Jeremys Friend

Well, the customer is always right. So, it's a pointless battle.

ToastZ

iTrader: (2)

Customer battles are not "pointless" if you wish to stay in business.

Customers are not always "correct", but their perceived priorities should come first and foremost.

Learn to balance the two and its a winning combination.

XKR

iTrader: (1)

I just have a few things to say.......

1) Please guys dont take this thread to Super Epic.....we can only handle one thread like this at a time.

2) Hi Jeremy D@mn.... You had me fooled for awhile until I got a PM telling me thats you

3) Hi Craig...welcome back. Its good to have an old school return.What are the plans for your car??

4) Motormouth and Cass....d@mn good video...too funny....Love it !!

ToastZ

iTrader: (2)

:icon38 :

Its like "herding cats" and "juggling chainsaws" at the same time around here, lol.

Jeremys Friend

Well, this will be my last post. I am sure that I will get a million calls telling me to look at the latest post on my thread to see what's up, but it really isn't worth all the drama. I have met a lot of really great people, have done a lot of really fun things, and know that I have done the best job that I could.

Craig blew his car up on the way back from Zdayz a couple years ago. He dropped his car off at Sharifs shop and left it there to get a quote. I decided that I really wanted to take on Craigs car as a really cool custom single turbo project. As we began the project on his car, we decided to do a built motor. I quoted him a little better price than I would a normal customer due to his situation. This job turned out to be much more than we expected. He told us that he was officially sponsored by Turbonetics and that we would have a free turbo, free wastegate, and free blow off valve sent to us. This turbo came with the other parts and we got everything installed in his car. We started it up and it never stopped smoking. We did a lot of tests and decided that it was the turbo. The engine had zero smoke coming out of it when we ran it open headers. The turbo was sent back to TN. It took a little while and it made it back to us, same issue, turbo smoking again. I decided that we should keep this turbo here and have them send us another one. They sent us another one and it has the same issue. (A known issue with TN turbos)

We basically changed the turbo four times, strapped his car down on the dyno 8-10 times, still to find out that the car was not making the power we thought. I will note that I never asked him for another penny. Now, the car is showing low compression. We tear down the engine for free, replace all the necessary parts for free and figure out that for some reason, the car is actually putting out -20 degrees of timing from what it actually is showing. This somehow completely washed the rings out and they needed replaced. This is crazy because I have never seen this happen. Now the utec comes out along with bigger injectors (he paid my cost on Haltech and injectors) so we can try to figure out the issue with it. Well for some reason, the car is still putting out way less timing than is displayed on the Haltech ( 20 degrees less). So we pull down the transmission for free and check out the clutch and the crank position sensor to make sure they are not timed wrong.

So, what do I do? I have spent over 100 hours fixing some issue that we still to this day don't know what it is, all for free. I tune his car to a nice 500whp and give it back. By the way, Craig spent about 12000-13000 total on a fully built motor installed with cams, a complete custom single turbo kit, a haltech, larger 800cc injectors, twin carbon clutch and a lot of other things. I doubt he will have any trouble getting his money back out of it.

Fast forward a couple months. We figure that the company that sold us his engine, somehow must have given us a Altima/Maxima crank. It explains the -20 degrees timing issue exactly. On his tune, the car has an additional 20 degrees added in so it runs correctly. The car also still smoked due to the bad turbo that is in there.


Next, Project VK56 swap.

Well, Justin was a good customer of mine from day one. We actually became pretty decent friends in the whole process. That was until I decided to take on a VK56 swap. Being friends, we decided that we would agree on a friendly/sponsorship price for the first one so we can get a nice running daily driven swap out there. I told him that it would be 6000-10,000 dollars for the first one (only as a great deal for him) We decided that the swap should cost around 15000-20000 after messing with his for a long while. He sent me a check for 1000 up front for us to work on it and he had us sell his built motor for another 4000 dollars. It took us over 5 months to sell his engine but i purchased all the swap components immediately out of pocket. Well after 100s and 100s of hours on it, I decided that the swap was going to be on the high side of things. 10,000 would be the least I could possibly take, just to cut down my losses to a minimum. He told me that there was no more money to be spent on it and that I said the total was supposed to be 6000. We went back and forth and back and forth on it so I let the car sit. This went on for a while and we slowly messed around with it but without getting paid on it, what am I supposed to do? This car sat there until I closed down Performance Factory. I then paid $800 dollars to have this car shipped to Altered because I didnt know what else to do to it. He then got upset and posted up a thread about his car. I told him to PLEASE take it down and I would either A) Try to get the swap done or B) put a stock motor back into his car and give it back. Well, I then decided to quit AAM and paid another $800 dollars to have it shipped to my current location. I should have just shipped it back to him a long long time ago and cut my losses.

