BDS Suspension Blog

In an effort to raise money to keep the outdoors beautiful, healthy, and open to the public, BDS Suspension has become involved in The 2010 Tread Lightly! Charity Auction on eBay November 1-11.

We strongly support the nonprofit Tread Lightly!, whose mission is to promote responsible recreation through ethics education and stewardship.  All money raised from this auction will go towards programs that will initiate restoration projects, educate outdoor recreationists, and help save access.  Over 200 products have been donated for the cause from companies throughout the industry, including BDS Suspension who donated a $500 gift certificate to be auctioned off.

“Giving right now is more important to saving access than ever before,” said Lori McCullough, Tread Lightly!’s executive director.  “We have some innovative campaigns and programs in the works, and this auction— our only major fundraiser of the year— is key in helping move those initiatives forward.”

The auction runs from November 1-11.  For more information go to www.treadlightly.org <http://www.treadlightly.org> or straight to the live auction <http://shop.ebay.com/treadlightly!/m.html.

Vegas baby! Las Vegas is the site of the SEMA Show; once again bringing together over 2000 companies for the largest automotive show in the world. Automotive manufacturers as well as aftermarket companies worldwide make the trip each year to this oasis in the Mojave Desert. The Las Vegas Convention Center and surrounding grounds will play host to this show boasting anything and everything automotive related. While this show isn’t open to the general public, the amount of press coverage this show receives gives everyone an up close view of what SEMA is all about. SEMA is always the place to showcase new products and it has routinely given us a glimpse into the future of the industry. BDS Suspension will be among the companies making the long haul to Las Vegas for the November 2-5 show. This event provides an opportunity to meet with current and potential distributors, as well as network with other professionals. BDS Suspension will be well represented with a number of companies interested in our premium lift kits for SEMA show rigs. We’ll have more coverage of these trucks in the near feature.

BDS Suspension is teaming up with its sister company Zone Offroad Products in our 10ft x 100ft booth modeled after an off road shop complete with sales counters, lift kits on displays, waiting room, and install garage. Wall displays will showcase new lift kits for the Jeep TJ / JK Wranglers, the 2011 Chevy HD trucks, Dodge trucks, new Ford F150 / F250 trucks, and the Toyota Tundra. We’ve included some shots of components of the booth, but we don’t want to give away everything yet, so you’ll have to check back to see the full details. Keep a look out for updates during the show and a full recap complete with media blitz after the show.

Bundy Hill Offroad Park in Jerome, MI played host to the Pit Trash Shootout this past weekend. Competitors from around the area took on the course for a chance at cash and bragging rights. The field was broken up into 2 classes, the 33-42’’ Tire Class and the 42’’+ Tire Class. A bunch of competitors took on the course designed by the crew at Bundy Hill with only a handful of competitors finishing within the 45-minute time limit. Numerous rigs fell short of the finish line with a range of problems from broken steering boxes to blown hubs and others just getting stuck along the way. Jeremy Gauss from Great Lakes Truck Outfitters took home first place for the 33-42” Tire Class in his modified Samari with a time of 8:44. BDS Suspension was out to support the park and watch the action with the rest of the crowd. Among some of the rigs BDS brought out was our 2011 Chevy HD with our 6.5’’ Lift Kit and Jeep ZJ Long Arm Lift Kit.

For the most part the weather held out on Saturday and many took advantage of the rest of the trails being open. Jeeps, Toyotas, quads, dirt bikes and more took to the terrain throughout the day. Local dealers had quads out for testdrives out on the trails and the hotdog truck stayed busy serving up food all day.  Ed Caine and the crew at Bundy Hill did a great job organizing this event that proved to be a great time full of off road action and trail carnage.

http://picasaweb.google.com/BDSsuspension/BundyHillPitTrashShootout#

BDS-Suspension has launched its new web 2.0 website at http://bds-suspension.com. The dramatically redesigned site created by the company’s in-house digital team, embodies BDS Suspension’s forward thinking vision and commitment to the growing needs and expectations of its international network of distributors and expanding customer base. Based on extensive web usability research combined with cutting edge functionality it offers:

