Equilibrium Tuning Advertising Claim:
Equilibrium Tuning (EQT) exclusively sells the Blaze intake in North America.
EQT made several objective claims related to the performance of this intake. I hypothesize that EQT misrepresented the level and type of substantiation for the claim that performance was “verified by independent testing.“
In this post, I review evidence that demonstrates no independent testing took place with the Blaze intake.
The advertiser must possess at least the level of substantiation expressly or impliedly claimed in the advertisement.
Federal Trade Commission
Evidence Review – Testing:
The first exhibit of evidence relates to the person overseeing the collection of information.
Mason Tibljas states their car was being custom-tuned by Equilibrium Tuning and Mason states “I decided to swap intakes” and performance improvement was noted by the tuner at Equilibrium Tuning.
This was not a test, this was serendipity.
Serendipity – The faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.
Merriam-Webster.com
Mason goes on to erroneously describe the tuning of the car with a different intake as a test when there was just a positive result that was not being sought out.
Mason describes the vehicle’s initial setup as “my ie setup and inlet“, where ie is a reference to Integrated Engineering.
This statement gives the impression that the Integrated Engineering Intake and Turbo Inlet Elbow were used in the “before” case, but another statement by Mason shows that the Integrated Engineering Intake was used with a 034Motorsport turbo inlet elbow.
This was a significant failure to identify the products in use because Equilibrium Tuning has stated from the time of the initial release of the product to the present time that the Blaze intake was compared with a competitor intake system.
The evidence provided by Mason shows that the Integrated Engineering intake (one competitor) was being used with an inlet elbow from a different manufacturer, 034Motorsports (another competitor).
The claim that the Blaze intake was compared with that of a competitor is a false and misleading statement that is unlawful under Section 5(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
Mason also makes statements such as:
I was the test car…
Matt reviewed the log and said…
He believes…
Mason Tibljas
Mason Tibljas was not meaningfully involved in the process of recording and evaluating data. This is not very surprising since Mason was a customer whose car was being tuned by EQT.
Partial Conclusions:
The failure by Mason Tibljas to clearly describe the products under “test” is evidence that Mason was unqualified to conduct a test.
The failure by Mason Tibljas to consider the possibility that a turbo inlet elbow made to fit with a stock IHI turbocharger would be a significant factor affecting the airflow into a hybrid Vortex turbocharger indicates a lack of pre-test research into the factors affecting the response variables. This is further evidence that Mason was unqualified to conduct a test.
Mason Tibljas refers to an alternative method of testing the intakes using a flow bench as “hooking it up to a shop table“, indicating Mason failed to understand if alternate test methods would yield valid results. This is more evidence that Mason was unqualified to conduct a test.
The person overseeing the collection of data, Mason Tibljas, was not qualified to reliably conduct a test.
The collection of data using the Integrated Engineering intake (and 034 inlet elbow) and Blaze intake was not a test.
Evidence Review – EQT Independent Test Claims
Equilibrium Tuning subsequently began to advertise the product for sale based on the claim that the performance of the Blaze intake had been verified by “independent testing“.
As Mason Tibljas stated, he was working with Equilibrium Tuning on the tuning of his car. Since EQT was working with Mason on tuning his car, the claim by Equilibrium Tuning of testing by an “independent” entity is false – It was also shown above that Mason was neither qualified to conduct a test nor making any effort to conduct a test.
More evidence showing the claim of “independence” is false comes from Ed Susman, the owner of Equilibrium Tuning. In this example, Ed references data collected using Mason’s car:
These are from our testing while tuning Mason’s car.
Ed Susman – Owner of Equilibrium Tuning Inc.
Statements from Matt Ferreira of Equilibrium Tuning also disprove the “independent testing” claim.
We tested the Blaze V2 intake …
Matt Ferriera – Employee of Equilibrium Tuning Inc.
At a later time, a consumer would question EQT about presenting dyno-generated data using the Blaze intake that EQT had claimed they would be providing.
Here again, Ed Susman presents evidence showing the claims of results “verified by independent testing” were false because the data was generated while EQT tuned their customer’s cars.
All the data we have is from before/after logs from remote tune customers.
Ed Susman – Owner of Equilibrium Tuning Inc.
Conclusions:
Contrary to advertising claims by Equilibrium Tuning that the performance of the Blaze ATOM V2 intake was verified by an independent testing entity, evidence shows it was Equilibrium Tuning, the sole distributor of the product in North America, that took part in the collection and evaluation of information about the Blaze intake that EQT refers to in its advertising.
Evidence provided by Equilibrium Tuning proves the claim by EQT regarding independent testing of the Blaze intake is a false and misleading statement that is unlawful under Section 5(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
The advertiser must possess at least the level of substantiation expressly or impliedly claimed in the advertisement.
Federal Trade Commission
Implications:
As the sole distributor of the Blaze intake products in North America, EQT’s deceptive advertising influences a significantly large market.
These misleading claims don’t stop having an effect at the North American borders. Here are recent advertisements referencing EQT’s deceptive claims from a couple of international businesses selling the Blaze ATOM V2 intake.
In the above advertisement, EQT’s claims violate UK Marketing and Advertising laws.
Below the deceptive claims stretch down to New Zealand where EQT claims are a violation of New Zealand’s Fair Trading Act.
Given the large audience that these deceptive claims are being made to, the financial damages caused to consumers by Equilibrium Tuning Inc. are likely significant and increasing daily.