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yeah on ya...

I am with you 33fan

I had a similar experience with this shop fitting a manual gearbox to my car

I had to finish the work of myself, due to inexperienced people working in the shop at the time

Then they expected full payment, even thuo I did over 50% of the work myself.

Had to then get car towed home due to it not being finished to things turning bad and getting abused.

Until now, it has been over 6 months, I have not said a bad word to anyone about my experience, esp against a site sponsor

But since the site sponsor has decided to air the problems of running their bussiness on a public forum, I see it fair for me to have a say.

yeah have to say, if i'm getting my car worked on and they say it's 'done' but is not as expected (e.g. bar not sitting correctly) and I haven't been warned before coming to pay/pickup i'd be pretty annoyed too.

it's like ordering a big mac and getting the pieces of meat raw and told you'll have to get that part cooked elsewhere. if you knew that before buying, you wouldn't bother.

also, any contractor knows that as a general rule, if you mis-quote an amount of work, you foot the difference. customers aren't going to come back or give any favourable feedback to someone who underquotes then underdelivers come time for payment.

seriously, even when customers are assholes, it's in a businesses best interest to do absolutely everything in their power to satisfy them. customers who are initially unsatisfied with a service/product are actually more likely to be a source of repeat business and word of mouth advertising than a customer who just get's what they asked for/expected.

think about if when this customer came to pick up their car, and AMEC says, "look i didn't realise the front bar would need trimming, and because of that, didn't factor it in, we'll get this place we deal with and trust to trim the bar for you at a discounted/no cost".

The customer, is like "well, f*ck that sucks, but i guess if you didn't know and you charged me only the hours you quoted - at least they're trustworthy"

and then they're more than likely a customer for life. sh*t, if i were you guys, i'd try to work something out. AMEC has a good name as far as i know, it doesn't take much to add doubt to the name in many potential customers minds, and it also doesn't take much to reinforce trust...

haha this is soooo funny, the usual dispute i guess. im with the shop here i guess. i put my own front mount on to save a bit of cash cos it really aint that hard, the only thing i have had done in a shop was my zhaust and if i had of went back to find that they had cut up my rear bumper to acommodate a huge cannon or sumthing i wud have been EXTREMELY pissed. i can see how the customer was pissed off tho cos from what i remember its illegal to drive a car with no bumber so legally he couldnt have driven the car away and could have demanded the front bar be fit, even with cutting. but yea a fone call would have fixed it.

Moral of my story is... as a customer you need to know what is going to happen to ur car wen u drop it off, look it up or ask questions. a simple search on here would have let fan33 know his bar would need cutting, thats what this websites for. dont just leave ur car off saying here i want this turbo on my car *hands over turbo sent from japan* and xpect wen u come back in a week it'll be like new, theres always something that happens. also talk to the guys at the shop, ive never left ne car at a shop without telling them to call me if there are any dramas, that included wen i dropped my old lancer in for a roadworthy, which was lucky cos the car needed $1000 worth of stuff done to pass, and i was called before work commenced, what would have happened if i was short of cash???

I am with you 33fan

I had a similar experience with this shop fitting a manual gearbox to my car

I had to finish the work of myself, due to inexperienced people working in the shop at the time

Then they expected full payment, even thuo I did over 50% of the work myself.

Had to then get car towed home due to it not being finished to things turning bad and getting abused.

Until now, it has been over 6 months, I have not said a bad word to anyone about my experience, esp against a site sponsor

But since the site sponsor has decided to air the problems of running their bussiness on a public forum, I see it fair for me to have a say.

bear in mind this job was an Auto to Manual conversion on a Stagea. not exactly a straightforward job.

I told you I had no mechanic on staff to work on your car, and for some reason you assumed that I was a qualified mechanic. I myself am not a qualified mechanic, I am a car enthusiast who has bought a workshop and I am doing my mechanical apprenticeship. I have qualified mechanics who work for me. But back to your story.

Even though I explained that I had no mechanic at the time, you still insisted that the job go ahead anyway and you said at the start that you would work on the car also to get the job done. If the same thing happened now, with the experience I have had over the last year, I would have sent you packing before the job was even commenced.

I personally spent over 20 hours on that job, not including the time you worked on it, and I offered to charge 6 hours, but you kicked up a stink and ended up only paying me for 4 hours. So who got ripped off then? certainly not you. Hence a few choice expletives thrown in your general direction.

i can see how the customer was pissed off tho cos from what i remember its illegal to drive a car with no bumber

we fitted the bumper back on, it was secured at the front but not on the sides. so it was fine to drive. the bar just needs to be trimmed (but not by us) so that the side mounting points can be secured.

The workshop thats servicing my car on monday wont install my FMIC kit because they didn't purchase it.

They wont install ANY customer supplied parts. :(

I guess its to avoid situations like this.

we have no problem with installing customer supplied parts.

BUT YOUR FRONT BAR MAY NEED TO BE TRIMMED OK!?? :laugh::(:D

and the other thing is, no one posts about the good things that I do.

like randomly decide to do some jobs at no charge.

or give away or loan out some old parts I have lying around at no charge.

or donate or help out to charities, or sponsor the local school.

its always one or two assholes who drag up some petty dispute, usually over money (but over what else? wouldnt be here if money wasnt involved) that gets all the publicity.

and sherman, way to go to make it all the way up to 8 posts.

