The amount of finger pointing that’s about to happen is going to rival the Spider-Man meme. No one is going to own up to this despite the appearance of it being caused by the old oil cooler and lines.
Just wait until they try to blame the damage on shipping :/
On a 408W I had built (that was supposedly dynoed before shipping) one cylinder was stone cold dead on first start. Contacted my builder and he was like 'probably just some carbon buildup from the dyno, rev it up to like 6,500 to clean it out'
I didn't trust that so I pulled off the valve cover and found a rocker arm was 90* off the stud. Then when I asked him WTF he told me 'atmospheric changes during shipping likely caused metal expansion/contraction and popped the rocker arm off'
Yea..............
I'm honestly EXTREMELY overwhelmed with this entire thing. If anyone can help me with this damn situation it would be GREATLY appreciated
(drafts engagement agreement)
In all seriousness, I am willing to bet the assembler blames the builder and the builder blames the assembler.
First thing I would do is research what kinds of E&O insurance each of them have. Check their licensing status where they do business.
I've got to imagine they both must maintain enough insurance to make this problem go away. If it were me, I'd get the insurance companies of both of them doing the investigation and let them do the finger pointing. You shouldn't have to go through this - it just adds insult to injury.
I'm pretty sure that, in CA at least, shops need to have a business license in good standing, and liability insurance is required. I've had a few instances where some expensive stuff got broken because the shop's error, and their insurance paid the claim. Not sure what the rules are in other states, though. In this situation, it might make the finger pointing less rampant if both shops have liability insurance to cover E&O.
https://jjinsurance.com/auto-repair-shop-insurance/
Last edited by Martin; 03-01-2023 at 04:48 PM.
It may be different in different states - but in CA, any shop that does work must be licensed and bonded in order to get and maintain a business license. It's probably not "illegal" for them to not carry the insurance, but the moment the Bureau of Automotive Repair gets a complaint that someone broke someone's car due to an error, and they don't have the required insurance, they lose their business license. I believe in Nevada, it's the same thing - although the bonding requirement is different ($5000 for mechanical, $10,000 for body shops).
This is the sentence that I zeroed in on: "No matter what specialty, every auto repair shop needs general liability insurance, errors and omissions, and commercial property insurance."
It certainly doesn't hurt for Mikey to look into it and ask some tough questions from the service providers. I'd ask for the declarations pages of the policies that they must maintain in order to keep their business licenses in good standing.
It's a website for insurance brokers. I think they mean need like "it's a really good idea" and not "legally mandated."
Also, being bonded is very different than insured. Either way, I doubt they'll make an insurance claim. It's not like someone was killed. It's a $20k engine that probably costs them half as much in hard costs.
Not to hi-jack, but BIG-O tires in Yuma paid my repair bill when a rear tire on my F-350 broke lose, sheared all 8 lugs and sent a 35" wheel and tire down I-8 at 70 MPH. Corporate denied the claim since 5000 miles had been driven, but local BIG-O store felt obligated since they were the last to work on tires/truck and paid the repair bill from FORD in Phoenix. I guess it "just depends" on the ethics and integrity of the shop.
A consumer protection attorney got ahold of me (they're not as plentiful as you'd think). Told him the situation and he's interested in taking it once I have more details.
I contacted the shop for a full refund and denied the offered credit. He hasn't responded yet. If I have to come out of pocket on the the rebuild, I'm sending the entire car to Calvo
If there is anything I learned from this thread it's that I was gonna send just my engine to prefix but now I'm gonna ship the entire car and have them do everything. This thread just hurts to read. I hope you get everything taken care of, I'm rooting for you.
I'd highly recommend that. For reference, Calvo "only" charges 8k for a rebuild (pull, install, etc). If they had gotten back to me before I pulled the motor the first time, I would have went that route
This is the 2nd shop I'm working with after having issues with the recommended one for the North Texas members. Finding reputable help is truly hard to find
Can you tune a decently aggressive heads cam Viper with the Prefix Viper Gen 5 Race Control Module?
I was asking as I heard this ECU is more tunable than HPTuners…
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