Ever gotten money back from a machine shop?

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Well, I just got home from round two of the break in at my buddy Tom's. We ran the motor for another half hour with no hiccups. Gave it a good tune and now it's sitting in my garage.
I'm pretty happy with my decision to open the motor with Tom. He has far more mopar knowledge than the builder for sure. The oil and filter were clean. The engine is snappy and responsive on the run stand.
On another note, I was kind of expecting my phone to ring this morning after the machine shop opened, as I left a "call me asap message" for the builder on Saturday. I got no response from him today. Nothing. Im a bit disappointed in the guy. He's not a bad dude. Oh well.
If I would have taken the engine back, it would have cost me more money in missing work than the extra gaskets, oil, bushings, gas, etc. I'll call the builder tomorrow. I'm gonna be nice, but I'll inform him that he has lost a customer. Pretty poor customer service on top of missing some basic parts on a common mopar engine.
So thanks everybody for your responses. I appreciate the input. Even the input I disagree with.
. I'll give you guys another update after I talk to builder guy.

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hosehead said:
Well, I just got home from round two of the break in at my buddy Tom's. We ran the motor for another half hour with no hiccups. Gave it a good tune and now it's sitting in my garage.
I'm pretty happy with my decision to open the motor with Tom. He has far more mopar knowledge than the builder for sure. The oil and filter were clean. The engine is snappy and responsive on the run stand.
On another note, I was kind of expecting my phone to ring this morning after the machine shop opened, as I left a "call me asap message" for the builder on Saturday. I got no response from him today. Nothing. Im a bit disappointed in the guy. He's not a bad dude. Oh well.
If I would have taken the engine back, it would have cost me more money in missing work than the extra gaskets, oil, bushings, gas, etc. I'll call the builder tomorrow. I'm gonna be nice, but I'll inform him that he has lost a customer. Pretty poor customer service on top of missing some basic parts on a common mopar engine.
So thanks everybody for your responses. I appreciate the input. Even the input I disagree with.
. I'll give you guys another update after I talk to builder guy.

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You totally did the right thing. No shop is going to reimburse you the time lost, and that's way more important than the cost of some stupid gaskets. What were you supposed to do? Stop the second you found the totally pooched distributor bushing? Pack the engine back up and haul it back to the shop? So he can press in a new bearing and still miss the oil plug? So you get to lose another weekend, more time to drive back and forth, and whatever time this guy holds your engine hostage on top of that? 4 months is an eternity. The original 6 weeks was on the long side to start with. And you already picked it up knowing he didn't finish the job, and the shop knew it too. Heck he knew the distributor bushing wasn't right and STILL sent it out. That's already a huge red flag.

Just ignore all the current/former shop owners circling the wagons. You did that guy a FAVOR opening that engine up. How many people wouldn't even have figured it out? Lots. A lot more than you'd expect. They'd have jammed the distributor in there, fired it off for break-in and grenaded the entire engine with no oil pressure. It would have been filled with distributor bushing metal and slagged bearings. And then they would have loaded it up, hauled it back, and the shop would have had to eat the whole engine and rebuild. But you get nothing because you opened it up and fixed it instead of melting it down with no oil pressure? Any builder that knows his crap should know you saved his butt, you could easily have brought him back a totally burnt up engine entirely on his dime.

If the new guy doesn't treat you like you saved him a couple grand, move on. However well-intentioned he may be, it doesn't sound like he's running a good shop. And if he won't own his mistakes, he DEFINITELY isn't running a good shop. He screwed up, doesn't matter why, or even which one of his employees did it. It's his shop and he screwed up. You figured it out. He owes you, not the other way around. I would go in and tell him what you found. If he doesn't offer some kind of a refund in dollars, discounts or services, make sure no one you know does business there.
 
