Impact SFI-15 and SFI-20 Firesuit Fail SFI Testing

I'am still a 110% on Richards side.ask your wife if someone made her some custom high dollar curtans for her and made them 10 inches to short would she let them add on to the bottom another 10 inches DON'T THINK SO.. so why tear open a fire suit and put more fire retardent inside and sew it back up.....Dave Lowe

 

[ We found no record of your suit being returned for inspection Mr. Putz. We did in fact receive about 70% of those contacted and upon inspection we found that a manufacturing error had been made to about 15% of those returned. What kind of records do you keep? Seems your answer should be we never received a suit for inspection from you or we did inspect your returned suit. Pharses like "we have no record" are quailified answers usually reserved to provide legal cover while giving the impression of a solid declaration.15% is a huge error rate and horrible quaility control.



We have made every possible effort to recover every single suit built from February 2008 through October of 2008. Really? I see your advertisments weekly never seen a notice ofthis problem. Did you run down racers who bought the suits in question secondhand/used?



Everyone has made mistakes and it appears in this instance that is what happened, and if it gives you any satisfaction four (4) people were terminated over this issue.I find it hard to believe you fired 4 people for making "mistakes". I forgive employees who make honest mistakes (even big ones) and fire those who purposely violate company policy and procedures. But then again that isn't a "mistake" is it?



Finally, my Drag Race Representative was threatened at Gainesville by one of your thug friends. Get real; beat up a girl who is only doing her job? That speaks highly of you] "Priceless" you infer you might take legal action against someone who is stating something they claim to have done/said/experienced. Yet you claim his "thug friends" threaten a girl,; basically calling him a pussy. Love to see how you made that connection!

I will never buy from your company again. Not because of the mistakes but the way Impact handled that and your classless post.

 

Scarey Things

Want to know what really scares me? A few years ago there was a recall on dish washers. Mine was recalled seven years after I bought it- they gave me a new one. Just a couple days ago I heard about recalls on refrigerators. I hope mine isn't on that list. The point here is that both of those manufacturers were able to make the recall known despite selling millions of those units. Now a major safety equipment manufacturer has a 'recall' of their products (boots, suits) and we have to find out about it via the back channel here. Imagine if this website didn't exist? Now- one more try at imagination. You are working your butt off to get your race car ready for the Winternationals. You get it done, it's ready. You haul it all the way to Pomona and the NHRA tech guys won't allow you to race because your suit won't pass tech. How bad would you be pissed? Didn't happen to me but could have to a lot of guys this year. Dave Germain

 

My wife was woundering that since I'am a friend of Richards I'am I now a thug..I look at my self as more the outlaw type..Dave Lowe

 

Did the mistake affect Gloves or shoes?

Did Impact ever post or advertise a recall giving a specific list of items affected by the error during production?

Usually companies would list items affected that were produced during a specific time period and list ALL Items affected?

Has NHRA made any public announcement regarding the suits and will they now be accepted?

Also, were any other items affected by the error? Like gloves, shoes etc etc??

I suppose the word is confidence. We all try to be as safe as possible and it's important to feel secure in the decisions we make regarding the equipment we buy.

Let's just hope that the situation has been corrected and that no other items were affected.

Be Safe and have a good year!!!

 

Did Impact ever post or advertise a recall giving a specific list of items affected by the error during production?
NOPE

Usually companies would list items affected that were produced during a specific time period and list ALL Items affected?
NORMAL COMPANIES WOULD

Has NHRA made any public announcement regarding the suits and will they now be accepted?
NOPE

Also, were any other items affected by the error? Like gloves, shoes etc etc??
WHO KNOWS.

I suppose the word is confidence. We all try to be as safe as possible and it's important to feel secure in the decisions we make regarding the equipment we buy.
NO MORE CONFIDENCE FOR ME!!!

Let's just hope that the situation has been corrected and that no other items were affected.
OH YA, AND DON'T CRASH!

Be Safe and have a good year
ALWAYS

 

Unless Impact goes public with
the
TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH,.AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.

We racers that have actually viewd this discussion obviously can , and will
draw our on conclusions,..thats fine ..matter of opinion, and freedom of choice,..BUT....
What bout all them people that have no idea what is going on,
or what went wrong, or,..how many more of these suits are still out
there, let alone all the boots that have the wrong thread sewn into them that burn off at the slightest flame.

Why cant people just step up, admit something is, or was wrong,.and
do the right thing to address everyone, and I say everyone, because not everyone bought their Impact suit or boots from Impact new,
and are oblivious to a potential scary scenerio that directly affects their safety and
......their LIFES..





.

 

Teresa, I think you have touched upon the issue that has everybody up in arms. There hasn't been any real notification through the NHRA or Impact. The info has been just trickling out as things come to light. Nobody has really defined what Impact products are affected- were the quality control problems wider than we have been informed? Race car folks are used to people making mistakes- machine shops and parts suppliers do it all the time. Just be honest and upfront with us and admit when there are issues. I still have Impact boots, helmet and belts in my car, how does this stuff affect them? I don't have the money to toss good useable equipment out. Dave Germain

 

Dave G.,

I think you hit it on the head! We constantly hear "rumors and probable crap" about a lot of things in racing. The Impact issue has been going on for a while now.
I could have easily missed it but I haven't seen a single post that said that any customers / users were notified by Impact or NHRA that there was a potential problem out there with their fire suits.

Damn, ......... I would certainly trust a company more when they admit there were errors than a company that acts like it was a "surprise" to them that defective products were shipped out!

I really need to think about this situation a lot more before I agree or disagree, or condemn this situation.

I sometimes think about the worst, .... breaking into alcohol flames, open cockpit, feeling super hot,, wondering if my $1,300 SFI / 20 suit was enough to protect me. Should I have spent $1,800 to get the better version???

