Incompetant at colorado 4x4 specialists..what would you do?

[rumney510]

At the recommendation of a "denver serious explorations member" I took my explorer to .Steve at Colorado 4x4 specialists to get a 4.56 gear swap and rear ARB put it. what a horrible experiance.

I dropped the explorer off and received it back 5 days later. It was delivered on a flat bed truck, i was not able to pick it up or test drive it. The first time I drove it the braking failure light came on and the diffs made a howl so loud the truck was undrivable. I took it back to steve straight away. He said he would fix it. 3 days later he siad he had taken the diffs apart but had been unable to fix it and would try again. About another 3-5 days later i picked up the truck. He said to me "your truck looks like ****, i'm sick of looking at it, i understand if you want to take it elsewhere. I made one more appointment at the weekend with steve for him to have one last try at fixing it (third attempt), he didn't show up and left me waiting.
At this point the truck howled so bad it was painful to drive, the ARB didn't work, the bracket made for the air compressor broke and the compressor fell out of the engine compartment.
I then took my expolorer to High Country another recommended shop, (also recommended by the better buisness bureau...outstanding shop..denverites always go there). They took it apart and said the gears were set up wrong, and they thoughgh they could get the ARB to work (not sure though), minimum cost excluding ARB $1200. I called steve and told him i wanted the $1200 to get my truck fixed from the mess he had created. He said no. So now i am out of pocket for ast least $1200


what would you all do?
andy

 

[offroader_69_me]

Damn that would tick me off majorly, I would keep hounding Steve about the damages and if he doesn't do anything I say take hi a$$ to court(as a last means) but I would have the person that recommended you call him if they will and see what is going on threaten to quit using him, and try to get a small boycott going, word of mouth is a powerful thing, look it affected you! If at last resort nothing has worked take him to small claims court, we (the shop I work at) recently went to court over a completely stupid accusation a customer made, he wanted us to warrantee an engine that we put in his car, he bought the engine at a junkyard and we installed, against all our rules set about no bringing your own parts, but we did it and about 2 months later he comes in saying it threw a rod, well anyway to keep from babbling on, the court gave him (thru us) $250 for lost time and some other BS because he was carless for a while and lost his job, so if we have to pay for something thats not our fault then STEVE should really have to pay!!!!

Good luck and keep us posted on how it turns out!

 

[mrboyle]

Did you pay Steve anything for the work he did? Did he have you sign a workorder authorizing him to work on you truck? If the answer is yes to either or you have any paperwork that says that he worked on the gears, here's what I would do. Ask the person from the other shop if they will give you a quote on the exact damage and the price to repair it. Then submit a copy of the quote to Steve stating that if he will not pay for repairing what he screwed up that you will take him to cort. If he still refuses to pay I'd file a lawsuit aginst his company for the amount of the repairs.

 

[beaston1]

sue..sue..and sue, thats if he doesnt pay up. civil court will take care of it.

 

[ACBlessing]

I would also look into a civil action for inflicting mental duress with respect to his comment about your X looking like ****. Courts look disfavorably on assholes who not only take your money to ruin your car...but then insult you for it.

I'm going through a similar process with a prick who cut my leather seat with an Exacto while installing window tint.

Don't forget the Better Business Bureau in your city and also your state's attorney general. They will have information to help you make things right.

-AC

 

[ACBlessing]

Oh, almost forgot....on slow news days, the local news stations look for human interest stories to fill the time. I'd definitely call up the news station and propose your situation be looked into by a reporter.

AC

 

[Sschultz]

When you send him the bill. Make sure you send a certified letter with recipt. Do this every time you send in a request. When you sue someone, you need facts. Dates, times, etc.. Record everything. The more orginized you are in court. the better off you are. If you can part with the money for a while, play the pitition game, but don't waist too much time with this. Just posting this thread did alot of dammage already! Don't try to be his buddy. He screwed up, he knows it, and he doesn't care.

 

[mmpc]

Rumney,

Ever heard of "the troubleshooter" Tom Martino (www.troubleshooter.com)? Living in the Denver area, you must have. He lives for stuff like this; give his (now nationally broadcast) radio show a call or e-mail via the web site...

Good luck!

 

[rumney510]

Thanks all for your advice.
I did call Tom Martino as suggested. He called Steve and Steve hung up on him. I don't now what Martino does next.

andy

 

[mmpc]

I've never known Tom Martino to be deterred by someone hanging the phone up on him... Good luck, keep us updated what happens next.

 

[mattadams]

heh heh I think having someone hang up on Tom Martino is a red flag for him... it makes him work harder, LOL. Yeah, you want to get REALLY good media coverage on your business(talking from a business point of view) slam the company door on him when he comes to interview him. It'll be shown on replays for weeks in Fox's Tom Martino commercial. LOL. Yeah, hang up on Tom or slam your door in his face, he likes that . I saw one where the guy slammed the door and locked it, so Tom waited outside until the guy finally left for the night. he then chased him to his car and pounded on the windows, LOL.

 

[Anime]

eh

Wow thanks for the tip and saving us other Colorado guys alot of time and hassle..not to mention damage to our rides. You can count on me never giving that guy any business and spreading the word about him too.