Thanks 72! You pretty much summed up exactly how I feel about the whole thing. I'm sure he knows his way around chevys and fords. Definitely needs some help with Mopar's.
Another thing I keep thinking is that I PAID FOR A FULL ENGINE ASSEMBLY. So why not a little refund? I'm pretty sure I won't get a dime. That's fine though. The motor seems solid. I can race within a month. And most importantly, I realized that I'm going to want to learn to put together my own engines from now on. I'll probably grab a cheap small block and give myself some lessons.
Lastly, I just finished unloading my truck. Found this gem(bushing) in my truck. My buddy Tom put it there. He's a funny guy. This is the bushing in question. I'm sure everyone would be totally understanding to find this in their new, expensive engine.:lol:

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What I don't understand is how the old one didn't get taken out of there before the block got hot Tanked and shot peen?
I remember reading somewhere and I don't know this for a fact that that kind of brass material will dissolve in and contaminate the hot tank?
 
hosehead said:
Thanks 72! You pretty much summed up exactly how I feel about the whole thing. I'm sure he knows his way around chevys and fords. Definitely needs some help with Mopar's.
Another thing I keep thinking is that I PAID FOR A FULL ENGINE ASSEMBLY. So why not a little refund? I'm pretty sure I won't get a dime. That's fine though. The motor seems solid. I can race within a month. And most importantly, I realized that I'm going to want to learn to put together my own engines from now on. I'll probably grab a cheap small block and give myself some lessons.
Lastly, I just finished unloading my truck. Found this gem(bushing) in my truck. My buddy Tom put it there. He's a funny guy. This is the bushing in question. I'm sure everyone would be totally understanding to find this in their new, expensive engine.:lol:

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That's gnarly. And you could have totally seen those cracks from the top. Meaning, he should have seen those cracks and known he totally screwed that bushing install. Especially because he obviously knew it was tight (because he told you it was!). So, he should have inspected it to see why. I'd have a hard time going back there no matter what, that's amateur hour crap right there. How the hell do you send that out and not expect it to come right back? And, how do you know it's tight and not fix the damn thing? Is he running a self service machine shop? "Well, the bushing is too tight but I figured I'd just take your money for the install and let you figure out how to fix it yourself". :wtf:

I mean, lets say the bushing really was just tight. No botched install, no cracks, just off on the tolerances. Did he not think that it was his job to make it right? He installed it, he's the machine shop, he owns it. Ream the bushing and make it right. That crap happens all the time. What does he do if one of the main bearings is tight? Just slap it in and call it a day?
 
I thought the FSM for my '72 Plymouth recommended reaming/honing after the installation of the bushing, might even have quoted a special tool to do it. Having said that, I am going to guess that none of us ever reams those bushings in the present day, nobody has the tool that's for sure. I know, a brake hone might work.

And I just thought of the option that the OP has of not going back to report the problems. If the engine has a guarantee of some kind, it might be better to keep this week's problems under wraps and wait until something really serious happens later, heaven forbid.
 
j par said:
What I don't understand is how the old one didn't get taken out of there before the block got hot Tanked and shot peen?
I remember reading somewhere and I don't know this for a fact that that kind of brass material will dissolve in and contaminate the hot tank?
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I think he took out the old one and some of the bottom part of the bushing remained in the bore. After we pushed out the pictured one we had to dig out some remnants of the original aluminum one. It's when he tried to push the new one in that the old one underneath would distort it. If that makes any sense. Lol . What a mess......
 
72bluNblu said:
That's gnarly. And you could have totally seen those cracks from the top. Meaning, he should have seen those cracks and known he totally screwed that bushing install. Especially because he obviously knew it was tight (because he told you it was!). So, he should have inspected it to see why. I'd have a hard time going back there no matter what, that's amateur hour crap right there. How the hell do you send that out and not expect it to come right back? And, how do you know it's tight and not fix the damn thing? Is he running a self service machine shop? "Well, the bushing is too tight but I figured I'd just take your money for the install and let you figure out how to fix it yourself". :wtf:

I mean, lets say the bushing really was just tight. No botched install, no cracks, just off on the tolerances. Did he not think that it was his job to make it right? He installed it, he's the machine shop, he owns it. Ream the bushing and make it right. That crap happens all the time. What does he do if one of the main bearings is tight? Just slap it in and call it a day?
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I thought the same thing. In all fairness, we could have helped the cracking along while trying to(briefly) install the shaft. We stopped once we noticed how tight it was. What bums me out is that he knew it was really tight and didn't bother to investigate further. After we started poking around it became obviously rather quickly that a piece of the old bushing was still in the bore.
 