Hell, I don't know!

 

I wonder when richard says bill has started a lawsiut against 2 other ppl if it is the reason nhra has said anything. maybe the 2 other ppl are nhra and sfi and bill wants them to shut up thats why you dont here anything yet..

 

A little math here!


"We did in fact receive about 70% of those contacted and upon inspection we found that a manufacturing error had been made to about 15% of those returned."


About 70% contacted.

What does that mean 63% 64% 65% 66% 67% 68% 69% returned?

So 30% still not tested!
Observe the magic of numbers.
70% of what 100, 1,000, 10,000



Manufacturing error made to 15%

Lets say for argument sake it is 1,000. That means 150 errors known. But only 700 of original quantity,
So in the remaining 30% there is already 15% chance of errors. 30% of 1,000 is 300, 15% of 300 is 45. For a total of 195 errors out of 1000. Close to 200 errors per thousand. That is a 20% error rate. 1000 divided by 200 equals 50. One out of every 50 suits contains errors. I sure hope that the quantity is not in the thousands, hopefully the hundreds. But still a 1 in 50 chance is not a good one to roll when it involves a human life.

If the original number made was 100 the numbers are even scarier. drop the last zeros every where and it is now a 1 in 5 chance of errors.

 

Buddy your math is a bit off. A percentage is a percentage. 1 out 5 doesn't change to 1 out of 50 on a percentage basis just becuase you go from a starting number of 100 to 1,000 or 1 million.

If a hundred were sold and 15% were found defect that = 15 suits.

Since only 70% were returned (using 100 as the total sold) that comes out to 10.5 suits returned and "fixed". That would leave 4.5 defective suits still out there that weren't "fixed". In this case I don't think they would be rounding up.

1000 suits sold = 150 defective ones expected
Only 70% of 1000 = 700 tested
15% failure rate of the tested 700 = 105 suits defective
Of the 300 suits untested there should be about 45 defective ones.

So for every 100 sold there are 4.5 people who still don't know or aware their suit is defective.

What is that number Impact of the suits still out there that you believe to be defective??????

100= 4.5
200= 9
300= 13.5
400= 18
500= 22.5
600= 27

Your quiet notification (recall) only got a 70% reaction. Where you able to contact 100% of the possibly effected and 30% disregarded your request?

 

Ok your right my math was off, lets say 100 suits were sold and 15% were defective. That means 15 suits were defective. 15 divided into 100 = 6.6666666666666666666666666666667. So your right you have a one in 6.6 chance your suit is errored. I am sorry for rounding down.

But point being there is still 30% untested and unknown percentage of errors.

Sorry my math was off. Your right if the total number made was 1000, 15% of 1000 is 150. 150 divided into 1000 = 6.6666666666666666666666666666667, still leaving a fact one in every 6.6666666666666666666666666666667 suit is errored.

 

No problem on the rounding

The questions that remain are;

How many Impact 15/20 suits were produced during the time identified?

Has Impact contacted each and everyone who might be affected?

Impact says 70 % responded, what does that mean? Did the other 30% say no thanks or did they actually get a hold of them and those people decided not to send thier suits in?

I often buy through a company so my name might not show up in a Manfactuers data base but the shop/company I bought from would. What happens then? Do they call Sam's Speed Shop and say hey you guys bought a suit from us that might be defective, please have your customer call us asap??

Impact, how about answering these questions rather than calling someone a punk because you "think" his friends were rude to a female employee of yours?

 

I just got the following e-mail today........


From NHRA Tech Department:



NHRA just received notice from SFI, Inc. that a Notice of Decertification was issued today to Impact Racing Products, Inc. regarding certain products (listed below), and that Impact will issue a Notice of Recall of such products. Therefore, effective immediately, the products listed below will no longer be accepted for use in NHRA racing. We understand that Impact will issue a recall notice tomorrow, March 20, 2009; please consult www.impactraceproducts.com for that information or contact Impact directly.

The products are:



· Driver suits, pants and jackets manufactured in 2008 identified as compliant with SFI Specification 3.2A/15 or 3.2A/20

· Driver shoes and boots manufactured in 2008 identified as compliant with SFI Specification 3.3/15 or 3.3/20



SFI has informed NHRA that products manufactured in 2007 and 2009 are being further evaluated by SFI.





Leila Fenberg

Executive Assistant

NHRA

2035 Financial Way

Glendora, CA 91741

626-250-2277

 

Shawn:

Thanks for posting this. I started a new topic because I have a feeling there will be many aspects that may come to light.

Richard Putz tried to work with them at first and here is where it's gone. People poo poo'd Richard and now look what's happened. I personally want to thank Richard for having the where-with-all to bring this out to the public. Richard is more concerned about his friends and what they wear when they are driving their race cars than being politically correct knowing there was the possibility of lawsuit threats as that seems to be the norm for the company he confronted.

Concerning the mysterious SFI 20 suit that was tested by SFI that Richard alluded to, lets just say that my current driver "misplaced" his suit several months ago when Richard did and is now happily wearing a Phoenix firesuit.

RG

 

Hats off to Richard Putz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.nhra.com/story/2009/3/19/tech-alert/

Its makes you wonder what ever happened to leadership in business. I am a small business owner and would never leave my clients in a position to doubt my service or product.

Like it has already been posted step up and admit the mistake take the blame and fix what was wrong. Now try to fix a mistake that you denied, then proven wrong. That's deception not a good practice in this day and age. Good luck fixing your reputation.

 

ECHO,.............

.......And the truth shall set you free,.............






.

 

"Investors" calling the shots. Maybe, or not?

 

As I stated in the past..I'am and always will be a 110% on Richards side..Dave Lowe
www.myspace.com/daveloweswr