There was a website setup with a form to fill in aaaaaages ago - the beta test period is long gone now.

Quote from oqvist :

But you guys have the wrong view on things... When you got to try the beta wheel it was very clear it was a beta test. You signed to try it out it was voluntary and hasn´t cost you a bit. You regret that you ever got to lay hands on the wheel I assume then...

Actually, it did cost me just to receive this wheel due to a paperwork error made by their shipping dept or something at the time.

Quote :

Beta wheels have issues if they wouldn´t neither logitech, Fanatec or anyone would produce prototypes and let people use them and find errors that don´t exist. It costs money for sure and there is no return if there weren´t any issues.

if you actually read my original post... i clearly said that i did not expect the wheel to be trouble free. However, the problems that were originally experienced have increased ten-fold in the matter of a few months.

Quote :

It was a superb bonus you actually get to keep them for free not having to send them back. Also fair to let you buy the retail wheel for half the price. But really how can you judge the retail wheel from the beta is beyond me. Trust me you will never ever buy anything that is beta then if you go by that. Then you had no clue what it was you signed up upon.

I actually do have a clue as to what i signed up for, sorry to tell you. But I am sure not going to piss my money away on something that has some obvious durability issues... not to mention when the problems get worse with time. Even Thomas himself said that the problems shouldn't have gotten worse.

Quote :

Now I guess you have to pay full price to get it but that is just fair because of your lack of faith in Fanatec . They will get the people like me and others who has the retail wheel already and see that the centering issues are gone so you don´t need fanatec to send another freebie your way you had your chance and missed out on a great opportunity

Again, i never said that I expect something for free.. so you may want to try re-reading what i posted above. I simply said that I believe if Fanatec wants show that they stand behind their product and indeed issues have been fixed in the 'retail' version of this wheel... then they should have no issues with allowing someone to make sure of that... especially someone who was a community tester.... who are people who have taken the time to review their wheel in great detail and help them with marketing by publishing those reviews on many different web sites. I only think that is fair...
Send a wheel... if it holds up.. i'd buy it.. no questions asked. If i was not satisfied with it, i'd be sure to send it back and pay any shipping costs incurred... so i fail to see where you think i'm trying to get a freebie.

Quote :

Get the G25 if you preferred the feel of it for sure the wheel is quite identical minus the centering issues. Pedals are a lot better now and on par with the G25 in term of feel for sure. Durability is yet to see of course but the pedals don´t quirk or anything so hopefully they will hold up better. You should buy one just for seeing how much the pedals has improved and sell on ebay or something if you still preferr the G25.

In all honesty i would rather have a 911-wheel.... the shifter is great and even the beta pedals i found were a lot better than the G25's... at least in feel... maybe not in looks.... but that's besides the point. The slightly larger wheel diameter is a plus to me as well. I am not just some guy who bought a beta wheel off ebay who is coming here to complaing about it. I, along with many others, have tested the wheel out for Fanatec, written reviews, and given them countless amounts of publicity... I only think that it is fair that they would do everything they can to keep someone happy who has only helped them with their product's success in the long run.

Quote from oqvist :

But you guys have the wrong view on things... When you got to try the beta wheel it was very clear it was a beta test. You signed to try it out it was voluntary and hasn´t cost you a bit. You regret that you ever got to lay hands on the wheel I assume then...

Beta wheels have issues if they wouldn´t neither logitech, Fanatec or anyone would produce prototypes and let people use them and find errors that don´t exist. It costs money for sure and there is no return if there weren´t any issues.

It was a superb bonus you actually get to keep them for free not having to send them back. Also fair to let you buy the retail wheel for half the price. But really how can you judge the retail wheel from the beta is beyond me. Trust me you will never ever buy anything that is beta then if you go by that. Then you had no clue what it was you signed up upon.

Now I guess you have to pay full price to get it but that is just fair because of your lack of faith in Fanatec . They will get the people like me and others who has the retail wheel already and see that the centering issues are gone so you don´t need fanatec to send another freebie your way you had your chance and missed out on a great opportunity

Get the G25 if you preferred the feel of it for sure the wheel is quite identical minus the centering issues. Pedals are a lot better now and on par with the G25 in term of feel for sure. Durability is yet to see of course but the pedals don´t quirk or anything so hopefully they will hold up better. You should buy one just for seeing how much the pedals has improved and sell on ebay or something if you still preferr the G25.