• One click kit finder featuring the fastest vehicle lookup on the web
• Industry exclusive kit customizer
• Streamlined and intuitive shopping cart
• Improved distributor lookup using technology like Google mapping software

The sites homepage welcomes visitors with a clean uncluttered design and a fly out menu system that allows visitors to find all available kits for their vehicle in less than 3 seconds, making it by far the fastest and easiest to use in the industry. A carousel with sliding images focuses on BDS’s mission to be the leader in bringing new kits and products to market. A blog reel keeps visitors up to date with the latest news concerning BDS, its distributors and industry important events. Other notable homepage features include streamlined login/signup, easy access to our social networks, at-a-glance event calendar, and instant access to safe shopping concerns such as SSL certificate and BDS privacy and security policies.

Improved Navigation and Searching

The new site navigation is organized into 3 core areas. The top navigation bar provides links to basic information about the company, social interactions, the blog and multimedia downloads. Improved search algorithms return more complete results by inputting part numbers and keywords.

A secondary navigation bar provides direct access to distributor and customer account information including the dealer quote system, order tracking/history and customer saved to “My Garage” feature. Access to help links, your shopping cart, and a link to the simplified login/registration form can be found here.

Left column navigation provides easy access to all product related information. This includes vehicle lookup for specific kits, browsing all BDS products, latest BDS offerings, ability to quickly order by part number, local distributor lookup, and PDF installation instruction library downloads. Live help instant messaging is also accessed from this menu.

Staff Voices

BDS was an early adapter of blogging and social media such as Facebook and YouTube to communicate with our customers. Staff members have been charged with generating improved content and providing relevant information, images, and other digital content such as video to help distributors and visitors access the depth of services and products available to them.

New Underlying Technology

A major aspect of the new site is the use of web standards-based design. Valid HTML, CSS, and JavaScript meet accessibility and semantic guidelines and by incorporating them with open source technologies such as AJAX and jQuery make the content of the site accessible to more people and more kinds of internet devices in more intuitive ways. According to BDS President Steve Olmstead, “This launch lays the groundwork for a philosophy of ongoing evolution and expansion of bds-suspension.com with new features and improvements being made continually.” BDS looks forward to feedback from users and exciting new developments to come.

This weekend Bundy Hill OffRoad in Jerome, MI places host to the Pit Trash Shootout.  Whether you’re interested in bringing your rig out for competition or just want to watch, Bundy Hill will be exciting this weekend. Competitors have a chance at more then $5000 worth of prize money. The park will still be open for regular weekend wheeling so bring your rig out to play on the trails while you catch the action. For those that haven’t made it out to Bundy Hill, the park has both open areas and trails with a combination of hill climbs, mudholes, rock gardens, and off camber obstacles. The park is open to full size rigs, dirt bikes, quads and more. BDS will be there supporting the Michigan off-road park with special offers and new products on display like our 2011 Chevy 2500HD 6.5’’ HC Lift. Check the website for all the details. See you this weekend!

OK 4WD pulled off another great Oktober Truckfest Show this past weekend! Great weather, impressive turnout, and amazing deals helped make OK 4WD in Stewartsville, NJ the place to be. Several vendors were on hand showing off new products and answering questions. Yours truly, BDS Suspension made the haul from Coldwater, MI in our new 2011 Chevy HD sporting the BDS 6.5” HC Kit for the event.

This show brings out a huge variety of vehicles from the old school classics to the extreme built rigs and OK Auto had trophy classes to cover them all. OK’s facilities includes a rock course for testing purposes and several rigs took their turn playing on the course and entertaining the crowd.
The great thing about this event is regardless your interest in trucks, its fun for everyone with the trucks, games, live music to enjoy, pumpkin & face painting for the kids, and the local fire department behind the grills feeding us all day!
Jim, the owner of OK 4WD and his crew did a spectacular job organizing and taking care of everyone throughout the day. Their show room was full of inventory and continuously busy. “It’s a 4WD candy store!” was the most fitting comment I heard that day!
If you have never been there you really need to make plans to attend one of OK events or stop by the shop to check out the facilities. Thanks to the guys at OK for another great event and we can’t wait for next years.

http://picasaweb.google.com/BDSsuspension/OKtoberTruckfest#5529362514365241394