[bhuvan_prasad]

This thread has been written to share my experience with Race Concepts(RC) and Joel Joseph in 2015-16. I was not happy with the overall experience. I am also making it clear that I am not expecting any money, service or apology from RC’s end. If miraculously I receive any, it will be a godsend. Some of you may also say I made a few mistakes and could have acted in a better/different way, to that I will say thank you for your views. I have cut my losses long back and moved on, and keeping in mind the open nature of this forum in sharing an enthusiasts experiences, I have decided to write down this thread.

The two car’s in question are my 2006 Civic (http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...seconds-8.html) and my father’s 2002 City (http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...aust-more.html).

Reading both the above linked threads will give you proper context, but a short version of it is that I went to RC in end 2014 to fix the not so great turbo job RRP had done on my Civic (which was in Chennai then, Gurgaon now). Joel sold me a second hand turbo & intercooler from an Evo. He redid the plumbing and insisted on swapping out the existing Haltech Platinum Sprint 500 for an RD piggyback. For my dad’s City I got a few mods like coilovers, headers+exhaust, intake and Mintex pads(the car being based in Hyderabad at the time). The work was done simultaneously.

In the end, the Civic’s engine went kaput after 7 months and the City kept giving intermittent issues with the exhaust cracking and coilovers going bust.

A few FAQs that some of you will have, are below:

1.) Why write this thread 2-3 year later?
Once my Civic was broken and the exhaust and dampers gave way in the City, I came to realise all was not good at RC. I decided that I will share the details of the same ONCE I get the both cars fully up and running, thereby proving that a good job can be done. If you read on below you will further understand the reason for delay. Also, sharing it late is still better than not sharing at all.

2.) You seemed happy in your threads, why this U-turn suddenly?
Any person in India who gets his cars extensively modified is at the mercy of the person who built the car, as no other workshop or authorised service centre will agree/want to work on the car. Hence, most people (me included) tend to praise the build publicly. Also, if there are issues you’d want to tell the same to the tuner first (which I did) giving him a chance to fix it, before going public (which I am doing now). The euphoria of having a working, faster car (not for very long though in RC’s case) after an agonising wait(delays are inevitable in such builds, and I am not blaming RC for build delays here, which were aplenty), tends to make you gloss over the issues and one posts only positive stuff. If you further see my Civic thread, by the end of it my tone towards Joel/RC had changed a tad.

3.) What do you plan to achieve by means of posting this thread?
I cannot be clearer - I expect NO personal gains from this thread. This is purely for the members of this forum to be educated and make a well-informed choice in the future. If some of you think that the install and treatment meted out to me and others (there are a couple of other RC threads in T-Bhp) is fair, then by all means you can take your business to them. If you feel that the install and treatment weren’t upto the mark, look elsewhere. In both cases the thread would have served its purpose of having the reader make an informed choice.

4.) How do we know you are telling the truth?
As I have no personal gains to be made from this and am in no way related to the motorsport industry, there is no point in me making the time and effort to post false data here. I have Whatsapp screenshots, emails exchanged, and photos if the mods require any further proof(aside from what I am posting in this thread). I have made an earnest effort here to give a true picture, given the time frame I may have unknowingly forgotten a couple of things, which are not intentional.

Issues faced with the City:
1) 2 sets of bad suspension
2) Exhaust resonator breaking thrice, muffler breaking twice
3) Constant squealing from front brake pads (a size smaller than OEM)

