Let me know what you think about this situation

[pbwu1f]

This is a very long story about what happened last year at my job, tell me what you think,

I work for a performance shop in south Florida and two years ago we build a engine for a Honda Prelude. The car came to us already turbo and with all the supporting mods to make 350-400hp. The customer told us that the engine was blown on the dyno during a run. So all he wanted us to do is build the engine so it can handle the power. We went ahead and gave him Wiseco/Eagle combo, sleeved the block with Darton sleeves, port+polish cylinder head, 1mm over valves, 5 angle valve job, arp head studs, Cometic head gasket etc. Car was completed but was running super rich, the customer forgot to mention that the tune that was on the AEM was a basic tune and not completed. We suggested him to take the car back and get the tune finished, he never did. The customer drove the car for two years with the "basic" tune with no issues with the engine only small problems with external accessories, which they were fixed by us.

Last year in March he gets the car towed to the shop and says the car doesn't want to start. He took the car to another shop and it was there for two months and they couldn't figure out the problem. We took a look at the car and found three shorts which were at random places in the harness, and the car started up just fine. We noticed that something was not right and narrowed the problem down to the ECU or the distributor. We sent the ECU to AEM to get looked at and it check out just fine. So the distributor was the next issue to address. We called the customer and he said that the previous shop replaced the distributor already, so we asked for the receipt so we can claim the warranty. Two weeks later he calls back saying he can't find the receipt. So now we have a car that doesn't run right and the customer doesn't want to play for a new part.

A month goes by and after going back and forth about what he wants to do we take the car to the tuner thinking it might just be the tune. After a couple of hours at the tuner, he finds out that the distributor is given the wrong information to the ECU. We then proceed on buying a new distributor and after installing it the car runs perfect. After a couple of more minutes the car is ready to be put on the dyno. As the car is being pulled out from the garage to the dyno it stumbles and then dies. The tuner starts up the car again but not without having trouble, once the car starts white smoke pours out the exhaust. We didn't know what happen but the head gasket took a dump. We informed the customer of what happen and that when things went down hill. He went on to say that he is not paying anything unless the car is running and tuned, and how he is only going to pay us $400 max for the work we did. I must add that the bill was $1050 for over 15 hours of electrical, sending the ECU to AEM, synthetic oil change, NGK spark plugs, new OEM distributor, and what the tuner charged us.

The customer refused to pay us and didn't know what he wanted to do. Three months go by without a word from the guy and he shows up saying that he wants to sell the car. We drained all the coolant so the car started up just fine and idled perfect. We showed him the car and even offered to change the head gasket for free as long as he pays for the parts. At this point he just wanted the car gone, he said if you find somebody tell them that I'm asking $2000 for everything. A couple of weeks go by and another customer of our saw the car and was interested. He talked to the Honda owner about the car and was ready to purchase the car for $2000 but the Honda owner said that "too many people are calling me about the car, I need to get more money for it. I want $2500 for it now". So our guy didn't get the car and were still stuck with it. September is when my boss got feed up and talked to the guy and said if he's not at the shop by the with money to fix the car or take the car or a lean was going to be put on the car. The guy had two weeks to think of something. Two weeks go by and nothing, so my boss proceeded with the car lean.

The guy shows up at the shop about two weeks later because he got a letter from the lean company. He then argued with my boss for over an hour and said that if he doesn't have his car by a week he would sue us. Keep in mind he didn't pay us anything yet and the car has been at the shop for seven months. He leaves and comes back in a week see's that we did nothing to the car and says "I'll see you in court". My boss mentions that a lean was already put on the car and that the bill is not $1050 anymore, now he needs to pay for storage for the past four months. Customer leaves and we didn't hear from him anymore until the court date. First court date was set for beginning of December and it was just a pre-trial, second date was for today at 10am. We received the title to the car at the end of December right before Christmas.

So we go to court today, and I was there as a witness. The guy shows up ten minutes late and without any paper work. He then proceeds with his statement saying that he was never given any paper work or estimate and that we did work on his car without his permission. Our turn for a statement and we described the whole situation as clearly as we could remember it, and also showed the judge the title in the shops name. Judge says he has no case cause he's suing us for damages and closes the case. In his closing statement he says I just want my car back or a deal to be made. The case was closed in our favor and that's what happened to me at work last year.

