Tony-Bones

We miss ya.......

Blimey..... calm down. I wasn't there when the work was being done so i have to assume we bent the thread, i'll take that on the chin weather we did or not, it's the other demands that mad me angry. If i get his addy would you park your lorry tyre on is foot for me :)

No not yet..... He's going to send me a proof copy to edit then it goes to press, i should thing the Feb addition?

All done.... It was more intense than i thought it would for a national mag, i assumed they would want to keep things "readable", seemingly not. I set the chassis then we spent two hours discussing chassis dynamics, theoretical handling properties, then some static theory and why different cars need different settings. I wish him luck trying to translate this into a magazine article Glad it's done though...

I hear what you are saying..... I never mentioned his name and that's not his car... My point with this thread was to hear members views on how i handled this complaint, good or bad. I am a member of their forum but i have refrained from any comments since like you say it would only invite argument's. "Lesson learnt"..... Indeed!!

No it's not... This was a red one.

Thanks for that...... Now i know we are responsible for the bend but can you see how insugnificant it is!!.... The threads at the top aren't even distorted so the lock nut run down them without any problem..... I don't know, it's a done deal now and he's had his £400 worth of compensation, and like i said he's not welcome back "whatever".

Cheers Neil......

"thanks for the training wozz"?

You know what wozz i never thought i would need to have a disclaimer other than the road/ Drift cars we set. We have the equipment to save us from damaging wheels and the extra software on the Geo, so i felt safe. Can you do me a favor, i cannot post images here so can you post the image of the bent damper i've posted in wim> http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/ind...ic=3631&hl= just so members can see how bad we was and what cost me £400 plus a potential £100 for the garage bill and fuel, plus the lost business while Tony was working on his car.

I am really humbled by it all..... In the seven months wim has been open as it's own entity i have had good profiles in the club mags, some superb club meets, the LOC meet was fantastic with 45 cars (that meet was in Banzai)... I have a meet for Ferrari oc next month with a few million pounds worth of cars attending, and now this in a national mag. I think the reason i'm "nervous" is the car is the mags "build blog" and i have no idea what the intended use for the car is "track/ drift/ domestic" or whatever, so i cannot focus or script my explanation.

I'm currently traveling through time and expect to arrive back here with my wife, around this time last week

Cheers guys...... I've asked Mark@ wim to take some pictures of them taking pictures :duh: ...... you know what i mean... I'll post them up assuming i live through the interview.

JP are bringing a car down tomorrow for us to calibrate, explaining what we're doing and why as part of a centre profile, i've done two before, one was for Mazda and one for Lotus but both of these were club mags. For some reason i'm cacking it with a national mag. Wish me luck.....

I've been called many things but never a Saint....... am i still allowed to fart in the bath I tell you what though, the disclaimer is a very good idea, i will implement this tomorrow, thanks.

Nah...its all down to the passenger take it you where in it lol. take it that was a lexus meet at wim.? No that was from the centres open day ........ mat put on a nice display :)

The only disclaimer i have is for aggressive Geo setups like road cars intended for Drifting, even then i don't give them a dedicated Drift setup. In truth this is the first complaint i've had where i stood back and said "no".... Things can and do go wrong when you are working on all manner of cars, and when they do i hold my hands up and deal with it. Fact was to install his coils we had to do something we've never done before ie: heat the top mount, ok it bent but it wasn't the damper shaft, only the thread that's exposed after the top mount lock nut so cosmetic. On the plus side another member from the MR2 owners club was there when Tony asked permission to heat the mount, and he has said the owner agreed. Just to add to the nastiness the owner said unless we satisfy his complaint he will post a "crash & burn" post in the MR2 forum... Fortunately the witness to Tony's request to heat the mount was one of the forums moderators. In response to that i'm quite sure the reputation you have could quite survive it and besides it would have been amusing to watch the amount of different forums that would queue up to fight your corner. I would imagine that the mr2oc will be trying to distance themselves from this guy as soon as, before they all get tarred with the same brush. Please tell me you kept the old damper as well He thinks he's a big player in the forum because he owns TRD number one, i just hope members can see him for what he really is if he bad mouths us...... And yes i did keep the old damper.