To my knowledge, The oil pump drive bushings have always been bronze not aluminum? And yes I have had to ream a new bushing install in the past. Most of the time they are to tight.
 
If a shop gives you money back, I would be guaranteed somthing is fucked up.
 
SGBARRACUDA said:
To my knowledge, The oil pump drive bushings have always been bronze not aluminum? And yes I have had to ream a new bushing install in the past. Most of the time they are to tight.
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There are some aluminum bushings out there. I'd rather have the bronze.
 
I spoke to the builders helper today. The builder is on vacation for the week. That's why he didn't call.
The helper I spoke to was the one who removed and installed the bushings. He confirmed that the one he removed was aluminum. I told him he wasn't able to remove the entire thing and I could tell he felt bad. He is going to speak to the builder/shop owner this week and get back to me. He agreed that I should get something in exchange for my hassle/expenses.
We shall see, I suppose.
 
hosehead said:
I spoke to the builders helper today. The builder is on vacation for the week. That's why he didn't call.
The helper I spoke to was the one who removed and installed the bushings. He confirmed that the one he removed was aluminum. I told him he wasn't able to remove the entire thing and I could tell he felt bad. He is going to speak to the builder/shop owner this week and get back to me. He agreed that I should get something in exchange for my hassle/expenses.
We shall see, I suppose.
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At least you didn't get the proverbial finger. Things are looking up.
 
The piece that was left in I believe was aluminum? And then it was hot tanked and possibly ruined the hot tank? shot peened, line honed, bored, deck and in final assembly when they put the bronze bushing in the aluminum was still in there and jammed the bronze ? Oh boy...

yellow rose said:
The alunimum does but the bronze won't.
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Sorry for the wordy-ness and these will be my last comments.
Anybody who has ever done any work for cash from others faces the challenge of delivering value for dollar. Everyone who does work for others and is posting has made mistakes that were not caught before a customer received the deliverable. As a customer, the responsibility through the process is to communicate, trust that the value will be there in the end, and if it's not, conduct yourself in a respectful way to arrive at a solution that makes you happy. As the vendor, the responsibility is to communicate and deliver that value. In your instance you stopped the process because you lost trust in the product immediately. It's not unexpected as the deliverable had both obvious and hidden (an uncovered by a 3rd party) issues. I get that.

I've said it before on this site - it's not the mistakes that matter because we all make them. It's the recovery. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has had to pay out in parts and/or cash to make problems right for a customer. The couple projects that had big issues either by my fault or a new part failure I paid thousands and worked twice as hard to make right for them. I feel blessed that I can count the guys who allowed me to fix things that didn't deliver for them as very good friends (as in we've kept in touch over years, multiple sales & jobs for them). I place a very high value on showing respect for people and having it be shown to me. That may be why I have the opinion I do on the subject.

So with all due respect, the right thing at the time would have been to call the builder at that point and communicate. Give him the respect of deciding for himself what the next step is given you are upset, feeling taken for a buck, and nervous about other issues. Maybe he was rushing the job because he's new to the position and as a new owner he's being pulled and pressured by everything. Maybe he rushed it to get it and others out before he left for vacation. Maybe he had personal issues distracting him while doing it. The choice to make it right should have started with him and been made by both of you, not been made unilaterally. I think ultimately he will refund you something because it's in his business's best interest to do so and it gets you out of his face. Not because he feels he owes you. I don't feel he owes you because you cut the transaction off and did not allow him to even decide if he could make it right even by paying the other guy for parts and time. I understand your side and motivation and respect the motivation for the choice to move to a perceived better builder. However you denied the builder any input on a solution to what were really his problems, stuck a one-sided story on the web, assumed he's avoiding you because you didn't know about a planned vacation and he didn't return your call promptly, and now want money back.
 