Next, Project twin GT35Rs

Same story as Craigs, Justins, and now Shane. I have too many friends. Everyone wants a great deal. Now I have learned that when a friend asks you for a discount, its basically the same thing as him adding an additional (insert whatever discount amount is) to your bill just to be nice. What is the difference? If I give $1000 dollars off, its basically me handing you $1000 dollars. Why cant it just be the other way around?

Shane brought me his car since day one as well. We set some nice records with it and he really had a lot of fun on his stock block. We did a lot of boost plus shot some nitrous on the stock motor for a lot of quarter mile runs. This car went 11.xx at 12x a million times and held up fine until he pushed the limits one day on a low tank of gas and bent a couple rods. We decided to build an engine for him. He had the block sleeved at another company and had his heads/cams done there. This was great cause it was all ready to go minus some minor machine work that we had done at my local machine shop. We put this car together and then decided to really step it up and get rid of the Greddy kit. We built a complete fully custom twin GT35R kit on this newly built motor. Due to financial reasons, the car sat for a while till we sold a lot of his parts and he came up with a little more money. This car was amazing when it was done, it made 670whp on pump gas (93 octane) on 17 psi. It hauled ***!! We then drove it around and put a few more miles on it and decided to get it back on the dyno. It's race gas time. Load it up with Q16 and strap her down. Slowly get into boost and knock knock knock. Take the oil pan down and the oil is filled with coolant. Oil and coolant don't mix when it comes to the life of an engine. We tear it down and find out the the sleeves somehow sunk and when we pressure tested it, realize that the coolant was passing by the seals on the bottom of the sleeves.

Now whose fault is this? So, we take everything apart to figure out the problem and it happens to be the same exact time I am closing down my shop. I pay $800 dollars to ship this car up to AAM as well and it sits there. Totalling up his bill, I realize that I personally have over $16,000 dollars wrapped up into this car IN MY COSTS on parts. I send the total to Shane and explain the whole situation and how all those small parts we added just all added up. That is not even factoring in the money that I have already paid my techs to work on it. (built motor,installing and reinstalling custom turbo kit, installing built motor, installing twin pump,tearing down the engine the second time, tuning the car, doing custom downpipes, ect.) So, now we figure that Shane has given me $3000 plus the money that we sold his old setup for. This totals $9000 dollars. Ok, so I have been paid $9000 and have over $16,000 in my cost plus all the labor I have already paid my guys for. It just doesnt make sense. Shane tells me that he is completely tapped out and has no more money.

Well, the time comes when I decided to quit AAM. I am haunted by these two cars that I should have sent back in the first place. I decide to move back to FL and pay (again) $1600 dollars to ship these two cars back to my location here. What have I gotten myself into, it's the same situation as Craigs car. I wish I could just go back and document everything a little better plus not make so many friends in the business. I wish I could every day, but, I can't....

I just was trying to do the right thing and felt bad for people and end up being the bad guy. Thanks for all the people who have been cool along the way. I really appreciate it. This is my last post on here. Hope you all get a chance to read through it. If anything, I have learned this. Business is business. No friends in business. XXXX amount means XXXX amount for anyone. Document everything!! That is the key. There is never too much paperwork. Don't try to take over the world. Things take time. There are NO discounts!!

I'm really sorry if I personally got anyone involved in anything that didn't work out in their favor. That was not my plan. I think I tried so hard to make everyone happy..... and that's impossible.

JAM3Z

iTrader: (17)

wow, very interesting.

ToastZ

iTrader: (2)

Never Quit.

XKR

iTrader: (1)

Jeremy....You are going to quit posting here because of that.....Come on man.....I know you are bigger than that

taurran

iTrader: (18)

I'm going to bullet point this because you have sugar coated everything like you're a saint or something. In fact it's not like that because you caused all the issues on my car.

