Interesting Shop Story, need input

[240_Keyy]

let me give you a little background on this story.

Back in April my friend went to a respected shop that builds high horsepower Supras DSM's and 240s, they even have their own turbo kit for each application with a pimpy tubular manifold, external wastegate and T3/T04e turbo. My friend bought their turbo kit for his SR'd 240 because his little bottom mount T3 just wasn't cutting it any more. After a very large amount of money changed hands between him and the shop, the turbo kit is installed and tuned and puts down a respectable 326rwhp and 290tq at 15psi of boost. Everything is running like a champ.

Flash forward to the first weekend in September... My friend gets tired of his "crappy" SDS standalone system so he goes back to the shop that did his turbo kit and talks to them about installing a Haltec E6K (or whatever the letters are) They agree on a large amount of money and he is told that the car will be ready to go in two weeks. He drops off the car and calls them back in two weeks, they say the car hasn't moved, but that it is "next on the list" and should be finished within 2 weeks. My friend is understanding and just copes.

Flash forward 1 month (a total of 1.5 months since he dropped it off) the car still has not moved, but it is next on the list and should be completed within 2 weeks. My friend is becoming agitated.

Flash forward two weeks... The car is now actually in the shop and has the haltech *mostly* installed. They tell him that it will be done within a few days. My friend is excited, but wary.

Flash forward 2 weeks... The Haltech is installed and the owners of the shop take the car around the block for a shakedown run, they say it is running great and will be ready to dyno within a day or two and he should have the car back within 1 week.

Flash forward 1 week (last tuesday)... They get the car up on the dyno and start doing some pulls. They are at 14* timing, 14psi of boost and are running really "safe" so to speak, the car is making roughly 300hp and the BOOM!!!!!! the motor blows up. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? They give my friend a call and tell him "oops we blew your car on the dyno, sorry about that" My friend is displeased.

Flash forward to yesterday... My friend calls the shop in the morning and speaks to one of the owners. He tells the owner that he is coming up to talk to him about what they can do to get the car running again, and to find out what the shop is willing to do. My friend then gets in his Maxima and drives to Dallas to talk to the owners. He gets to the shop and the owners are gone, they had to go do something or something, one of the regular workers says. My friend goes into the shop to look at the car and takes out the plugs, looks into the #1 cylinder and can see the friking crank!! the piston is totally gone, the walls are scored all to sh*t and the motor is essentially toast. My friend talks to one of the people at the shop that actually knows what is going on and asks him if the shop is willing to compensate some of the labor costs (or any costs for that matter)and is pretty much told that "the car was in that condition when you brought it to us, and we didn't break it. Well obviously we broke it on the dyno, but it was because of a preexisting condition in the motor" They then make him pay for the install of the haltech (which my friend actually agreed to, since it was actually installed) and then they CHARGE HIM FOR THE DYNO TUNING DURING WHICH THEY BLEW HIS MOTOR!!! My friend is HIGHLY displeasedwith this little fact, but has no choice but to pay. He sticks around for another hour but the owners never come back while he is there.

What do you think should be done under these circumstances? A "2 week" job turned into a 3 month nightmare, the shop is not willing to compensate any of the cost of the blown motor, they made him pay for the dyno tuning druing which they blew the motor and they pretty much told him to fsck off and get his car out of their shop. I haven't said the name of the company, but if any of you know anything, you will know what shop I am talking about. My friend also never had to sign a liability waiver, so does that make the shop even more liable?

what do yall think?

[BadMojo]

I'd tell him to talk to a lawyer. Ask friends and family and see if they can recommend a respected attorney. If it were me, I'd talk to a lawyer before I spoke one more word to the shop that blew up my engine. If your friend has a case, the lawyer will say so, if not...well, I suppose he's screwed.

[groundhogday1976]

I'm not sure about the shop's liability, but a complaint to the Better Business Bureau would be warranted for the runaround with them keeping his car 3 months instead of 2 weeks. As far as getting them to compensate him for replacing the motor, it'll be hard to do it because, although the motor was perfect when he dropped it off, there's no way to prove it was if it comes down to a court case or anything like that. What I would do is spread the word, and give the name of the shop. Maybe that way they'll pay for their mistake in the form of lost business.

[MetaOrbit]

Did he by any chance use a credit card to pay for any of the work? He might be able to dispute the charges with his credit card company and have a chargeback issued against the shop.

[MasterMan]

i know when my dad has work on his car he always has the shop drive the car onto the ramp because if they brake somthing they have to fix it/pay for it, i would think u would have a case.. but i dont know.. afterall it was in their hands and they shouldnt of boosted it so high... they should of givin it back to him in almost stalk form *i would think* unless he payed for tuning..

