Ed Susman at EQT – Response Analyzed

Background:

Continuing a series of posts where I analyze the conduct of persons at Equilibrium Tuning and assess the credibility of information from the business.

When I reviewed the claims EQT makes about the performance of the Blaze ATOM V2 intake I compared their claims against requirements that the Federal Trade Commission has for business advertising and marketing.

EQT fails to satisfy the FTC guidelines for claims substantiation.

Here I analyze comments made by EQT owner Ed Susman responding to my post that pointed out the lack of substantiation for claims EQT makes for the Blaze Performance intake.

Ed’s complete statement is located at the bottom of the post.

Claims Analysis:

Ed begins his response by priming the reader’s “emotional” pump, by building anticipation for what he is about to say, “I’ll say this one more time for everyone to hear“.

This is right out of the “logical fallacy” definition where the person trying to make a point appeals to emotions rather than reason.

Jeff Jones is a hack who’s in love with his inadequate flow bench…

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed’s response to my statement about his business’s lack of claim substantiation begins weakly with the use of an Ad Hominem logical fallacy.

Ed continues the sentence making a baseless claim about the performance of the PTS flow bench. The failure to present any evidence in support of his claim does not help his weak rebuttal.

… and uses any chance he gets to harass businesses like myself.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Here Ed is using a Quantification Fallacy exaggerating the frequency with which I have commented about his business to impossible proportions – any chance I get.

Note: The Quantification Fallacy was defined in the Prologue post where Ed was shown using this fallacy several times when responding to questions.

Here Ed exaggerates that pointing out an unsubstantiated claim is harassment. This is an example of the Strawman logical fallacy.

Recap:

In his opening paragraph, Ed fails to respond to the central point of my post (that the claims EQT makes for the Blaze Performance intake are unsubstantiated) and instead makes three statements that are logical fallacies and one unsubstantiated performance claim.

In his opening paragraph, Ed fails to provide any evidence, or even logical rationale, to disprove my assessment of his business’s advertising claim.

Second paragraph:

His flow bench can’t flow enough to simulate proper testing for automotive airflow parts,

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed does not provide any evidence to support this claim.

This lack of evidence is unsurprising because the statement is false.

An airflow rate of 600 CFM @ 28″ of H2O is sufficient to support the testing of automotive parts. (Reference the Superflow SF-750 with a flow rate of 600 CFM @ 25″ of H2O which is a commercial flow bench sold to businesses in the automotive industry.)

so he measures what he can and then tries to extrapolate the data to a usable range.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

This is a false statement.

Flow tests that I conduct are done at a specified depression, i.e. 28″ of H2O, and this is the reference pressure that parts are compared using. I do not extrapolate flow bench measurements. Evidence of this fact can be found in any of the posts on this website where flow bench testing is performed.

When real world dyno, road, and track data and logs don’t agree with his limited testing, he disregards the real world data instead of trying to understand why his limited testing is flawed.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed fails to present any evidence in support of his claim. Ed is also applying an Argument from Repetition logical fallacy with his claim that testing is limited.

Note: The Argument from Repetition logical fallacy refers to someone repeating a statement often in the hopes that the readers will begin to accept it as truth, instead of providing evidence.

Evidence from examples on this website where data presented from other sources is considered for intakes such as APR and the Blaze intake disprove Ed’s statement. Additionally, there is an abundance of posts found on this website showing data being recorded using my GTI on the street and dyno.

This is another false claim.

We have been through this with him during his testing of intercoolers and learned what he’s all about.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed fails to substantiate this claim while introducing the Reification logical fallacy.

This fallacy occurs when a hypothetical scenario or situation is referred to, and treated as if it were a real thing.

Recap:

The second paragraph is a mix of three false statements and two logical fallacies.

As a reminder, Ed is responding to my post about his business failing to substantiate their performance claims for the Blaze intake.

Third paragraph:

When he sent an email demanding this and that about our simple product page for the Blaze intake, we simply ignored him because we don’t consider him an authority on this matter in any way.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

The contents of the “demand” email were provided earlier. The email contained questions about the claims that Equilibrium Tuning makes for the Blaze Performance intake.

It is a paradox that a business that claims to have independently tested the product and concluded it to be one of the best-performing and flowing on the market is incapable of giving any specific answers about how the business arrived at its conclusions.

As pointed out in the “demand” email post, EQT’s stance of not addressing questions from somebody they do not consider an authority did not deter them from helping a consumer who was interested in purchasing their product, and stated they knew nothing about the product. Ed’s actions are an example of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy – behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.

His “results” mean nothing because his testing is clearly flawed and useless.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed fails to substantiate this claim, even though he states there are “clear flaws”, no evidence is provided in support of the statement.