Comforting reply.... thank you.

i'm coming down to get my geo done and then claim you used up all the smell in my air freshener :P Ah but in customers cars i only breath out........ "Fail"

The only disclaimer i have is for aggressive Geo setups like road cars intended for Drifting, even then i don't give them a dedicated Drift setup. In truth this is the first complaint i've had where i stood back and said "no".... Things can and do go wrong when you are working on all manner of cars, and when they do i hold my hands up and deal with it. Fact was to install his coils we had to do something we've never done before ie: heat the top mount, ok it bent but it wasn't the damper shaft, only the thread that's exposed after the top mount lock nut so cosmetic. On the plus side another member from the MR2 owners club was there when Tony asked permission to heat the mount, and he has said the owner agreed. Just to add to the nastiness the owner said unless we satisfy his complaint he will post a "crash & burn" post in the MR2 forum... Fortunately the witness to Tony's request to heat the mount was one of the forums moderators.

The wim settings work from a different static position of the OEM range.... I won't bore you with why this works. If you need help explaining this to the engineer or the tyre centre i'm just a call away> 01494 797825

His names Mick.... as in, taking the. Nice feedback chaps, i just needed to feel comfortable with my handling of the situation.... One thing that's for sure, the owner is not welcome back whatever he wants!

Any company that claims not to have a complaint is a liar..... wim does it's best to please everyone but, "if" something goes wrong then i hope we are seen to do our best to resolve the complaint. We had a TRD MR2 in to fit the owners own lowering coils, during the fitting one of the front top mounts was totally seized so Tony explained the only way to remove the mount was to heat it up....The owner agreed but unfortunately it was to hot and the very top of the damper shaft got cosmetically bent. On the Geo the rear cambers needed correcting but to do this we had to order some adjuster bolts, so it was agreed we would order the bolts and the customer would return. I wasn't there when this job was being done but the owner phoned me the next day saying we had bent the top of the shaft and we should replace it.... I explained that he did agree we could use heat and the bend is cosmetic?.... He said he didn't agree plus there was a knocking from that side and another garage said a spacer was missing costing him £70 to have replaced. I couldn't explain the knocking, although Tony said nothing was left off the mount.... So i agreed we would replace the damper at our expense (£150) and in view of the garage fee we would install the bolts and re-calibrate the chassis free. Today the owner turns up and we fit the new damper, noting new front drop-links (the knock maybe!!) he also asked we fit his own rear drop-links and ARB bushings.... To fit the bushings the subframe needs to be lowered, plus the ARB mounting bolts snapped so these needed drilling. Total time on the rear around two hours including the new camber adjusters. So we gave him 1: A new damper £150+ 2: two camber adjuster bolts + fitting £60+ 3: two additional hours labour £130+ 4: A full calibration (half fee) £40+ Once done he then asked we pay the garage bill?.... I explained the additional labour/ bolts exceeded the bill, his argument then was fitting the front drop-links and ARB bushings only took him half and hour. I explained at the rear the sub-frame needs to be lowered plus the bolts snapped so it's a very different job to the front. It then pans out he hasn't got a bill from the other garage yet?..... So seemingly another garage has worked on the car, cured the knock and let him go without paying.... I said i'm struggling with that and once again i feel the work we have done exceeds the imaginary bill. Then he asked me to pay for his fuel costs?..... Once again i explained "you" was coming back anyway to have the camber bolts fitted, his answer was he would have had this done locally.... So i asked why did you ask us to order the bolts if you weren't coming back?...... In end we gave him £20 for his fuel So this car today cost me £380.... plus the £20 for fuel.. plus the lost work whilst Tony was working on his car. Am i wrong?

The OSF camber needs reducing to the same as the NSF.... The SAI measurments must be wrong?

I second that.... Team LOC have been very generous.