It's funny how some think it's like an employee forgot some ketchup on a $2 hamburger or something? Exactly how many thousands of dollars do we have to put out to make sure that are motor is perfect? I mean really I mean seriously here I want my motor to be absolutely perfect I want everything to be perfect and I want everything to be done perfect that's why I brought it to a professional shop. I didn't drop it off at some clown off of Craigslist who's going to rebuild my motor. I dropped it off at a reputable shop that builds bracket motors as part of their service.
I was a concrete foundation Forman for 10+ years and in concrete you only get ONE CHANCE to get it right. my coworkers nickname to me double-check because I was double-checking everything every time. You pour Foundation out of square or unlevel or wrong dimensions and they're going to bulldoze it back out and do it again and trust me you won't get a second chance to do it again. It'll be the new Foreman and the new crew doing it. And you'd have a hard time finding more work in the same town doing the same thing.
When we go into the shop hearing all these huge numbers of money we are extremely expecting quality, not even having to give anything a second thought. Yeah I will take this one to the mat for sure! Maby shop owner should have prices on the walls like this is the amount you have to pay and we'll try to make sure everything is okay and this price we will definitely make sure we do our best job we can and third prize we one hundred percent guarantee it will be perfect because that's what you're paying for price? So what price is that that you have to pay to make sure everything has been double-checked? All people out here want is simply what they paid for a professional job not a bunch of sloppiness that has to be brought back and given another chance. Nobody's trying to get one over on anybody either way I'm sure, but good money is put out and good service is expected. I hope the owner of said business enjoys his vacation on the OP's hard earned money for the sloppy work his business provided. &@$/!#!!!
There's literally thousands of shops building bracket Motors and this is not some kind of lost art that nobody knows how to do. This is nowhere in the ballpark of rocket science if anything it's repetitive boredness of doing Motors over and over again could be where mistakes are coming from? Even my dumbass has rebuild a motor and got it right and that's saying something! Really building the motor is extremely easy, it's the making sure you did everything right the first time part that we are really paying for.
 
Sorry everybody take this with a grain of salt it's a very sore subject for me.
 
j par said:
It's funny how some think it's like an employee forgot some ketchup on a $2 hamburger or something? Exactly how many thousands of dollars do we have to put out to make sure that are motor is perfect? I mean really I mean seriously here I want my motor to be absolutely perfect I want everything to be perfect and I want everything to be done perfect that's why I brought it to a professional shop. I didn't drop it off at some clown off of Craigslist who's going to rebuild my motor. I dropped it off at a reputable shop that builds bracket motors as part of their service.
I was a concrete foundation Forman for 10+ years and in concrete you only get ONE CHANCE to get it right. my coworkers nickname to me double-check because I was double-checking everything every time. You pour Foundation out of square or unlevel or wrong dimensions and they're going to bulldoze it back out and do it again and trust me you won't get a second chance to do it again. It'll be the new Foreman and the new crew doing it. And you'd have a hard time finding more work in the same town doing the same thing.
When we go into the shop hearing all these huge numbers of money we are extremely expecting quality, not even having to give anything a second thought. Yeah I will take this one to the mat for sure! Maby shop owner should have prices on the walls like this is the amount you have to pay and we'll try to make sure everything is okay and this price we will definitely make sure we do our best job we can and third prize we one hundred percent guarantee it will be perfect because that's what you're paying for price? So what price is that that you have to pay to make sure everything has been double-checked? All people out here want is simply what they paid for a professional job not a bunch of sloppiness that has to be brought back and given another chance. Nobody's trying to get one over on anybody either way I'm sure, but good money is put out and good service is expected. I hope the owner of said business enjoys his vacation on the OP's hard earned money for the sloppy work his business provided. &@$/!#!!!
There's literally thousands of shops building bracket Motors and this is not some kind of lost art that nobody knows how to do. This is nowhere in the ballpark of rocket science if anything it's repetitive boredness of doing Motors over and over again could be where mistakes are coming from? Even my dumbass has rebuild a motor and got it right and that's saying something! Really building the motor is extremely easy, it's the making sure you did everything right the first time part that we are really paying for.
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I can tell you why this happens. With labor rates in your area reaching $100.00/hrs and more, even a simple rebuild is well over 5k.