I dunno about High Country being so great tho. I dont have a real opinion yet but when I called to see if they would press out my spring bushings for me. The teenager on the phone went real quick to ask and came back saying itd be almost $300 to press out four bushings!!! I called a suspension shop and they said $60 and maybe an hour wait.

I can't wait to see this on the news..that'd be GREAT!! ;-)

Go get 'em Andy..and don't back down until you've been compensated for all the money and time you spent plus the damage to your ride.

In that sort of situation I think I'd need a big 5.5" lift and 35" tires plus maybe a 302 in there and a custom stereo to help with all my pain and suffering...

 

[mattadams]

anime, they charge for their work, but they do a damn good job. They do a good enough job that they charge those outrageous prices for labor, yet it'll take you two-three weeks to get in there. Although if you get to know them real well they often come down on their price. They repaired my rear locker when I blew it out in Moab. Few weeks later I came in needing some weld work done to weld some tabs for additional lights, took them about two hours and they didn't charge me a dime for it.

 

[Anime]

uh

okay okay I'll go talk to them myself and see what I can work out. Hopefully the guy on the phone got it wrong or thought I wanted a lift with bushings....I dunno if I'll need someone to press out my bushings anyway. If you say so Matt I'll take your word.. plus theyre real close..
the almighty PIAA guru (and his followers) cant be wrong..

 

[rumney510]

I talked to Tom Martino and he said I need to take it to small claims court.
High Country is a little pricey on the labor, but i gotta say they fixed my gear problem perfectly, I would defintely recommend them and will always use them in the future.

For anyone else do not go to Colorado 4x4 Specialists, based on my expereiance there it is a terrible shop. You will be very very dissapointed with the work steve does. Spread the word, stay away from Colorado 4x4.

andy

 

[rumney510]

Today steve offered to reimburse the cost of the gears not the labor. SO thats about $400, I'm gonna be out of pocket $2500

Would any of you settle for that?

andy

 

[mmpc]

So, I'm unclear, did Martino just give up??? That would be VERY unlike him! If so, did he at least add the shop to his "Sleaze Brigade" and/or make an on-air admonition for others to stay away???

Just out of curiosity, when did you call and did you make it on the air? I've been trying to catch his show as much as I can since you brought up this problem but never heard anything about it...bummer...

As for the settlement he offered (assuming you've told us everything there is to the story), H**L NO I wouldn't accept less than 1/5 of what you originally spent!!! Go for the full amount or take it to court!

 

[mattadams]

Andy, while I'm glad that you got it resolved by high country, I gotta say, it sounds that Steve HAS been doing everything in their power trying to make the situation right. It sounds like he wanted to work on it to make it right at his own expense, but you wouldn't let him. I'd be satisfied that hes willing to take a hit out of pocket of several hundred dollars and just never go back to that store.
If you expect a mechanic to rip you off, they will.

 

[rumney510]

Matt,

Thats true. Steve worked on the differential 3 times and was not able to set it up correctly. He did say he would keep trying to get it right. At what point do you figure out Steve is not capable of setting up gears correctly? He had 3 attempts to do it, and after the final attempt suggested i take it elsewhere. I think that is reasonable. How many attempts would you give him? High Country set them up perfectly the first time. There desrciption of steves gear set up was "there was no preload set on the carrier, the pinion depth was not set, the pinion depth shims were not installed, and epoxy glue had been used to try and fix the ARB seal housing". It seems to me he would never have got it right as the gears were fundamentally installed incorrectly.

andy

Martino tried to arbitrate it but steve would only offer a few hundred bucks. Martino set me up with another indeopendent mechanic and told me i should take it to small claims court.

 

[Robert]

Based on that description of the problem and if you have it in writing, it would practiclaly be a walkin in the park to get all of your money back that you paid Steve, subject to the limits of small claims court. Here in Arizona, the small claims limit is $2500, but costs less than $20 to file. I filed a small claims lawsuit about 10 years ago against a repair shop. I put a high-performance camshaft in my Ranger and had the lobes wear off within a week. I took it to a repair shop and told them what happened. I obtained a replacement camshaft and paid this particular shop to put it in my Ranger, figuring I didn't do it correctly. A week after I picked it up from them, my Ranger developed a loud clattering noise just like before. I brought it back to the shop and upon inspection found that the camshaft lobes were worn off again. They told me that they were not responsible and that I would have to buy another camshaft and pay them to put it in. The reason the lobes wore off both times was because there were small metal seats under the springs that caused the springs to have too much tension on them. The instructions that came with the springs and camshaft only mentioned that sometimes the seats would need to be ground off. It didn't tell you when you would need to so the shop felt they weren't liable. After arguing long enough about who should pay for the other camshaft and installation I gave up and authorized them to replace everything again.

Once I picked up my Ranger and was sure I wouldn't have a repeat performance of the problems, I went to the owner of the shop and requested my money back from my first installation and camshaft. He refused so I drove over to the courthouse and filed a small claims lawsuit against him. It turned out to be a lot simpler than I expected. When the court date came I was there by myself, the owner was there with the mechanic that worked on it. The judge asked us both to tell our sides and then basically put the owner down in his place. He told him that if a customer comes in with their own parts and is willing to pay the shop to install it, if the shop accepts the job they are fully responsible to make sure they know what they are doing. By him accepting my money, he accepted the job and full liability that goes along with it. He awarded me my original installation and parts cost that the shop charged me.