Terrible time with a shop - Advice please!
 

So I'm not going to name any names at this point as I'm not sure what to do yet.

TL:DR at bottom

Back in Jun 28 2015, I took my car in because I wanted to do a supercharger install. I hadn't done anything and wanted to get a quote to see what it would cost. The guy then listed out what he wanted to add on and go through all the costs for it - upfront. That made a good impression on me (also, the guy is a friend of a friend, who had really good service working together. He replaced the friend's blown motor in 3 days). I then realized that's more than I wanted to spend on this car so then I just told him I wanted to get just some headers done and a tune.
Thats when things went south.
He called me a week later said he took the header off and did a compression check just for the hell of it to make sure the engine was in good health and he told me I had a bad motor - the rings were blown. I then told him to put it back together and I was going to take it back. My naive ass (since I wanted to believe he was acting in good faith since a friend of a friend) let him replace the motor for me. Lots of pricing talks back and forth go by and for a couple hundred bucks more, he was going to put in forged internals and stuff. I said fuck it I'll make this dumb mistake and went forth with it.
This is where it begins.

He tells me it'll take about 2 months to get it back to me. I know how shops run (couple friends have BMW shops) and so I let a couple months go by without contact. I call him up a month later to see the status of the car. Barely started. He promises me he'll start that week. I call him a week later and the engine is out the car. Months go by and excuse after excuse goes by after that... "Oh i have this, oh this happened, oh worker injury," and it goes on and on.

Fast forward to December he tells me the car is ready and its being sent to the dyno to get tuned (I had him install the MSPNP I had) and the car "blew up" on the dyno. Said it started knocking. Before I could go up and see what was going on it was sent back to his machine shop to "investigate" and of course, the oil pump went bad. He charged me to get the main bearings reseated, for a new set of main bearings, and for all the seals for the engine, flow testing the new oil pump, and machine shop time.

Hundreds of dollars later to put it back together, it finally comes back to me. February 2016 I get it back.

Now, here's were I need advice (came to MT since CL I probably wont get anything but comments about how dumb I was).
I drive it for a month and today the car dies on the fwy for no apparent reason. I get it towed to a buddy's house and we look at the car. We found the vacuum line by the throttle body was disconnected and taped there to make it look like it was on, the crank angle sensor was held in by a bolt inserted into a stripped hole with RTV (meaning guy knew it was an issue when he "rebuilt" the motor), and speedometer is wonky - reads about 20% faster than actual. Those are just the issues I've found in the past hour.
He owes me an actual "tune" on the car since when it was on the dyno, it never completed so it's supposed to go in for a real one eventually, but I don't know if I trust the guy anymore.
Do I have any kind of case to go after him to get him to cover repairs at a different shop? Or am I just shit outta luck.

TL:DR
Took my car to a shop. Took 8 months total to complete the build. It blew up once before it even came back to me on the dyno and he charged me for those repairs too. I get the car back and within a month it's on a flatbed. The crank angle sensor bolt hole was stripped and held in with RTV (meaning it was known to him). I go through the car and found various other things wrong.
Do I have any luck getting him to pay to send to a different shop to fix his mistakes or am I shit out of luck on this?

Thanks all. Again, I'd like to keep this anonymous for now.

Basically, the business is struggling financially.

You probably cant do much because what youd need is the business money as compensation.

Dann

You can try something in Small Claims Court I suppose. He likely won't pay.

BBB complaint, etc. Your state might also have a department that does consumer protection stuff.

You are unfortunately shit out of luck. Small claims court is about all you can do.

Just for future reference a compression test won't tell you if rings are bad. They can give you an idea, but you really need a leak down test to know where the air is going. Also going with forged internals is not just a few hundred extra dollars. You are looking at a minimum of $800 for rods and pistons, not including any machine work.

Also if a shop manages to blow up a motor tuning it NA then they have no clue what they are doing.

do you have any confirmation of the internals that were put in the engine? i wouldnt bother with small claims until you have some solid info on what the shop did wrong.

Name of the shop? (So others can avoid them) I doubt they're members here or they would of been ridiculed before for such shenanigans.

Speedo is off because it has a different transmission.

You probably have a used stock engine from another car that has never been rebuilt, much less having forged internals.

the first problem is that you let him talk you into a motor when yours was apparently running fine. did you ever see inside the motor when it was being built?

BBB. or you can try going after him in small claims, but it will be arduous.

My advice: cut your losses and find a better shop. Also, as stated, PLEASE post up the name of the shop on all forums so others can avoid them.

Stop trusting people. This is why I did everything by myself in shitty ass conditions, but ended up taking a leap of faith on having someone tune the car after two hours of foreplay talk about megasquirt and setups.

Even if the shop is well known, always document on paper the work to be done, rough timeline (subject to change) and estimated price. By preemptively forcing work to be done on your dime, is a huge flag. You shouldn't have paid if you didn't authorized it. BBB is useless. Grow some balls and stop letting people dick you around.

Which shop?



Basically calling them out is the only way you will bring about any positive change from this place. I had a similar experience in my Subaru days. I created a 21 post review on our experience with as much detail in the public eye (Starting at Post 77)

http://www.rs25.com/forums/f121/1243...eviews-8.html?

It should take a competent shop 1.5 to 2 weeks to R&R and have an engine rebuilt and maybe an extra couple of days if there are special shipping issues on parts. Some can do the whole thing in 3-4 days if all parts are there.

Yeah I physically saw the engine. When he walked away, I marked it with white out near the oil filter. It was still there when I got the car back.

Thanks. I'm supposed to have an NB1 transmission. Do the speed sensors differ from year to year? Any chance I could just have a wrong sensor?

Thanks, yeah I already knew I fucked up when I let him do the repair but I'm just naive and stupid. Just gotta fix what I can now and never repeat.


Thanks all for the info. Going to small claims soon. Cousin is a lawyer so can help draft all the info I need. I'll give shop name soon - after court. If anyone is in CA or plans to take their car in to anywhere in/near El Monte, let me know and I'll confirm.