 

[n0de]

This is a very long story about what happened last year at my job, tell me what you think,

I work for a performance shop in south Florida and two years ago we build a engine for a Honda Prelude. The car came to us already turbo and with all the supporting mods to make 350-400hp. The customer told us that the engine was blown on the dyno during a run. So all he wanted us to do is build the engine so it can handle the power. We went ahead and gave him Wiseco/Eagle combo, sleeved the block with Darton sleeves, port+polish cylinder head, 1mm over valves, 5 angle valve job, arp head studs, Cometic head gasket etc. Car was completed but was running super rich, the customer forgot to mention that the tune that was on the AEM was a basic tune and not completed. We suggested him to take the car back and get the tune finished, he never did. The customer drove the car for two years with the "basic" tune with no issues with the engine only small problems with external accessories, which they were fixed by us.

Last year in March he gets the car towed to the shop and says the car doesn't want to start. He took the car to another shop and it was there for two months and they couldn't figure out the problem. We took a look at the car and found three shorts which were at random places in the harness, and the car started up just fine. We noticed that something was not right and narrowed the problem down to the ECU or the distributor. We sent the ECU to AEM to get looked at and it check out just fine. So the distributor was the next issue to address. We called the customer and he said that the previous shop replaced the distributor already, so we asked for the receipt so we can claim the warranty. Two weeks later he calls back saying he can't find the receipt. So now we have a car that doesn't run right and the customer doesn't want to play for a new part.

A month goes by and after going back and forth about what he wants to do we take the car to the tuner thinking it might just be the tune. After a couple of hours at the tuner, he finds out that the distributor is given the wrong information to the ECU. We then proceed on buying a new distributor and after installing it the car runs perfect. After a couple of more minutes the car is ready to be put on the dyno. As the car is being pulled out from the garage to the dyno it stumbles and then dies. The tuner starts up the car again but not without having trouble, once the car starts white smoke pours out the exhaust. We didn't know what happen but the head gasket took a dump. We informed the customer of what happen and that when things went down hill. He went on to say that he is not paying anything unless the car is running and tuned, and how he is only going to pay us $400 max for the work we did. I must add that the bill was $1050 for over 15 hours of electrical, sending the ECU to AEM, synthetic oil change, NGK spark plugs, new OEM distributor, and what the tuner charged us.

The customer refused to pay us and didn't know what he wanted to do. Three months go by without a word from the guy and he shows up saying that he wants to sell the car. We drained all the coolant so the car started up just fine and idled perfect. We showed him the car and even offered to change the head gasket for free as long as he pays for the parts. At this point he just wanted the car gone, he said if you find somebody tell them that I'm asking $2000 for everything. A couple of weeks go by and another customer of our saw the car and was interested. He talked to the Honda owner about the car and was ready to purchase the car for $2000 but the Honda owner said that "too many people are calling me about the car, I need to get more money for it. I want $2500 for it now". So our guy didn't get the car and were still stuck with it. September is when my boss got feed up and talked to the guy and said if he's not at the shop by the with money to fix the car or take the car or a lean was going to be put on the car. The guy had two weeks to think of something. Two weeks go by and nothing, so my boss proceeded with the car lean.

The guy shows up at the shop about two weeks later because he got a letter from the lean company. He then argued with my boss for over an hour and said that if he doesn't have his car by a week he would sue us. Keep in mind he didn't pay us anything yet and the car has been at the shop for seven months. He leaves and comes back in a week see's that we did nothing to the car and says "I'll see you in court". My boss mentions that a lean was already put on the car and that the bill is not $1050 anymore, now he needs to pay for storage for the past four months. Customer leaves and we didn't hear from him anymore until the court date. First court date was set for beginning of December and it was just a pre-trial, second date was for today at 10am. We received the title to the car at the end of December right before Christmas.

So we go to court today, and I was there as a witness. The guy shows up ten minutes late and without any paper work. He then proceeds with his statement saying that he was never given any paper work or estimate and that we did work on his car without his permission. Our turn for a statement and we described the whole situation as clearly as we could remember it, and also showed the judge the title in the shops name. Judge says he has no case cause he's suing us for damages and closes the case. In his closing statement he says I just want my car back or a deal to be made. The case was closed in our favor and that's what happened to me at work last year.

Amusing but not at the same time.

The guy sounds very sketchy although I cant deny that i was never in the same situation. Eventually I got my car back but so many parts were stripped from it that it was hardly even worth anything anymore. I had a car with over $20,000 in parts invested into the car before going to the shop, it went to the shop for a large overhaul to make it look nice and pretty, well it was a $4500 bill that I paid $1500 upfront before they started, so i only owed $3000. Well seeing as how I was in the mortgage industry (this was 2007) and the money just stopped rolling in, I was SOL on my car payments, house and the car i had in the shop. I tried to buy as much time as I could but I had too many bills that were higher priority (i tried to save my house, but couldn't in the end), they ended up not finishing the car and charging me storage fees until the cost was somewhere between $9k and $13k. I tried working with them and let them sell expensive parts for pennies on the dollar off of my car, parts they didn't even put on. The only thing this did was get eaten up by storage costs in a few weeks.

