Problem with a local shop

[blackbeltclub99]

First off I would like to say I am not going to name any names yet. The person involved knows who they are and I have given them one more chance to correct the issue before I name anyone. If you know who is involed in this please do not post the name of the person involed. If the matter is not resolved by monday(7-25-05) I will post the name of the person who did this. Also this post is very long.

I have an 89 240sx last May 2004 not this year. I took my car to a guy to do an SR20DET swap in it. At the time he promised me that I would have the car before the NOPI show. Well the NOPI show came and gone and he did not even touch my car yet. I was very patient. i did not get mad I just wanted it done right. He then promised to have the car done by my car show which was the first weekend of August 2004. When the show came I called him and he had the car in the garage but still had not started the swap. Well then he said that he would be done with it in 2 weeks at the most. After those 2 weeks he had still not called or anything so I called him and he still had not progressed at all. I was very angry but I did not say anything to him. I just said do a good job and it will be ok. Well It was the middle of October before he got the car finished. He told me it ran great.

I went to pick it up and the car bucked so bad it would about give you whiplash and it smoked like a train. I called him and he said to bring it back to him and he would fix it. I took the car back and he said it was just the TPS and he would set it for me. He tried 2 times and he could not set it correctly. I did some research and had the bucking stopped in under 5 mins. He had no idea what he was doing. He also told me that the smoking would quit that is was just from setting for a while. The smoking actually never stopped and it was the turbo that was bad. Or at least that is what he told me. At first he said he was backed up but he would get to it as soon as possible and swap my turbo for me. Well a few month's pass and he still had not fixed my car. I called him and ask him how much longer and he said he did not have time to swap the turbo's but he woudl bring me another S13 turbo and I could do it. I thought well I have waited so long if I wanted it to get done I would have to do it myself. So I said fine go ahead and bring it to me. He brought me a turbo that was old and looked awful. He also told me I had to bring him the old turbo when i got it off the car. He told me it would not take more than 1-2 hours to swap out the turbo. Well I had a good friend help come to help me. We got the turbo out fine and when we started to reinstall the turbo we noticed that it was turned totally the wrong way. Now if it was off an S13 and it was going back on an S13 shouldn't it have lined up correctly? I called him and he told me that it needed to be clocked that it had came off an S13 but was clocked and installed on an bluebird SR engine. Well my friend clocked it and it was still not correct nothing lined up right. So I called him back and he told me to bring it to him and he would do it for me. After a week I called him and he still had not touched it he said he would have it done by the end of the night to call him back then. So I call back that night and he did not answer his phone. Two days later I call and he still did not have it done. I told him I was coming over to his house that night to get it and to please have it done. He promised he would. Well I got over there and it was not done and he said he could not do it, but we could just cut the water and oil lines and put in some hoses. So now I was really mad and Maximuscr31 did exactly as instructed from him and we came to find out that the oil drain line would not work because it had a kink in the hose. There was no way for it to work. I called him again he said he would come down and look at it. He says this time that we needed to buy a new hose that the one we have is to short. Just so everyone knows the hose we had was 4 feet long. I really doubt he came down and looked at it or he would not have said to get a longer one. I was not home when he came down.

Now I have been well over a year without a good running 240. I think he should come to my house and finish the job that he says will work since he was the one who was supposed to do it anyway. BTW I have drove the car less than 1 thousand miles in this year too. He is a very nice guy to talk to but he takes way to long to do stuff. I do not want to name who it is but I will if I have to. I feel that posting this on here the possibility of losing customers will incourage him to finish teh job he started over a year ago. I do have witnesses to all of this stuff so there is no way he can lie his way out of it. Once again if you know the person involed in this please do not post the name until Monday. If he fixes it I will delete this post.

[Robin@BPD]

yeah it was me (robin @ Barnett Performance &Development) i have nothing to hide from anyone here . i dont warranty the turbo on any engine just the motor it's self which btw had 169psi on all 4 cyc.i exchanged a s13 t25 that was ran only a customers 200sx SR20de for like 2 months then upgraded to a the turbo was in good shape no shaft play and didn't smoke when i removed from his car ... but dude coming on here trying to make me look bad is not going to get me to come help you i gave you good turbo back in Nov.

i gave you a great deal on the motor swap and labor .. yes it did take awhile but a customers car before yours that kept adding more and more parts .. i told you i was sorry for that ...

i just find it hard that you and maxi can not figure how to hook up a oil return line ...

but if everyone here decides not to do business with me cause of this post then there is nothing i can do about that ..

also you should have not waited until last min to contatc me about getting this done i had other plans this weekend and the shop is closed on the weekends can not drop them cause you are a pinch.. sorry if this comes off bad

here is also posted this on another forum if anyone would like to read it as well

http://fullthrottleforums.com/...=2982

[GEO]

But seriously? You call yourself a "SHOP" when it takes 1 year++ to do a simple SR20DET swap. HIRE MORE PEOPLE!