I did mention the coilovers being stiff in the thread and that Joel had promised to fix it. To start with from day one, I told Joel multiple times that this car is my father’s daily, and the suspension should not be stiff. Somehow he forgot all this and got me “track spec” suspension. Anyway, we were “OK” with this one mistake. Moreover, my Civic also was with him at the same time getting worked on extensively, so I did not want to ruffle too many feathers and be stuck. This was in Dec 2014. Finally, after much dilly-dallying, he sends a used set of coilovers around March 2015. He said these are sparingly used, and far superior to what I had. We had them changed at a workshop in Hyderabad and sent the stiff ones on the car back to him. These were softer than the previous ones and the car was finally driveable as a daily. We have other cars at home, and my father used the other cars as the city was just too stiff.
After 6 months of normal city driving on good roads (2500KM max), the rear right coilover failed and was emitting a loud clattering noise even on level surfaces. Joel said the mount must have gone. On a weekend in Dec 2015 when I was in Hyderabad, I took the car to Mazda motors(a reputed workshop in Hyderabad), we replaced the mount with a new one, but it did not make any difference. I was sick of this nonsense and my time being wasted, and told Joel to just send me a set of new OEM coilovers and I’ll send him these back and to call it even. He pacifies me and tell me he will fix it, and that he is sending me temporary OEM suspension meanwhile. I paid Rs. 70,000 for the coilovers 2 months in advance to the actual install in Dec 2014. <Screenshots Below>


Around a month after telling me that he would be sending replacement dampers, a package finally arrived a few days after my Civic landed in Bangalore. I was shocked to find out that the suspension sent was neither my old dampers nor OEM. All four dampers were from four different brands I had never seen or heard of and were all drenched in oil (pics below).


The exhaust system installed at RC, had no flex-pipe section in it, no cone-packing anywhere and not a single bolt with spring. It was basically a 100% RIGID exhaust for a stock, street car, so once the engine rocks on its stock rubber mounts, the exhaust obviously would be under a lot of stress. The entire length of the exhaust from the end of the header to the tailpipe would act as a giant lever that would find and break the weakest link in the system.No wonder the pipe into the resonator had to be welded thrice. The resonator eventually rusted away, and I had to replace it with a straight pipe. The pipe into the muffler also broke twice and had to be welded. I also managed to put in a few bolts with spring to give it some flex, it has lasted so far. It is not the ideal solution, but it is working fine for now. I paid Rs. 20,000 for this exhaust system. <Image Below>


Onto the brakes. The brakes were not very sharp. I initially shrugged this off as thinking that the pads need to bed in or maybe need to be brought up to temperature. Unfortunately, it never got better and one had to resort to engine braking for shedding serious amounts of speed quickly. They also squealed ALL the time. On one of the trips to a workshop to get the 2nd set of coilovers removed and temporary dampers installed, I opened up the caliper to grease the pins etc. and saw that the pads were a size smaller than required, and the metal retainer clips were twisted to keep them in place. So I decided to read up more on brake pads and braking system before doing anything. For the meanwhile, I got them cleaned and greased with brake grease, hoping for the noise to subside. It did - only till the time I reached home and I had had enough. I made up my mind then to replace the pads with OEM Nissin ones and they have worked flawlessly since. Picture of the size difference below. Picture below borrowed from a fellow BHPian who had the same pads with his permission as I could not find mine.


Let me also mention that my father and I work 9-7 corporate jobs, 6 days a week, so any such non-scheduled visit to the workshop is a big pain for us. I don’t stay in Hyderabad, and sometimes my father just would not have time to attend to the broken exhaust or suspension, he would use the other cars at home. This meant that my once in a quarter weekend trip home translated to spending a day at the workshop.

Issues faced with the Civic:
The mods on the city were not major(thankfully) and could be fixed. The Civic however was a different story. As you may have seen in my thread after the not-so great turbo job at RRP, I took my Civic to Joel and after around 7 months in Aug 2015 the car gave up on me as I was driving to work one day.

After being unable to find the root cause of it myself at home(I dismantled the spark plugs, injectors, oil pan all at home by myself), I knew I had to take it to a good workshop. By now(October 2015) I was not at all happy with RC and hence I spoke to Raghav of Ignite Garage and Venkat. Raghav was a little wary of working on the car, and I might have had to leave Chennai soon. Venkat suggested that I have the engine dismantled and checked in Bangalore at Joel’s place if I wanted to, or hold on a bit until he got his own workshop up and running in a few weeks. Either way, he insisted that the engine be checked in Bangalore because of the known superior machining facilities available here to fix whatever might have gone wrong instead of unnecessarily gambling with unknown elements in Chennai. Since RC by then had left a bad taste in my mouth, I decided to wait. Chennai was flooded almost immediately afterwards so I had to wait until it subsided anyway.

