HSV MX5

mazline · Post by **mazline** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:23 pm

did you get detailed receipts as the job was progressing ?,Thats a big outlay.
Hell i'm part of a racing crew building from scratch a Speedway Super Saloon with a 360 chev 730hp,Dry sumped and methonol injected with all the wank mechanical,total build cost to date,30k.should be finished for $35k
Admittedly got the motor cheap,12k ,cost the engine builder 45K.
But still...someone's taking the piss,you didn't muck them around too much ?.
meaning,They built something for the car and then you were not happy with it and made them redo it,they will still charge for parts and labor even if you did not use it .
Good luck Donovan,That's gotta make you sick to the stomach

last_resort14 · Post by **last_resort14** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:38 pm

Also didn't they take like months and months longer than they told you it would take?

SLYDIT · Post by **SLYDIT** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:17 pm

holy shit.... you could have built a supercharged or turbo'd NC with all the gear on it for that..
sorry for the heartache but man that freakin insane!

dynofiend · Post by **dynofiend** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:36 pm

My advice to you is to go to citizens advice, as soon as you can, and before you even speak to the garage again. Do not write, do not email, do not phone. Go straight to citizens advice.

Take with you everything you have from the garage. If you have an email trail, texts, phone messages, anything like that, take them with you, and dont lose them.

They will advise you as to your best course of action from there.

Good luck

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 8:27 pm

Thanks for the advice, no, didn't ask them to redo anything, in fact quite the opposite, if they did something that I didn't agree with, I figured I would just sort it out myself, after all the time it took them to get to this point I just wanted it back and would sort out all the rest myself, if I asked them to fix it up, it would have taken another 6 months.

The invoices have all the details on them, but it's a bit late now. They did work without advising me, for example the axles were supposed to be shortened of the Holden ones that I had, instead they have made up completely new ones at the cost of $4K for them along. Had no idea this was happening until one time when I was asking about the car (one of the many times it was supposed to be ready) and they told me that new ones were just getting made up. In then end the boots at the hub end are all wrong and the are rubbing up against the rear shocks and half now split in half.

Didn't realize that the Citizen's Advice bureau would assist with this, didn't really know what they did to be honest. To late about the not calling them, sort of rang them in my flipped out session and asked them not so politely if they were taking the piss with the remaining amount. Will start getting info together.

dynofiend · Post by **dynofiend** » Wed Aug 22, 2012 9:33 pm

There are several steps you can probably go through to mediate this. Itll help if you get advice from CA as I can only really go by the system in the UK (which is probably broadly similar).

Some important points to consider are:

If you agreed a price:
Was the price you agreed a quote or an estimate (there is a difference). If a quote was given, then that should be the price you pay. With an estimate there is no clear price set.

If you didnt agree a price
Did you agree what work would be done? If so, they can only charge you for that work.

Did you give them leeway to do what was needed to get the final result? If so, and the price is reasonable* you will likely need to pay whatever they did to get there.

*what is reasonable could be determined by taking the car/invoice to a few other garages and asking them to quote you what it would have cost for them to do.

When you come to the point that you are going to be disputing the bill check whether the garage is part of a trade association such as MTA. If so, there is possibly a mediation process that you can go through.

If not you can write to the garage with as much of the information that you have managed to gather so far, and stating your case, and also making it clear that if you are unable to settle the matter, you intend on taking the matter to the courts.

You are quite lucky that you have the car in your hands. It makes the fact that you havent paid yet a lot easier for you to handle as they cant hold a lien over the car (they cant keep hold of it until you pay!).

I guess the most important thing is not to get worried about it (easy for me to say) as there are several things that you have available to you as options, and plenty of people who can help you and who are on your side. The garage may just be trying their luck, and seeing what happens. As soon as you get some weight behind your case, they might realise that you have as much of a strong case (if not more) than they do, and back down!

halberd · Post by **halberd** » Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:53 pm

Holy shit, what happened? I've been away for a few days and come onto the forum and read all this but the original post that started it was removed!

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:19 pm

Will PM you the original

evel · Post by **evel** » Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:21 pm

yeah im keen to also hear what happened. Im assuming they hit you with a mother of all bills?

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:22 pm

PM on it's way to you too

Timmo · Post by **Timmo** » Tue Aug 28, 2012 10:44 pm

Oh me too..for purely sticky beak curiosity haha

na6*dori · Post by **na6*dori** » Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:22 am

have you had any progress on the issue?

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:20 am

No progress so far, I have put the query back to them, and will just wait for the reply, not going to chase it from my end.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:22 am

Finally confirmed that brake repair kit, pads, anti rattle clips (most of my ones melted/got destroyed from the last track session) are finally leaving the US, so hopefully can put the car back together and get the other things sorted out for the Cert.