- You installed the oil return on the turbocharger going UPHILL. I took my car apart after I got it back from you the first time with the gravity return going below a pipe, UP, and into the side of the block. There was oil pooling in the gravity return and pouring out the seals. By that time the car had been on the dyno numerous times and the engine had already been broken in. The turbo has oil coked up to hell in the seals because the return line you installed incorrectly blew them. I have pictures I'll dig up to prove this.

I call you and tell you this. You tell me "oh we install oil returns uphill all the time on Greddy kits". I respectfully said you were incorrect, and you replied that it was "ok", and "not our fault". In fact, I wanted to tell you how clueless you really are when it comes to turbocharger systems. You can NOT have a gravity return going UPHILL into an oil pan. It won't work, and it will kill your turbo every time.

You killed two turbos because you didn't install the return right. I brought the car back almost a year after it had originally arrived in your shop and provided return lines to tap into the front of the motor. Unfortuantely, this is too late because the damage had been done to the turbo. You blew it, and you provide all that extra "work" because you were trying to cover up your problem with parts.

You ********ted twice and flat out lied to me that there was "zero" smoke on the car. I watched you dyno it on headers and there was smoke coming out. Hell, I had videos of it on my camera. Your idea of "zero" smoke is dissipated smoke. It's still there, and the turbo is still bad. You also told me when I picked the car up the final time. Quote, and I mean quote, "it's smoking some, but just drive it and it will burn off with no smoke". I left and the thing is blowing smoke clouds the size of hiroshima.

You caused all the extra "work", and are now saying you hooked me up and are basically blaming me.



- The timing issue that you banged your head against the wall forever wasn't even apparent with the UTEC. You sold me a motor that assured of that. How are you expecting me to pay for a faulty car you built? It was your fault that you had to run it on the dyno all those times. It was your fault that you blew out the rings.

You need to stand by your product and stop blaming the customer for your mistakes.

You ran it into the ground with the UTEC, blamed the problem on the RC injectors, and told me to buy new injectors. I ponied up over $2200 or so for the Haltech and injectors. Sure, it was a good price, BUT...

*** I would never have HAD to buy injectors and a Haltech if you did the job right the first time***

You would never have even identified the timing issue if you never installed the Haltech. I mean, that's good, but it should have never been a problem in the first place.



- My car was last on your list of priorities. I have friends in orlando that told me it sat there in the shop collecting dust for MONTHS at a time. I saw dozens of builds roll out of your shop and you never even touched mine. Everyone here ont he forums was asking where it was and I couldn't say **** because you would get pissed off if I even hinted that you were dragging ***.

You've done this numerous other times, in one familiar case - Chris (maximumpsortz) Chris, to this day, won't even push his car as he's afraid it will blow up. Thanks again PF....



- Oh yeah, my "custom" kit has a turbo basically touching the radiator, dented pipes that I had to bondo and paint to barely make presentable. It's intake pipe looks like you used it to nail in tent stakes. It rubs my hood, and I presently have it zip tied to a radiator hose until I get a new one made soon.

It looked like you built it in a junk yard. I've had most of it tweaked out but damn, it wasn't pretty. These pipes took you months and months to make and I could have had better exhaust techs build them in two weeks. GREAT VALUE...



- I'll get the list together if you want to lowball what I paid to you. I know I paid around that for the motor, the install, and the messed pipes you put on the kit alone. Add the Haltech and Injectors (which I shouldn't have even needed) on top of that.

You also tore my headlights to hell, cracked my side skirts, put scrapes on my wheels, and gave me the car back looking like an oil worker drove it to work for a month. I won't even figure the cost of those into it all.



- You sold my Fujitsubo exhasut for $500 to a customer. Basically guilt tripped me into letting you do it by whining that you spent so much time on my car. Add that to your total. Also, all my wastegate and bov parts disappeared, as did most of the chrome hardware under the hood.



... taking a break now due to needing dinner. I'll be back later...




You blow me away man. I can't beleive you act like you did me a favor. I would have paid Sharif $15k and he would have had me a solid car rolling out the door with close to 500whp. Instead I got garbage you threw together, endless amounts of grief, and I didn't have a car for over a year.

Unbelievable.

taurran

iTrader: (18)

Whatever happened to Matt's HKS G35 that you blew up both of his GT-RS turbos on, only to have HKS send them back and tell you that you installed them wrong?

Well, I'll just say the last I heard he got screwed out of money for both turbos (that were obviously installed wrong), got fed up, and sold the car.

