Shop Wall of Shame
03-30-2009, 04:25 PM
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Shop Wall of Shame
As per request here is the Wall of Shame list:
1. Tuning Factory
2. Relentless Auto Sports
3. VRT
4. SGP Racing
5. Steve's European Automotive
Some may already be out of business but will stay up anyway.
Some of you may have followed on the VRT news in the past and more recently the SGP thread of horror I started last year and still dealing with now. Well I thought I'd add this note about some other small time shops who obviously don't know their head from their ****. I have the utmost respect for mechanics and while I'm a bargain hunter after the work I've done in the last 2 years I'll say any day of the week that they truly earn the high fees and hourly charges they bill to customers... When work is done correctly. I know most people won't post up experiences about their shops and I'm the first to say, when something goes wrong in an engine making 3-4x the power it was designed for, it's bound to happen. But when work is half-arsed, not done correctly, or not done at all, this needs to be exposed. Maybe I'll have a hard time finding people to work on my cars as I lay out these threads but I don't want somebody working on my car who doesn't stand by their work and take pride in it.
I bought a car from a member on here last year that had a built engine and turbo kit installed by a company close to his home. He then had some issues and took the car to another shop to have the engine completely removed, inspected, repaired, and reinstalled. Well both of those shops deserve to go on the "Wall of Shame"
Here is the rundown on their work:
Problem number 1:
Take a look at the passenger side firewall and notice the plastering of exhaust carbon build up. I thought it was a cracked manifold at first but it turned out the builder didn't install a gasket between the engine and exhaust manifold. Or, for that fact, in 4 other places where gaskets should of been installed.
Problem number 2:
Had some small drops of oil on the ground before I ripped my faulty SGP Built 5AT transmission to send it in for a repair that never got done at SGP Racing. Figured I had a rear main seal that had gone bad. Well, turns out I did... for a long time. The previous shop that repaired this decided that instead of replacing a $25 part they'd RTV the ***** out of the back of the engine and hope oil didn't find a way out.
As I begin to repair it I found another surprise. One of the bolts that holds the upper oil pan to the block was I guess cracked when installing and instead of taking the 10 minutes with a pair of vise grips to remove the top of the broken bolt they said ahh fawk it nobody will ever know and left it as is.
So basically, $25 of parts and 30 minutes of time could of cost the previous owner or me a complete tear down and removal of engine to repair. Maybe this was the plan overall as I have about $50K in receipts from my previous owner...
In my line of business (technology) I have an advantage over most of my customers as the technology I sell is very complicated and I could easily overbill, oversell, or "pull one over" and I can fair pretty well as I take all the margin into my business (multi-million dollar sales). However, I am a serve the deal kind of person and know that reputation is everything. It's time to start calling out the shops that deserve no reputation for who they are. I'd never throw FUD on a shop that does honest work even if I have issues or complete failure as long as the work done was with integrity and the aftermath was handled with integrity but the above examples are complete ********e work and they deserve no business!
The above work was done by the following 2 shops:
Tuning Factory, Inc
Steve's European Automotive, Inc
I call out both because the original shop started the issue and the second shop added to it or ignored it when they billed the customer over $15K for repair work. Don't do business with them if at all possible.
1. Tuning Factory
2. Relentless Auto Sports
3. VRT
4. SGP Racing
5. Steve's European Automotive
Some may already be out of business but will stay up anyway.
Some of you may have followed on the VRT news in the past and more recently the SGP thread of horror I started last year and still dealing with now. Well I thought I'd add this note about some other small time shops who obviously don't know their head from their ****. I have the utmost respect for mechanics and while I'm a bargain hunter after the work I've done in the last 2 years I'll say any day of the week that they truly earn the high fees and hourly charges they bill to customers... When work is done correctly. I know most people won't post up experiences about their shops and I'm the first to say, when something goes wrong in an engine making 3-4x the power it was designed for, it's bound to happen. But when work is half-arsed, not done correctly, or not done at all, this needs to be exposed. Maybe I'll have a hard time finding people to work on my cars as I lay out these threads but I don't want somebody working on my car who doesn't stand by their work and take pride in it.
I bought a car from a member on here last year that had a built engine and turbo kit installed by a company close to his home. He then had some issues and took the car to another shop to have the engine completely removed, inspected, repaired, and reinstalled. Well both of those shops deserve to go on the "Wall of Shame"
Here is the rundown on their work:
Problem number 1:
Take a look at the passenger side firewall and notice the plastering of exhaust carbon build up. I thought it was a cracked manifold at first but it turned out the builder didn't install a gasket between the engine and exhaust manifold. Or, for that fact, in 4 other places where gaskets should of been installed.