Ed continues to use the Argument from Repetition fallacy, (demonstrating why this logical fallacy got the name it has), baselessly claiming there has been flawed testing.

Notably, the manufacturer of the product, Blaze Performance, did not share these same quality concerns when the company asked about using my test results in their advertising (which I requested they not do), as discussed in the Intake Claims Sanity Check post.

This latest attempt to try to report us to some government agency is the equivalent of a little kid kicking and screaming when they don’t get what they want.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Given the continued use of deceptive advertising by EQT to sell the product it’s unsurprising that they would attempt to reframe reporting deceptive advertising as being childish.

This is the introduction of the Appeal to Ridicule fallacy.

Appeal to ridicule is a fallacy that attempts to make a claim look ridiculous by mocking it or exaggerating it in a negative way.

Recap:

Hypocrisy, an unsubstantiated claim, and two logical fallacies make up Ed’s reply in this third paragraph. This continues the trend of failing to disprove my assessment of EQT’s lack of substantiation of the product claims.

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Intermission

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Fourth paragraph:

As a reminder, Ed is responding to my assessment that his business does not provide any substantiation in support of the claims it makes for the Blaze Performance intake.

I literally just saw an ad for a cream claiming to re-grow broken and lost teeth!

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed is attempting to legitimize the misleading advertisement from his company by presenting an example of another business that is also engaged in misleading advertising.

Ed implemented this Tu Quoque logical fallacy multiple times in the discussion covered in the Prologue post.

The Tu Quoque fallacy occurs by applying the “logic” that because someone has done something, it justifies someone else doing the same thing.

And you’re here agonizing over some potentially vague wording on a product page for a new aftermarket performance product with limited data?

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed asserts that this wording is “potentially vague“:

Vague – a) not clearly expressed : stated in indefinite terms. b) not having a precise meaning

Merrian Webster

Ed’s statement that the claim might be vague is noteworthy for what it reveals about the owner’s awareness of potentially misleading advertising that he fails to correct.

If your advertisements don’t comply with the law, you could face enforcement actions or civil lawsuits. For advertisers under the FTC’s jurisdiction, that could mean orders to cease and desist, with fines up to $50,120 per violation should they occur.

Federal Trade Commission

Another important piece of information that Ed provides is that EQT has “limited data” on this performance product. With “limited data” on the product the company bases a claim that it has been “verified” by “independent testing” to be one of the “best-performing” products of its type on the market.

It defies logic to conclude a product is among the best on the market based on “limited data“.

Recap:

Within this fourth paragraph, Ed introduces another logical fallacy (Tu Quoque), then states that the wording of his advertising is potentially vague, and finally states that his business has “limited data” on the Blaze Performance intake.

In this paragraph, Ed references the topic of my concern but fails to address it.

Ed’s statements are evidence in support of my position that EQTs claims about the product are misleading.

Fifth paragraph:

Get a life and focus your energy on something more useful.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Ed is returning to using the Ad Hominem logical fallacy that he began his rebuttal with.

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If you continue down this path, I’m sure several of the companies you have harassed in the past would be happy to get together and take some legal action against you in return.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tumimg INC.

Ed is introducing a Red Herring fallacy (my interactions with other companies).

Red Herring – The red herring fallacy focuses on arguing for an irrelevant topic with the intention of distracting the audience.

Ed also continues the Strawman fallacy from the first paragraph (that my pointing out misleading advertising is harassment).

At this point of Ed’s rebuttal, a strong argument could be made that the entire 5 paragraph rebuttal is a Red Herring, a distraction from the fact that he is not addressing the issue that I raised.

FYI, this is not a personal threat, but it is a warning, as I know some of these companies are not afraid to use lawyers.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

As was presented in the previous post about “EQT’s Threats“, Ed used private messaging to send his threat.

Get off your high horse flowbench, let it go, and move on with your life.

Ed Susman, owner of Equilibrium Tuning INC.

Closing out with an Ad Hominem fallacy.

Recap:

Ed closes out in the same fashion as his opening using an Ad Hominem fallacy, followed by a Red Herring fallacy and Strawman fallacy, and finally closing with another Ad Hominem fallacy.

Conclusion:

Ed’s rebuttal to my review of a misleading product description contains a tour de force of unsubstantiated claims, false statements, hypocrisy, and logical fallacies.

Ed responded with a five-paragraph soliloquy that failed to address the topic of the business making unsubstantiated claims.

Failing to present any evidence to support his claims, the analysis of this post was limited to showing examples of how Ed, the owner of Equilibrium Tuning, used evasive techniques to avoid addressing the issue described in my claims analysis post.

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Ed Susman – Complete statements:

Sneek Peek:

For an idea of where things are going, note the number of “Likes” for Ed’s 5-course bullshit buffet.