After things began calming down, I was having a hard time finding somebody in Chennai who would flatbed the car to Bangalore. @blahman(Anoop) was kind enough to arrange a towing guy and convince him to come to Chennai and transport the car to Bangalore. At this time, I was really running out of options because I also had to transfer out of Chennai to Gurgaon for my new job.

Once the car arrived at Blackworks, Anoop also helped out by unloading it and pushing it into the workshop. After some considerable huffing and puffing, Anoop, Venkat, me and a friend of his went out for lunch, discussed some random events and said our goodbyes.

A few days later, I was taken aback when I starting receiving angry messages from Joel confronting me with some statements I had made to Anoop about him. I don’t know what happened during this time period, but it was obvious that Joel had managed to gain access to Anoops and my Whatsapp conversations.

Coming back to cars, Venkat had made it clear that it would take a considerable amount of time to even begin tearing down my car since the workshop was not set up and there were some other scheduled jobs that had to finish first.

All the analysis and teardown, some of which is documented in the thread was done at my house by me and a friend who helped occasionally when I had to remove stuff like the oil pan.
The 2 horribly side gapped plugs with the washer missing was another issue, as Joel had himself installed these and had no explanation for it. I was going from pillar to post wondering why and how this could have happened. It was only later, once Joel found out that I gave my car elsewhere, that he messaged and told me that he himself put in those 2 plugs that way. On asking why, he said that is his way of gapping plugs, and he doesn’t need to tell me everything. I was charged Rs. 4000 for these spark plugs.


Now, I am no tuning master, but I am not a slow learner by any means. I have made an earnest effort to learn engine tuning and have completed various courses by HPA(High Performance Academy) as well. To be spoken to in such a condescending manner, however large the knowledge disparity between you and the other person, speaks volumes about a person’s character and inner insecurity. Apparently Venkat and Joel have a history of sorts, and when Venkat posted a few screenshots(taken from my civic TBHP thread) of a hose clamp that was used to secure the main wire to the battery which was relocated to the boot, and assorted “SS” piping full of rust on social media (which I had initially agreed to but later had him take down because Joel was badgering me constantly and subtly hinting that I should have that content taken down if I wanted my stuff back), Joel’s beef with him got worse. <Screenshots Below>


Later on, once the Evo turbo was dismantled, we could see that the exhaust side turbine blades were all messed up, probably from some cylinder fragments. I have heard from a few sources that the car this turbo came off had one cylinder with a half evaporated / melted piston, I don’t know how true this is, but it seems very logical that tiny pieces from the piston would have eroded the turbine like this. However, Joel having worked on that car, would have known this perfectly well and yet still sold me the turbo saying it’s in perfect shape for around 50k. <Image below>


I am not one to cut corners in life. I always ask for the best, and pay promptly. BHPians who have dealt with me in any monetary fashion can vouch for that. The plumbing had to be redone, and obviously I insisted it be in full stainless steel only. I was charged Rs. 20,500 for the plumbing(excluding silicone hoses, clamps). It was all shiny when the car was delivered. No prizes for guessing the state after 6 months, and yes, it failed the simple magnet test as well. Most of the pipes turned out to be chrome plated MS. The magnet stuck to it, like a lizard to a wall. Joel’s response to this was – “did it drop power?”. I’m sad that he missed the point yet again.


When Joel had initially suggested using a twin scroll evo turbo, I did question him the relevance of a twin scroll turbo, as the Civic has an integrated exhaust header. Of course, he managed to convince me that it will be a good build and that will not matter as he will design a good manifold. The manifold finally just turned out to be a weld of half of my RRP manifold and half of the evo turbo manifold that was lying around. The result was that instead of bending downward 90 degrees to clear the radiator, the pipe jutted out at around 45 degrees pushing the turbo forward. Joel got rid of the AC condenser fan to make room for it. I was charged Rs. 4500 for welding two pipes together. You can see the quality of the weld below. I also recall that he had an exhaust pipe POWDER COATED to hide all the shoddy work that lay underneath. The coating burnt off, the heat wrap(Rs. 4500) flaked off. I wonder why he even bothered. Pic Below.