Problem number 2:
Had some small drops of oil on the ground before I ripped my faulty SGP Built 5AT transmission to send it in for a repair that never got done at SGP Racing. Figured I had a rear main seal that had gone bad. Well, turns out I did... for a long time. The previous shop that repaired this decided that instead of replacing a $25 part they'd RTV the ***** out of the back of the engine and hope oil didn't find a way out.
As I begin to repair it I found another surprise. One of the bolts that holds the upper oil pan to the block was I guess cracked when installing and instead of taking the 10 minutes with a pair of vise grips to remove the top of the broken bolt they said ahh fawk it nobody will ever know and left it as is.So basically, $25 of parts and 30 minutes of time could of cost the previous owner or me a complete tear down and removal of engine to repair. Maybe this was the plan overall as I have about $50K in receipts from my previous owner...
In my line of business (technology) I have an advantage over most of my customers as the technology I sell is very complicated and I could easily overbill, oversell, or "pull one over" and I can fair pretty well as I take all the margin into my business (multi-million dollar sales). However, I am a serve the deal kind of person and know that reputation is everything. It's time to start calling out the shops that deserve no reputation for who they are. I'd never throw FUD on a shop that does honest work even if I have issues or complete failure as long as the work done was with integrity and the aftermath was handled with integrity but the above examples are complete ********e work and they deserve no business!
The above work was done by the following 2 shops:
Tuning Factory, Inc
Steve's European Automotive, Inc
I call out both because the original shop started the issue and the second shop added to it or ignored it when they billed the customer over $15K for repair work. Don't do business with them if at all possible.
Last edited by iamdigital; 04-03-2009 at 09:57 AM. Reason: Update
03-30-2009, 05:42 PM
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Mid-A. No need to post addresses and get legal stuff in here. If you're going to the shop or know of it hopefully this'll help you stay away. Thankfully this was easy repair as I already had engine out for other reasons but I'd be furious if I had to remove for JUST this.
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03-30-2009, 05:45 PM
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OP........... i agree with you...........if my engine pops because a part fails, i understand........however if i have engine issuses because someone is getting $75 to $125 an hour and decides to be lazy and slack, i have no sympathy............i think that every shop that charges 15k plus for a build and does crappy work should be responsible enough to take the heat when they are exposed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
03-30-2009, 05:57 PM
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I had the same type of problem with a shop in Columbus Ohio about 4 years ago when I had a 3000GT VR-4, think of anything dumb you can do to a car , they did it ,all that song and dance.
I know how you feel.
oh and I wouldnt shop from ips motorsports if I were you guys.
I know how you feel.
oh and I wouldnt shop from ips motorsports if I were you guys.
Last edited by S1gnal; 03-30-2009 at 06:02 PM.
03-30-2009, 07:58 PM
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Oh it get's even better. That stuff above has been fixed already but I just sold my turbo kit to somebody and I may have to back out of the sale after a close pre-ship inspection. I'm having a reputable shop look at it before I make the call tomorrow but there are waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too many shady shops out there and not enough FIAL stories on here. Everybody get's the "free" ride of advice on this forum and not enough take the time or nerve to post up legitimate shop problems for whatever reason (denial, embarrassed, lil balwz, ... ) leaving the community to guess where to go. I'm doing whatever I can to make sure shops that FIAL go out of business and shops that deliver get the props they deserve. Somebody on the forum is going to help me out of this fawkin slump and I'll hope to be updating with a new build soon. I'm wetarded so sticking in this till I get a car running!!!
03-30-2009, 08:05 PM
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I talked to those guys when I first bought my Z and I wanted to have them turbo it. Guess I made the right move by doing the work myself. This is why I chose to drive 9 hours to have my car tuned when I was done with my s/c install rather than work with a local shop. Seems like anymore you can only count on one hand the shops that are reputable.
03-31-2009, 06:04 AM
#16
Mid-A. No need to post addresses and get legal stuff in here. If you're going to the shop or know of it hopefully this'll help you stay away. Thankfully this was easy repair as I already had engine out for other reasons but I'd be furious if I had to remove for JUST this.
- Holy Shizzle, I'm in the Mid-A.
03-31-2009, 07:00 AM
#19
Wow, I honestly had nightmares of this kind of stuff happening to me on my build being new to this stuff and knowing practically nothing except reading so many bad stories like this. I will write up an extremely detailed review about where I went (it's no secret, lol) but I'm holding off for a while. Long term reviews are always better.
03-31-2009, 08:05 AM
#20
WOW... Sorry to see...
There are too many shady shops out there and not enough practices put in place to avoid these types of things.. Shop owners need to check the mechanics work, or shop managers need to check the mechanics work.. 
Sorry to see this iamdigital, especially throwing thousands at a shop to get shitty work done..
There are too many shady shops out there and not enough practices put in place to avoid these types of things..
Shop owners need to check the mechanics work, or shop managers need to check the mechanics work.. Sorry to see this iamdigital, especially throwing thousands at a shop to get shitty work done..