Are all speed shops like this?

[Klay]

Dang man I'm sorry to hear how long this is taking for you. Doesn't sound like they needed to do anything to crazy hard, so at this point its obvious other cars were getting preferential treatment before yours.

Good luck and keep us posted when you finally get it back.

 

[brandon_s0854]

Dang man I'm sorry to hear how long this is taking for you. Doesn't sound like they needed to do anything to crazy hard, so at this point its obvious other cars were getting preferential treatment before yours.

Good luck and keep us posted when you finally get it back.

Yeah, they're terribly unorganized and not well versed in Procharger systems. I wish I had known this before going there. I'm stuck with them for now.

 

[Rock44]

My heart sinks every time I see one of these stories. Sometimes there are legit reasons, a lot of times it's just procrastination and having ol' Johnny who works Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10-2 do the work on your car. Best of luck, man. Life lesson you've learned! (Or are still learning, lol!)

 

[brandon_s0854]

My heart sinks every time I see one of these stories. Sometimes there are legit reasons, a lot of times it's just procrastination and having ol' Johnny who works Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10-2 do the work on your car. Best of luck, man. Life lesson you've learned! (Or are still learning, lol!)

Thanks. The sad part is I'll probably end up getting it tuned again in the spring because I can't trust this guy's ability. Lol. He said he's running ultra safe at 11° of timing and 17psi. This is an intercooled f1. There should be no problems running 16-18° at 17psi. It's like he doesn't even trust his own tune.

 

[Robert Francis]

My experiences with speed shops has been similar.

You ask for a time frame for when they expect to have your work completed, but whatever date they give you, they usually won't be done on that date.

 

[badcobra]

This is an unfortunate situation. My brother and great friend of mine own a speed shop in Denver so I have a lot of insight on this that people maybe don't really think about. First, I don't think anyone has really any idea how much it costs just to keep the lights on at a fully equipped shop. When you factor in shop rent, dyno payment, tool bill, insurance and all the other bills required to operate it, you are looking at close to $10k a month. That's just the money to pay the shop bills, the owner or owners also need to make money so they can pay their house payments, feed their kids etc. Think about what kind of money a shop needs to bring in to make it all work. I know at my bro's shop, there is 15+ cars there getting work done at any given time. A shop with high skill and has a reputation for good work is always busy and your shit is going to take some time.

When they get something in that's $1000 profit and can get in and out of the shop in a day or two, they do that. It takes those projects that are larger, more time consuming and pushes them to the back burner. Probably most shops have to operate this way and if they didn't, they wouldn't stay in business. Oh and when my car was in my bro's shop, my SCT Xcal died also. When you work on cars every day, shit breaks and things go wrong. I am not making excuses for the shop mentioned in this thread as it seems the mechanic on the car is not very experienced, but just wanted to present another side that many probably don't think about.

 

[Kornilov]

This is an unfortunate situation. My brother and great friend of mine own a speed shop in Denver so I have a lot of insight on this that people maybe don't really think about. First, I don't think anyone has really any idea how much it costs just to keep the lights on at a fully equipped shop. When you factor in shop rent, dyno payment, tool bill, insurance and all the other bills required to operate it, you are looking at close to $10k a month. That's just the money to pay the shop bills, the owner or owners also need to make money so they can pay their house payments, feed their kids etc. Think about what kind of money a shop needs to bring in to make it all work. I know at my bro's shop, there is 15+ cars there getting work done at any given time. A shop with high skill and has a reputation for good work is always busy and your shit is going to take some time.


When they get something in that's $1000 profit and can get in and out of the shop in a day or two, they do that. It takes those projects that are larger, more time consuming and pushes them to the back burner. Probably most shops have to operate this way and if they didn't, they wouldn't stay in business. Oh and when my car was in my bro's shop, my SCT Xcal died also. When you work on cars every day, shit breaks and things go wrong. I am not making excuses for the shop mentioned in this thread as it seems the mechanic on the car is not very experienced, but just wanted to present another side that many probably don't think about.

Most of us understand that it is hard work keeping a fully equipped and decently staffed shop afloat. However, that is no excuse to not practice integrity. If a customer brings in a project and you realistically know that you cant have the car in and out in 30 days, dont tell him that he will have it back in 2 weeks. No one wants to hear excuses as to why you promised a 2 week turnaround and then ended up leaving a car lingering for 6 months. If you cant take the project, dont. Because in today's day and age, the customer can and will make his displeasure known and it will come back to bite you in the ass down the road.

 

[runs2rch]

Simple answer is yes. I have worked for shops in the high performance marine and auto industry. Unrealistic time frames and unrealistic pricing to get you in. Of course they will always find something else to charge for. I don't take my cars, trucks or boats to anyone. The money is well spent on tools and doing it all yourself.

 

[Thump_rrr]

When I began down the road of modification I spoke to someone who went down that road before me.
He told me that no matter what I did I should never leave a vehicle at a speed shop for work because it would always be longer than expected and over budget every time.

If you don't want to wait for other peoples screw ups then you need to work on your own car and only bring it in to get tuned.
This has worked well for me for the last 9 years and has saved me tons of money and aggravation.
As for my future engine build I bought a complete running longblock so that the motor can sent out to be built and ready to be dropped in the car.
My current engine will become the backup in case something goes wrong.
Summers are too short up here to be down for months on end.

I just went through this with my differential.
I now have a 9" in the car so I can now swap diffs in a matter of hours if needed.

 

[brandon_s0854]

I wish I had the money for tools and the garage to worn on my own car. The few tools I had all got stolen a few weeks ago, probably $1000 worth. And that wasn't even close to enough to really work on a car without constantly needing something or using the wrong tool for the job.

 

[brandon_s0854]

Tuner let me take the car out for a bit over the weekend. He's apparently feeling bad about how long this is taking.

The thing pulled great considering only 11° of timing and 10psi at 4000rpm. Way more power than my old setup at every rpm. Just wish he could get it dialed in and idling correctly.