Hmmm might be. I agree on having a beta wheel you end up with issues. But they should at least sorted the problems with the beta wheel first and then do me a offer. Secondly why did thomas promise stuff he would send to me during beta test ? Like pedals a new dongle but he didnt. He also asked me to write down another review after the first 1 I made, which is downloaded over 400 times right now. He never answered. I have said it before, why should I trust the guy then on his word if he even doesnt do things he said to me ?. And how in the world can I rewrite a review with the same wheel ?. I have to buy 1 ?. And keeping such a wheel for free you call a big bonus ?, a wheel that doesnt work a big bonus ? Thats the opposite world m8. That is making money the wrong way around in mine point of view.

You think what happend after that ?, Nothing totally nothing. He didnt even reply to me. Sorry not the kinda trust to buy indeed a new wheel from them. Dont get me wrong I am not out to diss Fanatec at all but when you promise something keep your end of the bargain and not change it all of a sudden and let me buy a new wheel.
I have said it many many times now. Fanatec has a good product and can be a knockout but Fanatec has some internal problems which defitnly needs to sorted.

And I dont want a new freebie wheel. I like the one I have. They just need to sort out drivers and that new firmware so i can use it again. I just wanna race. Nothing more. I hope Thomas can live up the things they planted on the website like firmware and drivers. Bcus I have the feeling they didnt took their beta tester completly serious. Or do we wait another 3 months before that is going to released.

Sincerly Niels

I of course don´t know what promises Fanatec did to you Niels just talking in general about how fanatec handled the beta test. I am sorry if you feel they don´t live up to the promises. For me I was quite happy just beta testing it. I get to try a new wheel and I pay buy listing issues and giving recommendations as well as giving reviews. Everything above that is freebies that´s why I react a bit.

For free I meant you wanted the opportunity to test the product for free for 30 days and then send it back if you don´t like it. We all know you can´t sell used wheel as new ones (well obviously you can if you have the heart to do it lol)

As always there is hardly any hardware without issues. I got issues with all my previous wheels to various extent. But I guess it can be easier to buy a product you have never beta tested since then you will assume it will not have any issues more than if you tested a beta unit that of course has issues...

I took a gamble and so far it seems I took the jackpot However I guess I would be a lot less happier if I didn´t dual boot already haven´t been able to install the drivers correctly in XP. First hardware/software ever that works in vista 64-bit but not XP I think

I did consider just keeping the beta wheel because the wheel itself worked well for me with only light centering issues and it was free but thought it was worth it. I am not sure I would have gone for it if I had to pay the full price then I may have waited a bit to see how the next fanatec wheel pans out or the Frex wheel. Would probably be cheaper though since I suspect I will buy one of those too and increase my score of steering wheels. Sold one so I have only 4 now

I dont want to leave anybody with bad emotions here. Everybody has been very helpful, especially you, Niels.

So I would like to reactivate the coupon codes of anybody which did not take the chance yet so you are able to take the offer I made before and get the discounted wheel.

This is just the beginning. Many more products are in the pipeline and it will be great to do them with the help of all of you.

I just got my (bought) Fanatec 911 Turbo wheel on Friday. Absolutely no complaints so far, it works flawlessly and it's brilliant, feels much more quality than the G25. I highly recommend this wheel.

http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=iphone295mt4.jpg
http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=iphone349cp0.jpg
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=iphone170yq9.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=iphone348td0.jpg

Thanks Dude56. It is really good to hear that, after all the efforts of the past months.

It would be great if anybody who has the beta wheel and final wheel make a direct comparison and report about the differences. I guess that would be interesting for many readers here.

Thomas

Dont worry i bet Teedot will, so you guys better make sure he gets a good one

Quote from SpikeyMarcoD :

Dont worry i bet Teedot will, so you guys better make sure he gets a good one

He will get a perfect one. Just like any other customer as well

Thomas can you sent me the adres for return shipping ? I have a beta wheel which is laying around here doing nothing. Its useless without a firmware so beter send it back. PM me or through email.

i coulda sworn that they already explained that they are letting us keep the wheels. or something. unless you pay for shipping, it would be more money out of their pockets, unless they already payed.

Quote from niels1 :

Thomas can you sent me the adres for return shipping ? I have a beta wheel which is laying around here doing nothing. Its useless without a firmware so beter send it back. PM me or through email.

Niels, you can keep the wheel. Originally we planned to ask the beta testers to send it back or pay a reduced price for it. After we saw how good the test was I sent an email (which might have ended up in your spam filter) that you can keep the beta wheel AND get a final wheel for half the price. So you end up with 2 wheels for the price of half a wheel. If you dont have the coupon code anymore, please send me an email as I dont check PMs in Forums that often.

Thomas

Quote from ArrAssAdor :

you can keep the beta wheel AND get a final wheel for half the price. So you end up with 2 wheels for the price of half a wheel.

Oh. It's too late to become a tester, right?

