[desmoquattro]

I've been part of motorsports for a good part of my 'younger' years. With a day-job to get back to and a tuner who wouldn't speak my language - and in a different city, it wasn't always pleasant. I kept my nails long so that i could chew on them longer while slogging it out at his garage. Sometimes, i grew nails after chewing on them. You get the flow. He wasn't perfect. Cars would break down. Engines would overheat. Things packed up.

What you do when this happens is you get back to the garage and look forward to fixing up and getting ready for the next race.
The quality of a tuner depends on the quality of his mechanics. The tuner is the boss and is 'shaping' his shop with the knowhow and experience he has gained over the years being 'employed' elsewhere. When somebody is doing it ground up and all by himself without prior experience, encouragement is of paramount importance. This is how people 'become'.
In this case, if you look at Joel's history, i think you guys need to cut him some slack. With the few years he has under his belt, he is building his case. He is getting better by the day. He is ready to make amends and fix anything that is broken - as that would help him rectify.

If I were in his shoes a few years ago, I would pick any job that would come my way - as I need to work - to get better. To get components and pay your mechanics, you need money. So, nobody is getting a free lunch.

If you need a 'reliable' race car, well, you're not driving fast enough.

Connect with your tuner - and his mechanics, visit him regularly, talk cars, improvise. Isn't that what it is about ? Its not all money.

[james]

Originally Posted by desmoquattro

I've been part of motorsports for a good part of my 'younger' years.

Hello desmoquattro. Most things you have mentioned in your post is perfect material for the below mentioned thread.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modify...-your-car.html

Originally Posted by desmoquattro

In this case, if you look at Joel's history, i think you guys need to cut him some slack.

Quick question- How much do you know about Joels History? He started off with bikes and moved over to cars. The WWW is full of his failed bike kits and his arrogant responses to grieving customers. He then moved on to cars many of which failed miserably. Im talking about turbo builds and the likes. Not FFE and FFF mods. Yes, he builds cars that are leaving more powerful and expensive cars in the dust. But who knows the real story of their reliability? These are cars built to last one of two races tops and put out a lotta power. People go to him hoping to turn their cars into supercar-beating cars like they see in the drags. They have no clue that reliability is out of the equation.

Originally Posted by desmoquattro

With the few years he has under his belt, he is building his case. He is getting better by the day. If I were in his shoes a few years ago, I would pick any job that would come my way - as I need to work - to get better.

When we go to a tuner for a big mod, we go to him because we expect him to know his stuff. We pay him to build our cars properly, not to treat us with disrespect and use our cars as guinea pigs so that he could improve his skills on trial and error basis. We don’t expect him to cheap out on critical things and use substandard parts.

Originally Posted by desmoquattro

If you need a 'reliable' race car, well, you're not driving fast enough. .

A 150whp street build is a race car? Please don’t mix the two to sound all mature.

Originally Posted by desmoquattro

Connect with your tuner - and his mechanics, visit him regularly, share a beer, talk cars, improvise. Isn't that what it is about ? Its not all money.

What do you do if you live 250 miles away or what do you do when the tuner isn’t available on phone or at his place? You go there and sit the entire day begging him to discuss your build, to show some transparency and to have a few beers with you? And if it was all about money, I would sure as heck come here asking for my money back, which mind you, I never did and don’t intend on doing either!

Cheers!

[pramodkumar]

I was reading this thread, but I didn't have the patience to go through the whole thread so my advance apologies if I missed anything critical.

James, I personally feel you are very patient in this case and I feel you have handled your emotions well in this particular case. I was little critical in the previous thread you had about your friends MIVEC, but to be honest I have never even spoken to the guy in question in your MIVEC thread but I was very supportive till I ran into my own problems (with a different tooner). Most people simply take sides, without any specific reasons, they need to understand by saying the right thing they wont offend the tooner, what this might do is save a few who are planning to take their projects to these guys.

The general attitude among tooners in india is to nibble on every possible opportunity. Even if it means that they have no time even to take a dump. Beyond a point People do not understand that they are actually risking whatever little goodwill they have created in the market.

Everyone wants to get rich and the shortest possible option is to simply scale up even if their current model is full of loopholes, they open up branches across the length and breadth of the country to gain more customers. In the whole exercise they feel they are actually doing a favour to the customers by taking their work, well they are not, if people siding the tooner start to understand what this whole issue is due to, the pipelines of prospective customers could dry out within days, worst, people towing their projects out.

The tuning scene is similar across the world, where people cut corners to meet deadlines, but we all know what happens to such shops in the end. I don't know joel at all, but I am not being judgemental here. If he takes a job he must ensure he completes it within the deadline with quality assurance, there are unforeseen circumstances which we all agree plays a huge role, but letting the customer out of the shop, hoping he wouldn't return with a complaint is the single most stupidest thing a tooner can do.