Finally when the engine block was fully opened, the cause for the engine failure revealed itself. A bent conrod. Whether this is because of the RD piggyback giving a wrong input to that injector/spark plug, or the injector fault leading to this, or the weird spark plug gapping, or all of them combined will not be known. The block and head are doing duty in another Civic perfectly now. <pic below>



I made the mistake of leaving my old Garret GT20, Garret Intercooler, BMC air filter and the AC condenser fan (which Joel removed as the Evo turbo wouldn’t fit – he did mention this to me) with him. My reasoning was that Bangalore is a bigger market, and once I find a seller I will have Joel ship it to the seller. However I did not find a seller even after almost a year. Once I saw that things were going south, on 15 Dec 2015 I told Joel I will have the stuff picked up by someone. He tells me it is almost sold, so I am like fine. <screenshot below>


I received no update on this for almost 2 months. On 8th February 2016 I message him and tell him I will come and pick up the parts the next day. He rudely tells me he doesn’t have a clue about them and is out of town. Then he tells me he’s taken an advance of 10k from somebody for those parts. Why I wasn’t told this or sent this 10k which is rightfully mine, I don’t know. <screenshots below>


We finally settle for 42k which he said he will transfer to my account, which I haven’t received till date, and have written off. <screenshots below>


With the above details I have tried to give a factual, non-emotional account of what happened for the readers benefit, so that you don’t think that I got carried away by emotion and over-exaggerate events.
My main grouse with RC and Joel is the absolute lack of professionalism and ethics - I told this to him a couple of times but it had ZERO impact. Mistakes happen, shoddy quality work can be forgiven as long as there is a genuine apology, accountability and a sincere attempt at setting things right, all of it were sorely lacking here.

Why did I have to bother with a round 2 on my Turbo R18 Civic? I had read enough when I embarked on this project. I knew the R18 was extremely limited in what it could give even with a turbo. I still went ahead because like many TBHPians, I am passionate. I let my heart rule over the mind, and sadly I feel I was sort of exploited for this, as were a few others. It would have been easier to get a Laura 1.8 TSI and that alone would have been faster than my Turbo Civic. But there’s a certain enthusiasm in doing something difficult which is why I started the turbo project.

With RC, I was disrespected, humiliated, insulted and cheated in the end. I was lied to and treated in a way that left a lot to be desired. Other threads of RC on TBHP also point to a similar treatment. The quality of the work was bad, no question about that. However, at the end of this entire ordeal, that is not what bothers me. I’ve made my peace with it and the money lost. It is the treatment meted out to me that absolutely pissed me off.

It is evident by looking at the Whatsapp conversations that Joel had no intention of ever returning my parts or my money. He didn't have the courtesy to tell it directly to my face and kept giving excuses and dodging me for months. He actually told me that I have no right to take my car to another workshop after he was worked on it. No such ethics came to fore when I took my car to RC after a not so great experience with RRP(which is documented in my Civic thread). Ethics also disappeared very conveniently when it came to using my old parts as tools for blackmail or heckling me about my car being in pieces at Blackworks, or blaming a customer for ruining the car. Just to clarify, all I ever did to the map was lean out the AFR from an ultra-rich 9 to 11-12 under idle and low load, and I don’t see how that can worsen an engine. I did not touch the timing, fuelling under boost and any other parameters. <Screenshots Below>



RC has a big team of supporters who are very happy with Joel. They are very active on social media and maybe because of them very few people come forward to actually explain what went wrong, as the person would seem in the minority, and probably get heckled and abused from various fronts. I know of more people who are skeptical of going public with their poor experiences with RC because of various reasons like fear of being shunned publicly, friends circle being cut off, why air dirty laundry in public, too much of a headache etc.