Took the pistons out of the calipers and it seems the larger set of calipers had seized up, don't know if this was to do with the fire from that first track session, and then after that they just never released which could have caused the uneven wear?

Have had the bumpsteer test done on the car as part of the cert, which it failed, 24mm variances or something, which they reckon the position of the steering rack is wrong, so I have to get that sorted out as well.

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:50 am

Did the frog arms help reduce the bumpsteer?

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:35 am

Dunno, the frog arms went on during the conversion, so don't know if it has helped or made the situation worse.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Tue Sep 11, 2012 9:01 am

So, been meaning to put this post in for a little while now, never got the time to sort out pictures. In my effort to fiddle around with the suspension and brakes, notice the following when pulling the rear apart. It seems when they have made up the axles, they have cocked something up, as the CV boot rubs up against the shock, and has worn the end of the boot (the photo with the suspension in makes it look a bit worse as the platforms are right down, I have to raise them up to get them out of the way, but the shock still rubs).

It looks like they have realised the problem, and try putting together some sort of solution by widening the mounting point for where the bottom of the shock bolts in, and then shoving a washer in there to try and space it away from the boot (I can't ever remember having to stuff around with lining up a washer when I originally put the shocks in before the conversion). Don't know if you can see the washer in the pic that I took

tomtikki · Post by **tomtikki** » Tue Sep 11, 2012 10:26 am

Jeeze what a bunch on cowboys.
I dunno what the final bill was but reading/seeing the "she'll be right" stuff they have left you with you should just call it even and never have to deal with them again.
-not to mention if you didn't agree to some of the work they did before they went and did it, you just can't do that and expect the customer to pay!
By the sound of things you didn't say "money was no object, just make it work..", if you didn't say that then they're dreaming.
As above - at least the car is in your hands!
Good luck mate.

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 9:20 pm

Had a stupid moment and ran the car in another track day to see what else I could start sorting out, and to see if my brake issues are all over.

Well that would be a no, front brakes seemed to be fine, getting lock up in the rear, and had changed my springs from 6kg front/4.5 kg rear to 9kg front/ 6kg rear. Keith Jones came down with me, and with my dampers cranked up to 14 (out of 16) he said he could still see the nose dive on my car, and the bum lift up. So going to go to 12kg front/ 8kg rear and see how that goes.

So in the process of all this, somehow managed to completely destroy one of the rear calipers (right hand side unit), to the point when getting it off the trailer at home, the thing snapped one of its brakets, and jammed. Thankfully that didn't happen on the track

So on the hunt for a NB 2.5 sport caliper (280mm rotor size) to replace the one destroyed.

Times seems to be dropping as well, consitantly in the 1:18 or 1:19, even managed to pull out a 1:17.6

If I can ever get these damn brakes sorted, might have a bit more confidence going into the braking points.

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:44 pm

Wow your car is sounding very impressive. I'll definitely stop by one the days you're at the track once the snow melts

chris · Post by **chris** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:15 am

From my angle (a good one) the car looked and sounded awesome!

Plus the pull was crazyyy

Born_disturbed · Post by **Born_disturbed** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:49 am

chris wrote:From my angle (a good one) the car looked and sounded awesome!

Plus the pull was crazyyy

Just as fast as that GT3 Porsche that was going around

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:35 pm

Well thanks to 2LOW2C, it seems my car is finally legal for driving on the road, as it passed it's Low Volume Cert today, will soon have it's little plate on it.

There was only three things that needed sorting for the cert, wrap one side of the exhaust for the fuel/brake lines running next to them (I wrapped then, the 2LOW2C took my wrap off and re-did it properly), driveshaft hoop (2LOW2C made up one and fitted) and sort out the bumpsteer issue of being 24mm out. Turned out the last one was solved with an NB hub setup, of which I just happened to have a front set lying around, so worked out a lot cheaper than the $800 steering rack shim I was quoted recently.

While 2LOW2C had my car, he tinkered around with a couple of other things, moved the fuel regulator out of the engine bay to back to under the fuel tank, and moved the fuel line so it wasn't pressing up against the extractors

Angreal · Post by **Angreal** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:46 pm

Moving the fuel line definitely sounds like a good move.

glad your crazy car will be on the road now

Donovan · Post by **Donovan** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 8:49 pm

Angreal wrote:Moving the fuel line definitely sounds like a good move. glad your crazy car will be on the road now

SHHH, don't tell anyone, but it has been on the road ever since I got it back

And yeah, the fuel line move is apparently one of the things they do at Flyin Miata with their conversions, kind of makes sense. I don't know why they left it there, and I didn't like it there, and Paul come up with the solution to move it.

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