I think that you are not understanding my point. I have agreed with you that you do not do any of these things intentionally. I want to make sure that you understand there is no way possible for you to have the whole story unless you were with customer and shop through the whole process and then the car and customer were never out of your sight. That is the point, I am not saying the cars you are talking about did anything different than what they are telling you and what you see, I am merely saying that you shouldnt say you know the whole story like you were involved.

 

booger.. though based on reaction to a question i am guessing JET might be one of those customers... you should never make that statement without the people themselves making a public post, because on the internet.. shops that do majority of their advertising through the internet can be made or broken by a post like yours

 

No Jet was not one of them . But my statement could be said about every shop on this site . And I followed up to explain that .

 

In regards to Jorge's statement of a high timing advance in his SGP tune, I remember Kenny Tran at Jotech mentioning something about how high my timing was at redline.....I think maybe Mark's tuning style is to run aggressive timing and dump lots of fuel in to keep it safe, as opposed to ultra-conservative timing and 11.5:1 across the board, like we're used to seeing on here. I remember while he was tuning on the dyno, my car was dumping black smoke like crazy, lol. I asked what it was, and he's like "it's just fuel". Point being: it was intentional.

I'm not saying that's either bad nor good, because honestly, I don't really know. All I know is that my car ran great, although rich, at WOT. My ONLY complaint about the tune was the richness in idle and while cruising, which was more than likely due to the air temp comp being off. Jotech couldn't fix it, either.

 

again, i'm agreeing to disagree... i get your point... you've belaboured it enough for a trained chimp to understand it... (maybe even an untrained one, at that)... my point is that when a shop tunes an EMS that cannot be changed without an HKS key (so no way for the client to d*ck with it) and that tune is horrid...or when the same EMS is wired incorrectly without the proper safety items (knock amp) hooked up...or when the fuel housing assembly is mangled so that starvation occurs due to lack of fuel at WOT, there is no 'he said / she said' correlation... the work speaks for itself no matter what the shop or the client's side / statements might be... i don't need to be involved from beginning to end to know who's at fault... it is what it is...

 

y r u guys pissin and moanin when we know someone on there crew needs to OWN UP

 

sounds a little my experiance with aam a bunch of extra money that was not in the quote leaky injectors 2 trips to maryland a crappy tune another shop had to stop the gas from leaking all over the motor . Hopefully I will be taking my car to forged real soon for a motor build and finally get my fcon right

 

I have had bad experiences at two shops and both were recommended to me by other people. I have never done a public bashing thread on either experience. I have provided my opinion to others when asked specifically about a shop.

Information posted on the web has made me much more aware of what to look for when dealing with shops. I also am more educated in issues that arise from any particular install due to feedback posted online which allows me to deal more effectively with a shop.

Do threads like this influence people? I believe they do. After having two bad experiences myself I would be hard put to go to a shop with any bad press.

Is it fair to the shop? In some ways no since the shop can't always satisfy every customer and maybe the shop tried to make it right. I know that I never even approached one of the shops I had an issue with; however I have been down on them for over two years now. The other shop I tried unsuccessfully to work out the issue and I still would not recommend anyone using their services.

If you have found a shop that continually is providing good service and had done a great job with pricing and timelines then by all means shout it from the rafters. People like us want to know; however if I see the same shop getting bad press from an online member it would still be toss up on whether I would go there. At that point it would depend on my impression (personal or online) of the person posting a problem with a shop. If I respect them I will definitely stay away, if not I may still try the shop.

I would say that the manner that a shop owner or representative handles themselves online tells me what I want to know about their shop and the way they handle business.

Putting this much money in cars is full of risk. Number 1 Rule - Don’t do heavy modifications to your car if you can’t afford to fix it if something goes wrong.

 

Careful with the last part of your statement. You may be shocked. You don't know about all comments that are made to people behind closed doors. I'll leave it at that.

 

^^Thats one thing I can respect about Sharif as well, is that he never talks down on another shop. That is common courtesy, and professionalism, but hey I don't need to speak for him.