I was never properly listened to by RC. Joel decided what was best for me in spite of me being very clear about what exactly I needed for the Honda City(coilovers/exhaust) and the Civic(twin scroll turbo on a integrated exhaust manifold). Could I have been more forceful and convinced him? Perhaps, but when your precious car is with a tuner, how harshly are you willing to speak and go against him? This know-it-all and one-size-fits-all attitude will not work in any business.

As I mentioned earlier, I only wanted my story to come out to help people make an informed choice. Even if you disregard my opinions, the facts are there for all to see.

With this, I rest my case. I hope that Joel takes some of the feedback positively or the customers will vote with their wallets.


Coming to the present, both the cars are running fabulously now and have never been better. My father was so happy with the KYBs and the ride (after the back breaking “track spec” coilovers) that he immediately upgraded from 14” alloys to 15” alloys.

After considerable time and effort spent on the Civic by Venkat and Joe at Blackworks, with a lot of inputs and involvement by me, I am pleased to finally announce a rock solid boosted K24 swapped into a Civic. The only one of its kind in the country (for now), and also unique in the fact that everything required to make the swap happen was designed and built in Bangalore. When people abroad perform this swap, they change the entire front lower sub-frame along with the engine, which we don’t have the luxury of doing. The electrical modifications required to retain the instrument cluster’s functionality were a completely different story. Necessity became the mother of invention and in the end, we came through with a fast car and smiles all around.

My Civic has done 2 round trips of Bangalore - Coimbatore, 2 round trips of Bangalore – Hyderabad, 1 Buddh Track day and a Bangalore - Gurgaon trip. The only hiccups along the way were a minor leak in the high pressure power steering hose where a pinhole sized weld failed under sustained high pressure, and a damaged synchro that would give me trouble when I tried to downshift from 5th. Both these issues were fixed pretty comprehensively and the car ran flawlessly from Bangalore to Hyderabad and onward to Gurgaon. I reached yesterday, and this was all the motivation I needed to end the old chapter with RC with this thread and start a new thread for this build now, where there will be no more reference to any of the RC negativity.

Other Pointers:
1.) Never leave your old, OEM parts at the tuner/workshop. You never know when you may need to revert back to them, or need a certain part from the old stuff.

2.) It is best to be in the same city as your tuner so that you can visit regularly while your build is going on.

3.) Some may not agree, but I feel if you are modifying your car extensively i.e a turbo, big brake kit, coilovers and so on, you should read up extensively (5-6 hours minimum) and have a discussion with your tuner. If your tuner does not want to discuss or reveal what he is doing, I’d say step away.

4.) Tuning is no rocket science. There is no black magic involved. The tuning scene in India is very nascent and while there are a few good, experienced tuners, many are not. So please make an informed choice as tuning a car - other than being expensive upfront, it reduces the usability, reliability and resale of car tremendously. The monetary loss is much more than what you spend. This gets magnified if you or the tuner try to cut corners to pinch a few pennies or save some time.

[Dr.Naren]

Thanks for sharing. There is nothing wrong in writing about your experience (be it good or bad).

Very sad to hear that you were also cheated. Forget the shoddy job, this is shameful. All bad stuff into your car and whatever good stuff you had is missing and you did not receive the amount. I wonder where did those parts go in.

Happy to know that your present build by Blackworks is good

[devilwearsprada]

One word. AVOID.

Avoid these shoddy tuners, avoid these builds, avoid these rude egoistic bullies in the so called already messed up motorsport circuit.

You know why India will never have a motorsport scene at the international level is because of these guys. Because, somebody who never respects their customers wont be able to get newer customers with passion.

If he had said the same stuff to me, I would have filed a fraud case on him. Heck, this guy does events round the year and is running on limited funds? What a joke.

[Engine_Roars]

Sad. Real sad. All that hard earned money, someone just gobbles it like this with no guilt what so ever.