[VinceSez]

But seriously? You call yourself a "SHOP" when it takes 1 year++ to do a simple SR20DET swap. HIRE MORE PEOPLE!

That's true, I wouldn't want to do buisness with someone who would take several months just to do a simple swap.

[asher4857]

You said you would have it done multiple times and still did not complete it.. if the other customer kept adding parts, you have to tell him there are other customers who have been waiting a whole YEAR

[Robin@BPD]

we have more people now but at the time it was only me .. and i gave you there is no excuse for the delay of the swap when it was done it took me 3 weeks.. and when it left here it had no brakes and there was no way that i could have drove it i got drive it around the block and it ran fine . no buckin no smokin ..this didn't happen until he got it home and the smokin like it was only started after you syn. oil in it

he is also not telling you that all the free labor he got from me 2200 for the 98 S13blacktop (motorset,SMIC,S13 Sr rad)1000 labor free 5 speed swap parts free install of vlsd free throwout bearing ans spec clutch ( cause it made a noise after i told him he should upgrade from oem clutch but he didn't want to)

but anyway i gave him the turbo in Nov. and he just now complains about it because him and some dude can't figure out to run the return line.. and he waits to the last min. to get it done he should have done back in nov and if it still had the issue i would have pulled the engine and gave him a another one .. .

So josh sorry that you had issues , but i thought some one who owns a shop them self could have changed out the turbo


Modified by Robin@BPD at 10:01 AM 7/24/2005

[whiterps13]

i absolutely hate shop owners who promise something will be done when they know damn well it wont. there is nothing more frusterating when spending your money than getting empty promises on completion times. if you know it wont be done, quit telling your customers it will!

[grimple1]

^^ agreed

[blackbeltclub99]

we have more people now but at the time it was only me .. and i gave you there is no excuse for the delay of the swap when it was done it took me 3 weeks.. and when it left here it had no brakes and there was no way that i could have drove it i got drive it around the block and it ran fine . no buckin no smokin ..this didn't happen until he got it home and the smokin like it was only started after you syn. oil in it

he is also not telling you that all the free labor he got from me 2200 for the 98 S13blacktop (motorset,SMIC,S13 Sr rad)1000 labor free 5 speed swap parts free install of vlsd free throwout bearing ans spec clutch ( cause it made a noise after i told him he should upgrade from oem clutch but he didn't want to)

but anyway i gave him the turbo in Nov. and he just now complains about it because him and some dude can't figure out to run the return line.. and he waits to the last min. to get it done he should have done back in nov and if it still had the issue i would have pulled the engine and gave him a another one .. .

So josh sorry that you had issues , but i thought some one who owns a shop them self could have changed out the turbo



Modified by Robin@BPD at 10:01 AM 7/24/2005

Robin their has never been an issue with the brakes. The car did smoke and buck the night I drove off in it. You told me that the smoking would quit after a few miles and that you would have to set the TPS and that would solve my problem with the bucking. You did not even know how to set the TPS I ended up having to do it after you attempted 3 times. You are the one who suggested I use Mobil One Syth. oil. You said that that would make it run smoother. Once again you lied. And gave me the new throwout bearing and used clutch only because you had told me that the OEM clutch was in great shape and it was actually going out.
Modified by blackbeltclub99 at 6:32 PM 7/25/2005

[JohnTheFisherman]

Ive talked to Robin barnett about a swap I got the impression right away he didnt know too awful much. So I did it myself I didnt have to wait a year and I have no problems. ive got 2 "friends" one who has one lined up (I think, no names) and one who might be getting a swap done by him i'll let be sure to let both this and a few other forums know how they go. he may do good work we'll see If he does his good rep will get around if not well you know. Only reason I would do that is because people running shops doing bad work shouldnt do swaps at all, people who do good work should reep the benefits of that **** theres alot of hacks out there screwing peiople and saying so sorry its time we thinned the heard a little.