler Engineering vs. Gene Charsha. During this trial, which the transcripts were written, GF took the stand and attempted to convince the judge that their business was substantially different than KE and that they were not a competitor. The judge did not agree with GF and ruled in our favor. But KE was saddled with over $30K in legal costs to fight this battle. Additionally a number of vendor relationships were further compromised as GF solicited some of KE's vendors to make the same product for his business, including propriety bellhousings and driveshafts components to name a few. Returning from the 2011 PRI trade show in Orlando FL, I had to go to one of my vendor's foundry and physically remove the Keisler owned Mopar big block bellhousing tooling that GF had them run parts for him. I recorded the conversation with this unscrupulous vendor and was just shocked to see how low some people will go. Indeed, KE's pockets were ripe to be picked by our competitors.

In 2010, KE was blindsided by TREMEC Corp (a Mexico corporation with offices in Detroit area) when they suddenly terminated our Elite Distributorship Jan 17 2010 with no warning and no cure period. We less than six (6) weeks to purchase product to fill remaining orders only, could not purchase any additional inventory, and the termination was non-negotiable. In fact, this was illegal practice in Tennessee law, but in Michigan law where my Distributorship Agreement was in place, it was acceptable practice. This action was taken by Lee Davis, the Director of US Sales operations at the time. In a recorded phone call between Lee Davis and my business manager Bruce Skolfield, Davis disclosed that he was fulfilling his intentions to terminate KE - his largest distributor in the Aftermarket and one that sold more than Ford Motorsports - because of his dislike of me and that my former sales people-turned-competitors would eventually fill the loss of KE to the market. The Mexican top management in Mexico City did not really care about the Aftermarket branch because the volume was small compared to the OEM volume and they let Lee Davis and his people do whatever they wanted with the Aftermarket as long as the OEM was taken care of. Years earlier, Lee Davis, over dinner at SEMA Las Vegas in 2005 November in the presence of four others including the current Manager for Tremec Aftermarket Sales, said very clearly that he was "going to knocks the legs out from under Keisler Engineering if KE did not do business his way." This was a total shock, and for the ensuing hour I was lambasted over multiple issues ranging from Davis not liking the Keisler 5-speed name being better known than Tremec name in the classic car aftermarket. Other unfounded grievances were the Tremec logo I used on every web page representing his product should have been bigger, or higher up on the page, that he didn't like the dark background color of the my web-site. It was at that dinner that I decided to pursue the diversification of KE and to not have all of my eggs in one basket. In the May of 2006, I purchased General Motor's MUNCIE Transmission manufacturing line at a cost of 3.89 Million Dollars ($3,890,000.00) under a new company - American Gear & Transmission - and moved these assets to Tennessee to start-up a new company This move to start a new American transmission company in the wake of GM Muncie's closure sealed KE's fate of Davis' threats. When the termination of KE's Elite Distributorship when down March 1 2010, within a few days the manager of Tremec Aftermarket Sales issued a letter to all 150+ distributors of Tremec mandating them not to sell to KE at any price - even full retail - or their distributorship would be TERMINATED. A second letter was sent out to the same effect and I have both of these letters. I sought legal advise about this, and learned what Tremec Aftermarket Sales was doing appeared to be "Boycotting" which is a Federal Trade law violation carrying very stiff penalties and triple damages to the offended party. But I would have to file suit in Federal Court in Michigan and the case would be expensive and lengthy because of the way Federal lawsuits are processed. At that point in time, I decided to focus on survival of KE and not pursue the lawsuit at that time. Within a couple months, I led formation of Legend Gear & Transmission with the owners of Abundant Mfg. and brought them the transmission design and marketing which is now known as the LGT700 and the Legend Gear & Transmission company. KE found a work-around for the Tremec's boycotting, and product continued to flow from several several distributors that were wise to Federal trade laws. Even though Tremec implemented a "secret shopper" scheme in 2010/2011 in efforts to stop this American Entrepreur's small business, I continued to press on. I kept all of this under my hat, all the while my competitors were bragging to our customers that Tremec did this. I have tried to take "the high road" through the years and always do what is right for the customer, the employees vendors ahead of my personal needs. Accordingly, in the months before closure of KE, I had not drawn a salary or income from the company. My wife and I downsized in a major way, putting the home and farm we built for sale and moving to a small rental home.