Quote from KiRmelius :

Oh. It's too late to become a tester, right?

ermmmm .... i'd say so

Thomas,

I havent got any email anymore. I had a crash on my hard drive just about when I was making a back up. So everything is lost. No voucher code, your email etcetra, etcetra.

anyone know when the firmware update will be released for old wheels?

i'm really looking forward to it, because i havent saved up enough money for my new pc and the retail wheel yet.

TBH, the force feedback is more enjoyable in rfactor in some ways than in LFS w/ this wheel. the ffb is more visceral and violent. while with LFS, everything feels a bit soft in comparison.

So yours works within LFS. I have to adjust the slider to zero and disable FFB in LFS to get a clean lape in. In rFactor the wheel works witout a flaw.The FFB plugin are great and gives you a really good feeling. Almost natural but i do need to set the FFb negative to get it working. Well atleast mine does.

I tried it with several other games but only in LFS it keeps f.cking up

That´s really strange I never had any issues in LFS with the beta. I haven´t tried with the retail.

Quote from kenysl :

I've ordered from Hong Kong and still have not receive my wheel yet. I was told to receive the wheel beginning of May. So now that people in Europe have already receive their wheels for over a week. I don't understand why that I still have not receive mine when Hong Kong is part of China (where the wheel is made). I am starting to lose my patience on Fanatec.

If you go on the Fanatec website (http://www.fanatec.de) and have a look at the webshop, you will see no mention of HK/China. If you bought the wheel directly from Fanatec, then they screwed up. If you bought the wheel from a 3rd party online retailer, it's nothing to do with Fanatec. It's like me selling a Maxtor hard disk and not delivering it, and you blaim Maxtor

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

If you go on the Fanatec website (http://www.fanatec.de) and have a look at the webshop, you will see no mention of HK/China. If you bought the wheel directly from Fanatec, then they screwed up. If you bought the wheel from a 3rd party online retailer, it's nothing to do with Fanatec. It's like me selling a Maxtor hard disk and not delivering it, and you blaim Maxtor

The wheel is made in china... but hmm.. Fanatec definitely doesn't have a webshop for China/HK... so it must be thru some 3rd-party...

---


I received my new wheel yesterday and im putting it thru the paces and seeing how retail wheel is in comparasion to the beta wheel..

My First impressions: The brake pedal is WAY too stiff! It feels like the brake pedal in a car with malfunctioning power brakes. You can try this out by getting into a modern car with the ignition off.. .pump the brakes a few times until the pedal becomes stiff and that is what its like.. maybe not quite that stiff.. but its close... It makes it almost impossible to brake smoothly. I've since replaced the compression spring with one that is much softer and it is much better now. The wheel centering issues are definitely gone and I must say I'm quite pleased about that. The extra steel plate added to the pedals gives that entire unit a much firmer feeling and you can really mash the pedals and the unit will not budge (providing you use the anti slip mats). Also nice to not hear that fan whizzing away quite as much now... slowing it down to half-speed was a good idea. Not sure if you guys made any changes to the shifter mount... but it seems like it is much more secure... at least in my wheel. It doesn't nearly flex or flop around as much as the beta wheel's mount did. So far, so good. I'm pleased only time can tell now as to how the durability measures up in comparasion.. i will keep you all updated on my opinions.

Quote from kenysl :

I know theres no webshop for HK/China. I actually purchased the wheel thru their staff after I wrote them an enquiry thru the webshop.

They email me back and said I can purchase from them thru email. They have feedback to me about the delay but it would make things lot easier if I can track the wheel status. As I don't know if its shipped or lost in the mailing process?

hi kenysl,

It is in fact more difficult for us to produce for HK than for Europe. This is the reason why we dont offer that region officially but we made an exception for you. Due to the very small numbers we ship to that region we have to add this order to a bigger order from the US or EU. Your wheel will be made with the next production and should be ready within 2 weeks. Sorry for the delay.

Quote from teedot :

T
My First impressions: The brake pedal is WAY too stiff!

Hi Teedot

It is very difficult for us to make the perfect spring strength as this is certainly a matter of taste and what you are used to. Most beta testers demanded a stronger spring on the level of a G**.

We made the spring 20% less strong as the G** as we think that this is enough. Please give it some time as it needs some days to get used to.

Thomas

I don´t agree it´s too strong at all. I have a hard time feeling pedals that is too soft you end up braking to hard and with full brake pressure for to long. It´s definiatly not stiffer then my real cars quite the opposite. But then I don´t race my real cars and hardly ever use full brake pressure . I can pump it all day long without fatigue though but I do get fatigue from the force feedback instead. Really wish I would get my cockpit soon .