What Should Be Expected?

[LA_Phantom]

I was just reading of a GTO owner's experience with the customer service of a particular automotive shop. What I gathered, as far as the particulars are concerned, is the following:

Originally Posted by Synopsis

The customer drove a significant distance to have the shop do some work on his GTO.

The work performed was a cam swap, valve train upgrade, and dyno tune with a street validation of the tune.

The mechanical work was completed and the tuning work started. The tuner had two other vehicles besides this customer's GTO and was a bit bent out of shape because it was Saturday night and getting late. The dyno tune and subsequent street validation was completed in about an hour, and was described as being deficient in terms of the streetability of the car. This is obviously the perspective of the GTO owner.

I believe that a portion of the tuning cost was returned to the owner of the GTO because the automotive shop was not well organized that day relative to doing work for someone residing out-of-town, who was probably on a tight traveling schedule.

Apparently overnight accomodations were not available and the owner of the shop allowed the GTO owner to stay at his home.

The GTO owner indicated that he was lucky to make it back home because the car consistently died at each stop. I am not certain, but I think that, once home, steps were taken to fix the driveability issues. This work was done by someone who is not associated with the automotive shop.

At some later date there was a problem with the engine internally, which required the engine to be torn down. The engine builder indicated that a lobe had fallen off of the cam shaft. This ended up damaging other parts of the engine internally.

The GTO owner indicated that he does not abuse his car and that it was not over-revved during operation of the GTO. Also, the owner indicated that he had not raced his car. Instead, it was during normal operation that the cam problem raised its ugly head.

The GTO owner tried to contact the owner of the automotive shop, but was unable to get a reply for approximately 5 weeks. The owner of the automotive shop indicated that he had not received any phone messages, forum private messages, or emails.

Now, beacuse of a lack of response from the owner of the automotive shop, the GTO owner has been raising this issue on any and all forums he knows as being sponsored by this particular automotive shop in hopes that it will ellicit a response.

The above is my understanding of one side of the story. Obviously there are two sides of a story, but I did not come across the other. Generally speaking, this shop has a good reputation for the work it performs and its customer service.

Prior to having read this post I had not given the possibility of something like this happening very much thought. If you were in the shoes of the GTO owner what would you expect in terms of rectifying the situation? Would you expect the automotive shop to refund the money you paid? Would you expect them to pay for the work that needed to be completed to get the car back on the road? How does the manufacturer of the cam and/or valve train components figure into the equation? Please let me know your opinions on this matter. I am curious to know whether or not there is a general concensus as to how this matter should be handled. Thanks in advance.

-K

[Wretched 6.0]

I read the original post, Need more info, at this point it's not clear enough. People have a habit of expecting to much when they spend a certain dollar amount. They also have a habit of believing person A's opinion as gospel, and not beliving person B's opinion at all.

He waited for the car to get done, (rushing them) Bad
He then drove it home (who knows how he drove it)
He had a problem, brought it to another shop. They spent a week tuning it. (a week to tune a car is crazy, sounds like they didn't have the expierience, and THEY could have screwed something up.) This all before the cam install had completed its break in. How many times did a WOT run get done at the NEW shop.
Cam lobes don't fall off. I'm not sure if he means that it wore down, but they don't fall off. But dynoing the hell out of it for a week could do that to a new cam install, as could improper installation.

The driver also stated that the lifter had twisted, and this cuased the problems, This type of lifter can't twist, i'm not sure if the new shop is trying to cover their ass, of it a lifter was defective, or if it was installed wrong. We only have one persons word on it. And this is the place that took a week to tune it.

What should have been done is he should have contacted the people that did the cam install, there are various ways to do this. Then they could have arranged to get the car back to them and fix it. Instead that shop has no idea what has been done by the other shop, and how do you warranty something that someone else has thier hands all over like that.


All in all a sad story, but the owner handled it wrong, never gave the first shop the oportuniy to look at it, and then had someone else beat on it for a week, then take it appart to look at it. Of coarse they are not going to find anything to be their fault.