The process of building KE from a garage operations in 1991 to a company that has sold more than $65 Million Dollars of product to over 16,000 customers has not been an easy one, but it has been a rewarding one. It is my hope and expectation that buyers for the remaining assets of KE will purchase these and put the assets back to work in new companies. In fact, I sold the Keisler PerfectFit kit & manufacturing assets for Tremec TKO & T56 to Liberty Gears - a Tremec Elite Distributor in Taylor Michigan. Liberty Gears - a family run business - has been around since the 1960s and has tremendous capabilities that complement what KE was doing for the market. By adding the highly engineered Keisler TKO and T56 kits to Liberty's existing capabilities for internal upgrades, the resulting product line further places Liberty in a class of their own. I plan to support Liberty Gears in their pursuits to offer the very best Tremec TKO & T56 kits to the market. In my efforts going forward, I intend to work with the Trustee of Keisler Engineering for the benefit of every creditor of Keisler Engineering - both its customers and vendors - that had open balances. This process will take time and patience on everyone's behalf. I ask for your support and patience while the Trustee and I work thru the Chapter 7 process. I understand the frustration that those of you with standing orders or supplier accounts with KE will have, and I am sorry that you must endure this. But please work with us and brighter days will be ahead.

Sincerely,

Shafi Keisler, Founder, President & CEO thru Jan 15 2014
Keisler Engineering, Inc.

[marxjunk]

a lot of tap dancing there....for customers, i hope they are taken care of...

[Ben M.]

If you are blaming order cancellations on your inability to fulfill the current orders that you still have, that's a house of cards that deserves to collapse (I believe we call that a pyramid scheme). You're essentially saying that taking people's money to fulfill other people's orders is required to do business, but that only works when you continue to have more orders coming in (aka suckers who have the potential to be left in the cold).

[David Jones]

Mostly, he's full of ****. He ACTED like he was a Tremec Elite dist. He acted like he was a lot of stuff. It caught him. Blame it on order cancellations. Well, duh.

[Trulyvintage]

Read the " Latest News " from their website .....

@ http://www.keislerauto.com/recent-news/

I guess #4 did not work out so well .....



Jim

[400 4spd.]

Maybe it was #6's fault.

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by Ben M.

If you are blaming order cancellations on your inability to fulfill the current orders that you still have, that's a house of cards that deserves to collapse (I believe we call that a pyramid scheme). You're essentially saying that taking people's money to fulfill other people's orders is required to do business, but that only works when you continue to have more orders coming in (aka suckers who have the potential to be left in the cold).

Yup. PONZI.

[old66tiger]

I spoke to Jack Simms at Legend this morning and he told me that Legend never had quality problems or problems shipping transmissions. They would only ship transmissions when Keisler would pay for them ahead of time. Kind of like being on a cash only basis. I think the issue that rerally hit them hard was when Tremec "un-friended' them and they were left scrambling. Jack will be announcing a second distributor next week and they are a very viable company and plans on being in business for while.

[David Jones]

Originally Posted by old66tiger

I spoke to Jack Simms at Legend this morning and he told me that Legend never had quality problems or problems shipping transmissions. They would only ship transmissions when Keisler would pay for them ahead of time. Kind of like being on a cash only basis. I think the issue that rerally hit them hard was when Tremec "un-friended' them and they were left scrambling. Jack will be announcing a second distributor next week and they are a very viable company and plans on being in business for while.

I do hope being associated with Keisler hasn't left Legend with a smell. Hopefully they can distance themselves in some fashion.
Keisler's issues all seem to revolve around poor money management......they didn't pay their bills.

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by old66tiger

I spoke to Jack Simms at Legend this morning and he told me that Legend never had quality problems or problems shipping transmissions. They would only ship transmissions when Keisler would pay for them ahead of time. Kind of like being on a cash only basis. I think the issue that rerally hit them hard was when Tremec "un-friended' them and they were left scrambling. Jack will be announcing a second distributor next week and they are a very viable company and plans on being in business for while.

PY?

[Captainofiron]

seems like the roller coaster ride is over for them.

Crazy that everything was handled so poorly, just taking care of their customers would/could have changed everything

[marxjunk]

easy to do..live beyond your means...spend as fast as you can..seems like the new way...big houses fast exp cars..forget paying the bills...when you have lots of cash flow, easy to get upside down..real easy, i know a few that have gone down that road..and bankruptcy is their way out.....should make them pay restitution...instead of starting over

[old66tiger]

I posted on legends Facebook page telling them that the aftermarket needs a vendor that can deliver a product that actually fits in the cars. Generic shifter locations just don't cut the mustard.

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Tapatalk

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by Captainofiron

seems like the roller coaster ride is over for them.

Crazy that everything was handled so poorly, just taking care of their customers would/could have changed everything

Agree. Although many co.'s seemingly operate in the current vogue of "We don't need no stinking customers!"

Sent from my Radio Shack TRS 80 via Tapa What?

[Captainofiron]

from what I have seen these guys are going to be distributors for Legends now

http://bowlertransmissions.com/

[Captainofiron]

Originally Posted by Alvin

Sent from my Radio Shack TRS 80 via Tapa What?

LOL!!!!!

[Tim john]

Keisler keeps pointing fingers at everyone who made his ship sink and the anchor all along was the man in the mirror. He has been taking on water for many years, it is remarkable that he stayed afloat this long. I say let the sharks have em.

Tim john---