AM I the only dumbass that thought Z1 "Services" our cars?

I've been buying parts for years and received an email or two about the 'Big new facility' supposedly to offer better service with additional technicions .....

SO trying to restore my G after 19 years together. Just pulled the engine myself to have the Greddy turbos rebuilt. Figured I'd take the car there to have suspension gone over and perhaps upgraded, the cracked dash hopefully addressed, and basically anything else done I could get for under $5K.

Got a reply to my inquiry that I needed to resend my email to "Service@z1motorsports.com" which I thought the 'Info" people could have just forwarded it to. Then got a rep0ly from 'Service" saying:Hey George, thanks for reaching out. Could you send over some photos of the car? Specifically, a few photos of the engine bay. We do not offer any type of maintenance or repair work at this time, but we could discuss the turbo timer installation. Do you already have this part and the additional harness that is required?

so after checking their website and reading about:

"Unlike others who have shifted their focus solely to online sales, we at Z1 have made significant investments in expanding our shop, hiring more technicians, and taking on more work. We have also been rapidly growing our product development team, resulting in the creation of over 120 unique products each year. As a result, our technical resources have been increasingly devoted to product expansion, and our service center has naturally evolved to cater primarily to performance builds."

I called. While the discussion was proper, I was challenged to find any info on website that was contridictory the the reply I recieved. Kinda in a smirky way. I thought I was much to pleasant as we discussed my obviously ignorant assumptions.

I'm done venting and will just put my big boy pants on and move along. Just dissapointed in the place I've spent THOUSANDS of dollars at and their decision not to install products they don't deem "performane" enough even tho they sell them.
That dash R/R is going to suck with my history of causeing just enough collateral damage that I could have paid someone to do the job in a much shorter time frame, while I concentrate on aspects of the build more in my comfortz one.

 

Join the club, I don't like them but for different reasons. I can tell you most performance shops don't like to do "maintenance" type stuff, TF-works does the same here, they only "work on one-off projects, swaps, and basically friends cars" even if the part is easy to replace, they aren't a conventional "shop"

As someone who works in the field I can tell you it's rare to find a shop that does it all, and if they do, you wouldn't want them doing certain things. Dealer couldn't even do my window motor without destroying my door panel.

 

didn't realize it was common. Hal and Eddie did my build way back when they were at or called "injected Performance." I was in Nashvillle at the time so the didtance wasn't such an issue. Now that I'm in BFE it is.

 

I thought all their instructive videos were from them working on customer's cars, and they have a nice big shop with lifts and things, I thought they did work on cars for people. Do they do anything? Or only performance upgrades?

 

Some maintenance can be considered performance, so it's a gray area. Example a clutch replacement with a performance clutch kit or replacing bad dampers with a set of coilovers. I don't think they'd do a straight up OEM to OEM replacement.

 

Ive always thought "wow how lucky are those who live close to Z1 and have a shop that specializes in Zs that they can trust to take their cars..." I mean im sure they are very knowledgeable when it comes to the Zs. I been buying parts from them for a long time

 

Yeah, they're a performance shop 1st and foremost. As Dark said, maintenance and performance upgrades can be a gray area. But I suspect you got resistance/push-back because you've already dismantled much of the vehicle (not drive-able, needs to be towed). I'm not defending Z1 here, it's just how the entire industry is. Shop's don't want to take on the liability because of scummy customer experiences. You know, the classic, "you were the last ones who touched my car" scenario. Exceptions are made for repeat long-time customers where a solid relationship of trust has been built/matured. But if you're a new customer to the shop crew (not the online parts shop), then major red flags get thrown up.

Going over the suspension is work I would have expected to be Z1's bread & butter. I could understand reluctance on dash replacement/repair (those are not fun!).

Anyway, I've adopted a policy of doing the majority of work myself because it's hard to find a good shop you can trust. My go-to performance shop (Z Car Garage) turns away most 350Zs and G35s these days, some exceptions are made for long-time customers. But even then, the wait could be 4-6 weeks to get in. ZCG has become more of a classic Datsun/Nissan restoration and tuner shop over the past 6-8 years. For every 370Z/G37 or R35 they work on, there's probably 5 or 6 240Zs, Roadsters, 510s, Z32s, and even some JDM import R32s & R34s being worked on at the same time. It's like walking into a Nissan museum when I visit the shop, very cool to see.

Cheers!
-Icer

 

Thanks for the info.