A private discussion forum for authenticated owners, dealers, installers and the factory to present, discuss and solve technical problems out of the public eye would be only slightly harder. Why not?
I have a personal experience regarding this, Alan, and believe it is not in the company's best interest.
Having wanted a Cobra replica for a long time, I always read the build logs on the various forums and the Cobra articles in the kit car mags. It was not only just enjoyable reading, I wanted to see what the process involved for each company and what kind of issues I might encounter.
I became a fan of the Hurricane brand of Cobra, a very well designed frame and a body with very few mold lines and even those placed on flat areas of the body, combined with a build sequence that allowed for the body to be off to the painter while the chassis was assembled had almost cinched the deal for me. I went to the factory to look at what they did, etc., was preparing to pull the trigger and buy one.
Hurricane, like FFR and many other manufacturers, operates their own forum on their website. There is a public forum that is open to all viewers and a "Dark Side" forum that is available only to owners. I questioned over and over why the Dark Side was not available to potential buyers, perhaps as read-only access, so that we can perform our due-diligence. It seemed that the company was hiding something...problems with the build that they did not want the public to know about.
In the end, it was a deal-breaker for me. I am still a fan of their product, but not knowing what problems I will encounter with the build and eventual product keeps me from being able to include their product in any buying decision, past or present.
SPF should make all information public...as should all companies in the industry. These component cars can become deadly if not completed in a manner that ensures safety, and to hide potential problems behind a screen of secrecy would, to me anyway, imply that they care more about their bottom line than their customers' safety.
Just MHO, though....others will probably have a different attitude, Hurricane sure did.
Cheers!
Doug