[lessthanjakejohn]

which shop is tis

[Nathan]

Inquiring Dallasites want to know That really sucks about your friend though, I'd definitely call a lawyer and at the least have a nasty letter written up BY the lawyer even if there is no case, scare tactics work wonders when they are on papers from a Lawyer. Chargebacks are also a fantastic thing.

[240_Keyy]

no his car is FAR from stock, as I said, he was previously making well over 300hp, but when it blew it was making right at 300.

The shop is CTC in Dallas, they are usually fantastic, and i am suprised they are stiffing him so hard...

[Altiman94]

Tuning a motor with a standalone system is kinda assuming the general risk of motor damage. You can sue someone for being hit with a golfball on a golf course, and there is no waiver needed to play golf. But, I am sorry your friend is out thousands of dollars.

[MasterMan]

well worse comes to worse, get an SR block, because u wont need anything els, u have the wireing harness and everything so u can probily get it cheap..

[Anand]

I can understand the job that takes 2 weeks taking 2 months.. haha

I dropped myc ar off for a swap and this was 7 weeks ago... so yea, I can see how the shop can give you the run arounds and it is frustrating as hell!!!!

the part that sux is that they(shop) have us by the balls when we give them the money and drop our car off... we cna't do siht but just deal with it..

as far as th ewait goes, I'm alright with it as long as they get the siht done and done right... IF they break your motor, they need to pay for it...regardless of what happenes.

your friend shouldd have never paid them any money and called the cops and dealt with it legaly. get his car towed out ofthere and sue their asess. have them get a new motor forhim with everything installed or refunds his money...

[Cold_Zero]

Did you friend sign a contract or an agreement before they dyno'ed the car? I think this guy is screwed, because most shops protect themselves from liability from this type of issue. Dyno'ing a car requires redlining a car several times and the shop does not know the condition of the car before they get it. Now if there is gross negligence, there may be a case for your buddy.

[Altiman94]

^ I agree with you BUD, that's kinda the point I was trying to get at in my previous post. DYNO tuning is definitely a dangerous thing for a shop to partake on. Probably why there really aren't that many DYNO's around here.

[240_Keyy]

he never signed a waiver of any sort. And this is not the first time he has had the car dyno tuned by them, they tuned it about 6 months prior to him dropping it off and it was fine then...

[Nismo_Freak]

Avery needs to call a lawyer and discuss terms... I know of a good friend of mine that is a lawyer that I could possibly talk to but I'd need to know what Avery signed/didn't sign and what the shop had told him.

Lemme know Keith.

[sultan]

seems like it should be the shops fault, they installed new engine management and were tuning it, presumably it was not set up correctly and went boom.

john and nathan you should be ashamed of yourselves for not knowing what shop it was, keith's first post had many clues indicating what shop it was. high horse supra and dsm, has own kit for SR, large sums of money, took way too long to finish, in Dallas... it was obvious (to me)

[lessthanjakejohn]

lol I had a deep feeling it was CTC

[SilviaDET1]

CTC is usually pretty good, I don't really hang out there anymore but kyle (manager) and wayne (damm good mechanic) and the rest of them are usually pretty responsible. (if not really quick on getting jobs done) unfortuatly as was stated before dyno tuning is pretty harsh but should not cause a perfect engine to self destruct, problem is most of the sr's out there are in an unknown state of repair when we get them. If it was my shop I would have the owner of the car there for any dyno tuning, just in case something like this happened also because its really cool to see what your car can do on a dyno. (i think they used to use intercrew's dyno, might want to check with intercrew bout what happened when it blew, and what they were doing when it happened) Unfortunatly I don't think there is much that can be done about it now, if there not willing to help your friend out he might be s.o.l. you may try working out a deal that if he buys a new block, they would give him a hookup on the labor to rebuild, just an idea...

I hope it all works out for the best.

[Nathan]

As did I, I just wanted my guess verified. The Supra part was kinda the giveaway

[240_Keyy]

SilviaDET, I know CTC has been great in the past, that is why my friend kept going there. Wayne is a really great guy and I definitely think he knows his sh*t.

They said that even if he bought a new block from them and had them build it that they would not be willing to comp the labor :-/

[SilviaDET1]

Siht, that sucks man, I dunno if I would be willing to have them work on my car again if it was me. Personally (maybee im crazy) if it blew up when I was not there, I would be pissed if they could not, or would not try to take care of me in some way/shape/or form. im sure hooking up the haltech was not exactly bargin pricing. Unfortunatly I don't think sueing them is gonna do any good. Now I know a guy who has a block at the machine shop (ran out of cash) thats been resleved, bored, honed, etc... he may be willing to sell.... block, pistons, micropolished crank, all the good stuff. Im not sure if he would be willing to sell though. if your interested I'll give him a call and see what hes asking. He may also have a stock short block that he would ne willing to install for a better price. let me know what there quoting him and I'll see if he will beat it (he has an extremly good rep) but I ill not post his name up here due to not having his permission.