My friend used to run a auto shop in Trivandrum, once a white car with tar spots arrived and his workers attacked the car with scotch brite, I don't have to explain what happened after that, but what my friend did was commendable, he called the customer to the shop, told him what happened, got the best detailers in town and fixed the issue, and he did foot the bill alone though the customer insisted to share the bill.

The end result was a satisfied customer who made many referrals, issues do happen, damage control is what most people lack in our country.

Having said all this, the worst witch doctors will have some patients who will sing praises and the best doctors will have some patients who will have nothing but the worst to say about the doctor.

Pramod

[speedfreak]

James, I am sorry to hear about your experience. I have been associated with Joel and I have been following his builds. I myself own a VTEC which is built and tuned by him. Many of my friends have cars built by him ranging from a simple exhaust to an all out turbo builds. Yes, being tuned cars. There were issues, but it was always looked into and managed by Joel.

Joel himself is a very approachable and dependable guy. Yes, he avoids calls at time. One day at race concepts and you will understand why. The amount of stress and Joel OCD to certain things means that he is always looking over at what his mechs do rather than sit and while away time while his boys do all the work.

With regards to Joel's race/ drag car, the car has been running the same engine for the past 2 and a half years. The car has been on many dyno sessions and strip runs and has taken all abuses possible, and still reliable.

Well, i know there are 2 sides to any story. I have just penned down my opinion.

[Asish_VK]

Wow,

I have been following this thread to see the developments from the start.

@ James, really feels sorry for what you have gone through till and it seems whatever you have posted are genuine concerns.

For me, skipping on promised timeline coupled with non responsiveness alone is the most frustrating act in the world . It seems James, you are one patient guy.

@Joel, I have nothing against you, but from this thread I don't see you have put up anything substantial to defend your part against the concerns raised. If you have any, please come up with them, so that people here can know what actually happened. As of now you are in the wrong side of events.

Please take these kind of criticisms as feedback and work on improving your customer relations. It will definitely help in building the reputation further.

Hope you guys can reach in some kind of agreements which is win-win for both.

[SatsMumbai]

Originally Posted by speedfreak

Well, i know there are 2 sides to any story. I have just penned down my opinion.

Yes, there are two side to any story but unfortunately the things you narrated does not seem to the other side of the James' story but a side of another story of some one else.

As said earlier by many of us, if some one wants to tell the other side of James' story, then one can specifically respond to the pointed questions as asked several times

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

From whatever has been posted so far (subject to change if further evidence is provided by either party), Joel (and Race Concepts by extension) haven't really been convincing about their version of events:

1. Joel accused the OP of forcing him to use incompatible, sub-standard parts while there's documented evidence that the OP only purchased those after obtaining Joel's consent. Joel hasn't refuted/clarified this so far.

2. Joel accused the OP of providing TWO specific sub-standard parts (cheap Chinese BOV and a faulty outsized waste-gate), but the user has documentary evidence of being invoiced for the said parts by Race Concepts which would indicate Joel bought those parts himself. What's the truth?

3. Joel claims he wasn't comfortable by the OP's demands to begin with, but still took on a build he himself claims would never have worked, but "it came to us as work so we took it on", meaning what exactly? This won't work but there's money to be made so why decline?

4. Joel claims he did what the OP demanded despite his misgivings, but there are documented instances of him circumventing the OP's demands. One specific example is using nylon-braided lines when the OP specifically demanded steel-braided ones. If the build is inspected part-by-part, there will surely be plenty others.

5. Joel hasn't responded to specific claims of poor workmanship (except one instance where he accepted bad welding work, but again blamed the OP for forcing the compromise on him), which again is backed up by evidence from OP. Even assuming the OP is to be blamed for supplying some faulty parts, what about shoddy workmanship after keeping the car multiple months?
instance?

[james]

With this thread, I wanted to give everyone an insight into what sometimes happens in the tuning scene in india. I put my case forth and a lot of you came out with advice as well as your own experiences, both bitter and sweet.

Currently I see two things happening here.
1. People going on about the same things and being very repetitive.
2. People coming out with their own bad experiences.

While point one isn’t of much use and is more of flogging a dead horse, point two is bringing to the fore more instances of people being taken for a ride. Some of these instances require their own thread. It wouldn’t make sense to continue it here.

I think this thread has served its purpose. Im going to request the mods to lock it. If anyone(including Joel) wants to add to it, kindly PM the mods and they will take it from there.

Once again I state that not all tuners are bad. Just because I may have had a bad experience with one, doesn't mean that you will have a bad experience with your tuner too. Just stay ahead of the game and be aware of what is happening around you.

Thank you all for going through this thread and hearing me out.

Cheers!!

[GTO]

Originally Posted by james

I think this thread has served its purpose. Im going to request the mods to lock it. If anyone(including Joel) wants to add to it, kindly PM the mods and they will take it from there.

Agreed. Whatever had to be said has been. If anyone has newer updates to share, please do so via a 'reported post'.