Its basically common knowlage that its only the bad that gets out.

Sorry that i dont freaquent this forum as much as some.. You seriously are making a fool of urself, you look so immature posting petty shit like making it up to 8 posts.. thats so immature. Its an awsome look for a shop when the owner has the mentality of a 16 year old.

bear in mind this job was an Auto to Manual conversion on a Stagea. not exactly a straightforward job.

I told you I had no mechanic on staff to work on your car, and for some reason you assumed that I was a qualified mechanic. I myself am not a qualified mechanic, I am a car enthusiast who has bought a workshop and I am doing my mechanical apprenticeship. I have qualified mechanics who work for me. But back to your story.

Even though I explained that I had no mechanic at the time, you still insisted that the job go ahead anyway and you said at the start that you would work on the car also to get the job done. If the same thing happened now, with the experience I have had over the last year, I would have sent you packing before the job was even commenced.

I personally spent over 20 hours on that job, not including the time you worked on it, and I offered to charge 6 hours, but you kicked up a stink and ended up only paying me for 4 hours. So who got ripped off then? certainly not you. Hence a few choice expletives thrown in your general direction.

Your job was to remove the auto gearbox and fit a manual box along with clutch and flywheel. The rest of the conversion was done myself prior to coming to your shop. you quoted me 6 hrs to do the job and to bring car in on the following Monday. When I arrived you said your new mechanic had not yet started and will not for another week. I said I am here now as no one had phone to cancel and not to come in. I said I wanted the work done which you accepted. I did argee to help if needed but you said you will be fine. At this stage you should have told me you are not a mechanic and you are not qualified to do the work but you did not. When I arrived later in week to see how you were progressing, half way thru removing the auto box you told me you are not a mechanic and was not really sure what you were doing. At that point I got my hands dirty to help get the job done as I needed the car back by the end of the week as promised. To cut the story short we finished the car together late one night. The real problem came when payment was required. I did see why I should have paided full price as quoted since you did not perform the work as quoted. I offered to pay 4hrs not 6hrs and you hit the roof. You thought you had did me a favour doing only half the work and expected to get paided the entire amount. I choose to pay the full amount on the night so I could get my car back and that I would see you in small claims court. You choose to refund $150 after a few days.

its always one or two assholes who drag up some petty dispute, usually over money (but over what else? wouldnt be here if money wasnt involved) that gets all the publicity.

Maybe you should have a look at who started this thread, if you want to talk about a#*holes dragging up a dispute

I was happy to keep my mouth shut, but I saw red when I saw this thread.

Maybe you should have a look at who started this thread, if you want to talk about a#*holes dragging up a dispute

I was happy to keep my mouth shut, but I saw red when I saw this thread.

you never told me the job was an auto to manual conversion, you just said it was "install a gearbox" hence the quote of 6 hours. I challenge anyone here to post if they have been quoted 6 hours or less to do an auto to manual conversion.

In both cases, yours and mr FMIC, I have been the one who has been ripped off, not either of you.

mr FMIC only paid for the parts and NO labour.

you only paid for 4 hours labour and not 6 which should have been more like at least 10 hours for a quote on an auto to manual conversion.

sherman I can only assume you are mates with mr FMIC.

haha this is soooo funny, the usual dispute i guess. im with the shop here i guess. i put my own front mount on to save a bit of cash cos it really aint that hard, the only thing i have had done in a shop was my zhaust and if i had of went back to find that they had cut up my rear bumper to acommodate a huge cannon or sumthing i wud have been EXTREMELY pissed. i can see how the customer was pissed off tho cos from what i remember its illegal to drive a car with no bumber so legally he couldnt have driven the car away and could have demanded the front bar be fit, even with cutting. but yea a fone call would have fixed it.

Moral of my story is... as a customer you need to know what is going to happen to ur car wen u drop it off, look it up or ask questions. a simple search on here would have let fan33 know his bar would need cutting, thats what this websites for. dont just leave ur car off saying here i want this turbo on my car *hands over turbo sent from japan* and xpect wen u come back in a week it'll be like new, theres always something that happens. also talk to the guys at the shop, ive never left ne car at a shop without telling them to call me if there are any dramas, that included wen i dropped my old lancer in for a roadworthy, which was lucky cos the car needed $1000 worth of stuff done to pass, and i was called before work commenced, what would have happened if i was short of cash???

you're an idiot.

people pay for services because they don't have the skills, time, energy, experience or inclination to do it themselves. you pay someone to do their job, you expect them to do it. most people don't have the time to research the same things that a professional is being paid to have already researched, trained in and hopefully already done a few times. i've done my own fmic, full exhaust, front bar and 100km service - because i had the time, inclination - to save money- and the naive expectation that it would be fun...!! :yes: . If i could afford to pay someone to do it though, i probably would have.

you say you're with the shop, but you point out that a simple phone call from the shop could've changed the course of this dispute. you say a customer needs to know what is going to be done to their car - yeah, that's what they expect to be told by the mechanic you douche...

i'm trying to be neutral with my comments - i've never had work done by amec, but their presence on this board with good feedback for the most part points to their generally good reputation.

but like i and others have pointed out, people expect good service, so they're not going to rave about it when they get it. customer expectations need to be exceeded for that to happen - and something bad happening in the first place is actually the best opportunity a business has to do that.

Edited by made_guy
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