I'll give you a hint - turbos don't just detonate at the shaft. They do it due to oil starvation. I've heard about the issues with the oil feeds and returns, but that's just insane that both would just "happen" to explode.


I dont know man. For a turbo expert you still haven't figured out that turbos need fresh oil, and an open drain, to cool and lubricate themselves. You think after blowing up at least 3 that I know of you'd pay closer attention to why it's happening.

taurran

iTrader: (18)

Next, let's not forget Chris (maximumsportz) who went through hell for 10 months and now won't even floor his car in fear of it blowing the motor. Real satisfied customer there... (not)

taurran

iTrader: (18)

Shane's car has been gone for 1.5 years this month. The car wasn't even started or tuned until around the 1 year anniversary of it coming to the shop.

The motor was in a crate from GTM, ready to go. Why on earth did the car take 1 year to get started? I can tell you right now it wasn't because of a complex turbo build.

It was because it sat there for months and months without even getting touched, collecting dust.


You didn't make up for giving "friend" customers "breaks" by charging more, you made up for it by letting their cars sit untouched for extended periods, only working on them when you had nothing else to do. Then you throw it back in their face that you gave them a good deal when they try to ask what's going on.

Not a good way to do business imo...

03threefiftyz

iTrader: (25)

Now officially at SUPER EPIC levels.....

Taurran......sorry to hear of your issues, I hope that you can get them resolved.

XKR

iTrader: (1)

F@ck !!! You are right....We have now gone Super Epic That last post of Taurran pushed it into Super Epic Status.


Taurran....what are the plans for your car??

taurran

iTrader: (18)

Chris (from lakeland) who dropped a stock block motor at Performance Factory in anticipation of a motor build. He comes back to get the motor a while later because it's not happening due to some other financial issues.

Performance Factory gives him back a stock motor allright - but one with huge gaping holes in the side of the block! He's told that "that's how it looked when it was dropped off". Chris is a VERY honest and owns a successful business of his own. I have no reason to believe he's a liar.

Pretty obvious his motor was used for another build, and he was duped into taking back a blown block. Luckily for him the guy he bought the block from worked with him to get some of his money back, but he was still out big.

The last I talked to him he said he wish he would have taken you to court.

taurran

iTrader: (18)

Pulling the turbo now to send to turbonetics to get rebuilt. The car's been sitting in the garage for most of the past year. It blows by so much oil that I don't even want to drive it.

I'll pretty much garuntee that with the new turbo and return line it won't be blowing by oil. The line is a straight shot to the front side of the pan, pretty trick.

Plan is to redo some of the crappy dented intake piping as well, then try to sell it modified making 500~whp or whatever its making now. The car is extremely conservatively tuned (almost poorly I'd say), has some stuttering issues at really low RPM's, throws a few CELs, but otherwise runs reliably.

Hopefully I can get some of my parts money back out of selling it cheap, but I don't even have the heart right now to part it out entirely or put work into making the power it should.

XKR

iTrader: (1)

WOW...... Hate to hear things like this. Glad you are back though....Hope you will have something for next ZdayZ.

taurran

iTrader: (18)

lol... thanks. I was supposed to ride up in my friend's 300zxtt this year but his job put a stop to it. Maybe next time.

Oh, and for those that want a nice fast street car - E55. I love the look, the interior, the kick in the nuts power of the roots blower, and everything about it. You can also make 500whp with a simply pulley, ecu flash, and headers.

<3 the E55

Zbee

I have read this whole thread. Very interesting. But what do you all expect? Why do you all continually pound AAM? I had my Z worked on by Jeremy; he did a great job. So did Clint. You guys are all Knit Picking. It's like being in a cave with a fire in it and looking at the wall. We are all looking at shadows of the people outside the cave. We are not getting the real picture, only seeing the shadows of the the people outside. that's the way I see it. Clint will understand. :-)

doug

iTrader: (5)

I don't even have a comment anymore for this thread.. i'm speachless.. i've been playing with my son all day.. didn't time read.. and i must say wow.. wow.. some of this stuff i already knew.. but wow..

i really feel for Chris though.. he is never on the forums anymore.. he kept quiet about alot of stuff because JT promised him stuff.. and just like Craig could have had a fast running safe car with Forged.. Chris was looking to go to Japtrix or Forged for his build.. he got talked out of that too.. I don't know what the conversation was about.. so i'm not even going to say what JT told him.. but i do know he wanted to go to either of those shops