 

i've seen sharif given many blatant opportunities to bash another shop's work... and his responses have always been tempered... sharif is a very good friend of mine and our relationship is not shop/client... he was a friend before he ever touched my car and he has never held himself in check around me... being professional is just his way... all i can say is that if you've heard derogatory comments from him, then i'm sure they were MORE THAN warranted...

 

wow this thread has been a real eye-opener for me~

when i had my 03 Z i was doing alot of research in trying to find the right shop to get my car done and asked a lot of people for their opinions on sgp (since i'm originally from houston thought they'd be the best bet since they're local). but during those few weeks i asked alot of people (both online through emails and local friends in houston) their opinions and the general concensus was don't go to SGP! and those i talked with shared their horror stories with me so I was a little put off by all this. Still i thought to myself with all that history and name out there it couldn't be that bad right?

but now seeing all of this put together in one thread, i think i now have a good idea... well for a potential customer i think i'm going to steer away from them just for now.


and i know this probably doesnt count for anything but when i had finally narrowed my choices down to SGP and Forged I decided to email both companies with my questions and what not.. sharif replied to me almost instantly and after a few exchanges i felt i had wonderful advice, seemed very thorough and honest (now all i need to do is save up the money).. meanwhile haven't heard anything from SGP...

anyways just my two cents ... btw hi everyone (long time lurker, but finally registered after I got my 07 Z)!

 

i dont know what happened to yall but im sorry if something went wrong but as for me... hell i brought my Z to SGP, got my utech and boost controller installed and tuned..... my car ran fine, no problem nothing and i also got a hell of a deal for all that work the work that was done to my car.


mike

 

While response time may seem like a deal breaker to you, please keep in mind that when you work on a car, you're usually not sitting in the AC in front of computer answering emails. My money and my car goes to SGP. They are sooo backed up with business, there is a waiting list. NO offense to Sharif for the quick response. Just mentioning the fact that when you are busy building cars, there isn't alot of time for other things. If you want to ask SGP some questions, call them. It takes Thomas (who now heads sales and management at SGP - Mark is super busy) a day or so to get an email out, but he answers the phone everytime. I've spent a grip with SGP in the past and just paid them $12,363 yesterday for my motor build. Good guys at SGP. I won't go anywhere else.

 

+1 hell when i first got recommended to SGP i sent them an email and mark replied with in hours... but now since he's been sooooo busy it takes a while before he can reply but i could careless cuz if mark doesnt reply thomas does. oh yeah when i left SGP with my car i could have never been more happy, he was pretty cool about it and helped me out alot and good customer service.

mike

 

are you kidding? Forged Peformance is a mad house, daily... their phone rings non-stop, sharif probably gets 150-200 emails a day (not to mention PMs and IMs), they have no less than 6-10 cars there at all times and are doing no less than 4 full motor builds at the moment... and this is with just 3 techs and sharif! i'd go insane working in that pressure cooker...

i know you're not bashing; i'm just stating the facts that you're unaware of when making the comparison...

 

lol wow thats funny when i was at sgp i counted no less than 10 cars infront of the shop... lol walkin around the shop they must have had atleast 25 cars there inline for jobs the day i went there.... lol.... i didnt see how mark managed to work on my car w/ such short notice when i brought my car in.which im greatful for him even workin onmy car when i emailed him.

i kinda felt bad to cuz durring cool down times(while tuning) he would go and work on another car or constantly answering the phone. although he was bouncing from different areas of the shop he still tune my car right and did an awsome job at it....

 

everything being posted is all fine and dandy, but that don't change the fact that my FCON was not installed properly and that I got a chitty tune. Again read the pm I posted that Sam from GTM sent me in regards to what had to be fixed on my car do to SGP's quality install. Sam is well respected in this community and not to mention SGP is a customer of GTM. Why would Sam lie? He wouldn't and has no need to.

 

its called surviving the competition between different shops. no offense to anyone here but alot of shop do talk smack about other shops just to get more business and make the $$$$$$$

 

ROFLMAO. GTM doesn't have to "survive" the competiton. They are the competition! Look up some of their posts and see some of the cars they are putting out and the parts they are making in house.

Anyway Sam asked me not to post his pm, but I did for the good of the community anyway. It's not like he was trying to talk bad about SGP to drum up business. He was simply responding to my pm where I asked him what he had to fix on my car.