Good of you to share this, will definitely help people to make informed decision. This is the second time I am reading something like this for the same person and I can already notice a pattern. Sometimes you just got to forget and move on, because that is the best you can do about such experiences.

Wish you all the luck with your new born machines & I hope "IT NEVER DROPS POWER".

P.S.: The title should be changed to "Yet another Race Concepts cheating story" - Unless the person himself shares a different story(He is on forum if I am not wrong).

[james]

Whoa! Déjà vu.

Im sorry to hear about your experience with Joel. The similarities between your bad experience and mine are uncanny. If only more ex-customers of RC would post up their experiences like how you did, the world would see how this tuner treats his clients.

Although I had heard about the issues you had faced, I had no idea of the extent. You got royally cheated and left high and dry! Going through the thread, im not surprise at the responses you received from Joel. I received the similar responses from him in the past, some even worse. Unfortunately for you, he held your parts ransom while I managed to get away with a lil’ lesser hit to the wallet.

I did wonder why you are posting all this so many years after going through the ordeal but your FAQ cleared that out. You must have had a lotta time while driving from Bangalore- Gurgaon to ponder on how Joel cheated and put you through that ordeal instead of just giving you the well-tuned car you were promised and gladly paid for.

At the end I’m glad it all worked out for you. You have india’s first (known) boosted k24 swapped civic and you are enjoying every bit of it. Funny enough, i had contacted your tuner, Blackworks for help in fixing my setup in mid 2016. They were swamped with work but they didn’t drive me away. Instead they motivated me to fix the car myself while they gave me all the support I could have asked for over calls and messages. All this from people ive never met before. Im motivated to update my thread now…

Will be watching this thread just to see how Joel justifies his wrongdoings. He had nothing to say in my thread and kept beating around the bush while ignoring the core points and questions directed towards him.

Cheers!

P.S. Just putting up a link to my thread so people would know that yours isnt a one off case of cheating, deceit and harassment. I hope you dont mind!
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...bangalore.html

[AbhiJ]

Great post. Thank you for the effort of writing it.

I dont know anything about the art of tuning, Racedynamics or Joel. All I want to say is that this is not the way to treat a customer. Any customer, a good one or a bad one.

What really gets under my skin is how conveniently the payment which was agreed upon for the old parts was ignored and forgotten.

[GT3]

I could feel the mental stress and agony you went through when someone you trusted cheats on you. Going by the tuning trends in India I learnt some lessons for myself. They are:

1)If you want a fast car, buy a fast car from the factory. Never rely on these local tuners for major modifications.

2)The maximum performance mod I would do on my car is a remap or an exhaust and a set a coilovers from a renowned brand.

Bhuvan just a small suggestion from my side and please don't take it in the wrong sense. I think you are currently satisfied with the work done on your car. But for any reason your car breaks down or you want to mod it to a higher level, please don't do it. Save some cash and a fast and competent car like the Octavia Vrs.

[Vid6639]

Whoa. Hats off to you Bhuvan for documenting this and for the patience and composure you have shown for the agony you have been through. This guy is unprofessional and am amazed anyone can be so shameless as a professional providing a service. Plus you aren't the only one so how is he still surviving?

The positive is you have come out of this a wiser man and have gone the correct route with the K24 basically the whole hog.

But as they say we enthusiasts are all suckers still. We don't stop even after this. Hopefully the unreliable days are behind you.

[ImmortalZ]

Ah finally, the rest of the world gets to know how Race Concepts destroyed your motor (among other things).

This bit below though...

Originally Posted by bhuvan_prasad

A few days later, I was taken aback when I starting receiving angry messages from Joel confronting me with some statements I had made to Anoop about him. I don’t know what happened during this time period, but it was obvious that Joel had managed to gain access to Anoops and my Whatsapp conversations.

I wonder what happened to have caused this reversal. What do you do or say to a customer (whose car you've screwed up) that he reveals private conversations between himself and another customer whose car you've screwed up so badly that he's going to a competitor.