The funny thing is that some of the people on this site probably know this shop. Although it was an unfortunate situation for both myself and the shop, I do think they could have done more to work with me rather than try and charge insane storage fee's they know i couldn't pay. It's one thing when a person has the money and mismanages his funds, its another thing when there is a national recession.

 

[turboglenn]

Both stories are something that's a shat situation to be on either end of, I've been the guy holding some one's ride until i get paid (them thinking they can "owe me" the money. And i've been some one that had to pay way too much for not a car but myengine from a machine shop although i wouldn't know till installed but they did crap work and took me for 3k dollars... On my end when i've had to tell people "you can't have the keys until i'm paid" i feel bad, but i know i'm not getting paid any other wya than having collateral, and in the end have to think "well, if they won't intend on paying the bill why should i feel bad, and then i a always good in my heart and mind"

I had one in particular that was a honda 929 that i had o fix frame and fork damage on (i did the forks for free because i felt bad for the kid) but the frame fix required stripping the engine out of the bike and when i got the engine out found a part of the cylinders that was cracked and into the water passages, so i called and told him what the new found problems were and how much it would be with me doing as much as i can for free to help him since his bill was getting a little higher than even I had wanted it to be (i'm too kind in some instances of business because i know what it's like to be the guy with little money at times cause i grew up earning my own way since i could vacum the house and dust the furniture).

BUt anyway, all else aside, i reassemble the bike as he states he can't afford new cylinders, and said he'd chance it (i had said i couldn't weld it wth enough confidence without at least disassembling the engine to get the part clean enough and that if i did that he should just put new cylinder set on) I didn't want to weld because coolant did seep out constantly, and the honda cylinders and cases are high in mgnesium making them a lot harder bit of aluminum to get a good weld on.

well, another three days go by and he shows up for the bike, i hand him the bill after discussing some options with him that he doesn't seem interested in any of them (one of which was to take the current bill and split the labor in half on the remaining repair) so about an hour of talking with him later he decides he's ready to get going and puts the bill in his pocket and asks for the key and i said "well there's the bill that we need to take care of" and he repolies that "since everythin's not fixed i didn't think there should be a bill" and i answered him "well i fixed the forks for free, but you need new damper valves still because thisisn't safe to ride like this and is probably why the frameand engine cracke, and i'm letting you off very cheap for pulling the entire engine, headers, gas tank and much more off the bike toi fixthe frame which is the only time you could get to and see the other crack in the cylinders) The frame had broken upper motor mounts, and the cylinder to frame mount on one side was baddly cracked too.. on the forks soe one turned the damper screws to tighten the springs or something as they were fully locked closed, andi had soem spare damper rods and upper caps that i had donated becuse i had no use for them

ANYWHO... long story longer, he insists that he isn't going to pay more than 100 bucks for everything i did (bill was barely over 300) So, what i did (not wanting the POS staying here honestly) was i made him sign a paper saying the bike was unfit for service under ANY conditions in it's current shape and that it shuold not be insured by any company for any of the same uses as the bike was intended (covering my ass if he wrecked nad died or tried suing me). I also said althouhg it "WAS" free that he'd have to wait while i pulled the damper rod and upper caps out odfthe forks if he wasn't paying for the rest of the low ass bill (which idid in an hour ) Then Further more i told him he could trailer or push the bike off but i could not let him ride it off in it's shape in good conciouse to him as a fellow rider... so as he pushes it out of my driveway and goes down the hill and then starts is and rides off i knew he was making the bad decision.. two weeks later he's on the news, front end pushed out in a turn and he's hospitalized... sure enough i starthearing from family, police, attorneys', i made them all copiesof the paperwork this guy had signed and i never heard anything again. hope he's ok, but i'm getting at threre's always two sides of every story.. that was my side but i'm sure his side was something about me charging more than he could pay, didn't fix safety issues etc... all in all in the end paperwork, and keeping track of it saved my ass, and anyone in the right who saves theirs is usually taken care of or covered.... as for paying bills and those who try not too,.... god "if i had a dollar for every ........."

 

[richard33]

OP- So now that you guys have the car what are you going to do with it?

 

[pbwu1f]

It's just one of those things that nobody wants to deal with. I for one liked the guy and even considered him a good "friend/customer". Since receiving the title, we already got the car dyno tuned and replaced the radiator to a slim version. Something that he didn't do for two years. As for the car's fate, it's probably going to be sold.