[PROJECTRB240SX]

SHOULD HAVE REFUSED TO PAY AND LEFT. TALK TO A LAWYER AND HAVE THEM GO AFTER CTC. IF HE SIGNED NO WAIVER OF LIABILITY THEN THEY ARE LIABLE AND THEIR INSURANCE HAS TO PAY FOR ANY AND ALL DAMAGES. HE SHOULDN'T PAY FOR THE SYSTEM INSTALL BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T INSTALL IT PROPERLY, OBVIOUSLY. THE DYNO MAYBE THE ONLY THING HE SHOULD PAY FOR BUT, THEN AGAIN THEY NEED TO RESOLVE THE MAJOR SITUATION FIRST.

[Megaseth]

I had a feeling it was CTC after the supra, DSM, and SR stuff. i think he has a case since it was in their possesion and they blew it up. like stated, tell him to get the BBB in on it.

[Dano]

first bad thing ive ever heard about CTC.... man that sucks, i hope they pay up for the problems endured during their possesion of the car.

-Dan

[spec-v5150]

I dont see how he can really blame them.....or maybe its just me. I mean this isnt walmart where you go buy say a brand new DVD player fully ecpecting it to work out of the box. We are talking used engines with stand alone systems. I mean what if he were dynoing it himrself and it went boom...I dont know....this is an iffy subject. That thing could have been about to go boom awhile ago and it finally happened while on teh dyno.........Sure I would be pissed to, but at the samer time with a swap or a turbo KA, you are assuming a great deal of risks and I guess that would be further illustrated becuase this is a respected shop. If it were some run of the mill hole in the ground and had no name, maybe, but most peopel agree that is a respected shop (I dont know much about em honestly). I can see them doing everyhting right and it still going boom. just my .02 cents.

[Cold_Zero]

They said that even if he bought a new block from them and had them build it that they would not be willing to comp the labor :-/

Logic would say, if they go above and beyond to keep the customer, that customer will come back. Problem is, in these guys are worried about someone filing a claim against their shop. If they comp the labor to rebuild or install an engine into your buddy's car, that may be construed as an admission of guilt. They are doing the old corporate two set. Cover your ***.

bud

[240_Keyy]

***UPDATE***

Ok if you read above you can see exactly what was going on with this deal. I have a new twist to the story so sit back and relax and get ready for this...

Ok so CTC vehemently denies any wrongdoing in this whole issue and claims that it was a problem inherent in the system, most likely a faulty injector.

SO, my friend sends off all his injectors to be flow rate tested and cleaned at a reputable shop out of state. The results come back absolutely perfect. All of the injectors were clean and the flow rate difference between all of them was marginal, less than 1% (3% is the max safe limit of difference)

This got us thinking as to how in the hell CTC could have blown the motor, especially since they blew piston #2. This is where a little background is necessary...

For the past few years my friend has been running an SDS standalone system and the whole reason he took the car to CTC was so they could install a Haltec system for him because he wanted the datalogging capabiliteis. For those of you that know, the SDS system uses a series of magnets mounted on the crank pulley to get the timing information. This totally eleminates the need for a CAS. Because my friend originally got a crap motor, it came with a broken CAS, so he had a block off plate over the whole to keep it from spewing oil everywhere. Anyway, the seal wasn't exactly perfect on his block off plate and it started leaking so a few months ago, my friend got a CAS from a friend of his and just stuck it in there to block off the hole and stop it from leaking. Note HE JUST STUCK IT IN THERE!!! There was no need to set the timing because the SDS system does not use the CAS signal...

Flash forward to when CTC starts jacking with the car. They install the haltec and all the sensors, they run new wires to the CAS and fire up the car. I am not sure how they did it, but they somehow managed to "set" the timing without ever removing and reinstalling the CAS so that it was lined up to the correct links on the chain. How did they do that? Is that even possible? The haltec then went nuts, ran crazy amounts of timing and blew the motor. Does this sound feasible to you?

Does this still sound like a "faulty injector" problem to you guys?

[ShadowKnight006]

Sounds more like a "negligence" problem to me.

[ShadowKnight006]

Sounds more like a "negligence" problem to me. Just my thoughts.

[Dano]

man that is screwed up. that does indeed sound like negligence.

ShadowKnight006, double post man, delete the first one.

-Dan