I mean, what is there to trade? "You show me that juicy gossip and I'll fix your car!"? That he was supposed to fix anyway because... err... "ethics"?

Or something far worse.

[revintup]

Have you looked at the possibility of filing a fraud case against him? There is enough documented evidence. Talk to a lawyer, and just send a notice. Atleast wipe off the smirk that he has. He thinks customers should just gobble up whatever he throws around and no one should dare question his 'techniques'. There is the consumer forum for such matters . Whether you would want to take it forward or not is another matter, just bring the bully down with a proper legal notice and he will most probably pay up

[GTO]

Saddened by your post, but not surprised. I can just imagine the hell you went through.

I've got ONE major modification done in India with the 1.8L ISZ engine swap in my Jeep. Saw how the malfunctioning industry works first hand, and decided never again. Since, my Jeep got a brand new engine from Mahindra and installed at a Mahindra workshop. Drives like a dream now.

Money burnt, but lessons learned:

1. No chance of ever getting serious modifications in India. I loved my Civic and really wanted to give her a turbo-boost. But stories like these kept me away from tinkering with it.

2. In India, there are only two kinds of mods that one should do:
- Remaps
- Bolt-on parts built for your car from reputable brand names (usually international).

3. Factory horses are factory horses. Nothing beats them. Am glad that there are so many FAST cars available in Indian showrooms, backed by manufacturer expertise, quality standards, reliability & warranty.

Originally Posted by bhuvan_prasad

Why write this thread 2-3 year later?

Better late than never is all I can say. There are a lot of young / naive folk with money & aspirations for fast cars reading our forum. These kind of threads will show them why they need to stay away from the messy after-market scene. If you want a fast car, buy a stock fast car and get subtle mods on it.

Thanks for sharing!

[invincible7]

Its sad to hear your story and I feel for you as an enthusiast who would want to have a tuned car and enjoy the ride and I find such tooners to be people who kill dreams of enthusiasts even after getting top dollar from their customers. Wonder what goes in their heads, I mean as an enthusiast i can understand the dream to own such a vehicle and I would love to be part of this and make one's dream come true and even more if I have the resources, skills and knowledge to make it possible. I would like to think that' s what made them start their business in the first place - don' t know where things went wrong.

As many have said and I agree completely its completely safe for yourself and your vehicles to avoid the tuner in India, they mostly are there to make money and pull a fast one on anyone who comes with a tuned car dream to them - its like a new bakra (sorry about using this word, but its true) on the block for them to churn out money.

[Dr.Naren]

Originally Posted by GTO

1. No chance of ever getting serious modifications in India. I loved my Civic and really wanted to give her a turbo-boost. But stories like these kept me away from tinkering with it.

I believe things have become better now. Yes, there are many tuners like RC who loot the customers and cheap out on parts. But there are few guys who know what they are doing and fully honest with their customers.

For example, this turbo civic thread in our forum

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modifi...t-end-era.html

2. In India, there are only two kinds of mods that one should do:
- Remaps
- Bolt-on parts built for your car from reputable brand names (usually international).

Doing remap on stock ECU is very easy mod. It doesn't mean all remaps are good. The customer has to do good research even here. I have had bad experience with 2 famous remapping firms in India.

3. Factory horses are factory horses. Nothing beats them. Am glad that there are so many FAST cars available in Indian showrooms, backed by manufacturer expertise, quality standards, reliability & warranty.

Agreed. But, there are many who get tempted by extra power . I wish all manufacturers offered extra power as an option.

[Moto_Hill]

Haven't yet seen or experienced major modifications. Whenever thoughts to go for mods arises in my mind, eye opener threads like this brings me to reality and reminds of the huge risks associated.

All I can say is any person or agency not honest with their profession should be avoided.Period.

Thanks for sharing.

[pedrolourenco]

Originally Posted by revintup

Have you looked at the possibility of filing a fraud case against him?

Only one problem with that; performance mods on a car are illegal in India. This itself will make the case weak.