Guys want race engine tolerances and pay PER prices.

Most people think engine builders make bank. Most of them are skating by. Especially those without a flow bench and dyno. There are a few ways to make money building engines. There are a million ways to go broke.

No one is comparing installing a distributor drive bushing to a 2 dollar hamburger, although they take two totally different skill sets. When you only have X dollars to do something, and you aren't even making hourly, you can make a simple mistake.

It happens. There is no such thing as perfection in this world.
 
BTW, bearings and gaskets do not a rebuild make. Most guys think this **** is easy. And cheap. If it was, everybody would be doing it. Tooling is a bank breaker, especially after spending 50k on a machine. You'll have another 20k in tooling, minimum.

Getting a line hone correct is not as easy as it looks. Neither is getting a bore straight and round, with the correct surface. A simple valve job is much more complicated than it looks. You can make or break an combination with the wrong valve job.
 
LOL ! wagons circulars! I'm tired of hearing about excuses for poor craftsmanship this is b*******! Remember and post 42 where you said your piston guy would say four weeks which was a lie and you knew it and then you would make up the best lie you could to your customer who's paying you to tell him hopefully the truth and do an honest job? How does someone go about using a good conscience lying to somebody who's giving them them a good hard-earned money? I think there should be a new nature to this business or somewhere on your Pricelist you have the no excuse price. When I'm into it 5K I would just assume pay another grand to know that it's right and going to be done right the first time. What happened to getting what you paid for? It's all easy and everybody is doing it! I'm an extremely quick learner and there's absolutely no way whatsoever I could work in a machine shop for any amount of time. I would be banging myself on the head with a hammer with all that repetitive crapolla. I can't do repeat repeat repeat repeat jobs. I'll throw a valve spring across the room at somebody just to make something happen in the shop. I would think the final assembly man would be the top dog in the shop? He should be able to know what everybody's doing so it all comes together in one perfect peace? This person should be double-checking everything that goes out of that shop .

yellow rose said:
BTW, bearings and gaskets do not a rebuild make. Most guys think this **** is easy. And cheap. If it was, everybody would be doing it. Tooling is a bank breaker, especially after spending 50k on a machine. You'll have another 20k in tooling, minimum.

Getting a line hone correct is not as easy as it looks. Neither is getting a bore straight and round, with the correct surface. A simple valve job is much more complicated than it looks. You can make or break an combination with the wrong valve job.
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j par said:
LOL ! wagons circulars! I'm tired of hearing about excuses for poor craftsmanship this is b*******! Remember and post 42 where you said your piston guy would say four weeks which was a lie and you knew it and then you would make up the best lie you could to your customer who's paying you to tell him hopefully the truth and do an honest job? How does someone go about using a good conscience lying to somebody who's giving them them a good hard-earned money? I think there should be a new nature to this business or somewhere on your Pricelist you have the no excuse price. When I'm into it 5K I would just assume pay another grand to know that it's right and going to be done right the first time. What happened to getting what you paid for? It's all easy and everybody is doing it! I'm an extremely quick learner and there's absolutely no way whatsoever I could work in a machine shop for any amount of time. I would be banging myself on the head with a hammer with all that repetitive crapolla. I can't do repeat repeat repeat repeat jobs. I'll throw a valve spring across the room at somebody just to make something happen in the shop. I would think the final assembly man would be the top dog in the shop? He should be able to know what everybody's doing so it all comes together in one perfect peace? This person should be double-checking everything that goes out of that shop .
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How did I lie? I told my customers when the crap would show up.

Like I said, I'd rather tell the customer too long for parts and have them show up early, then to tell them what the manufacturer says, have it show up late and have to deal with that.

So I didn't lie.

What I would suggest you do is go out and open your own shop. Or buy a shop where the guy is retiring. See how fast you go broke.

Also, everyone and their mother knows you can train an organ grinder to assemble an engine. Why does everyone think it hard? Before I final assemble an engine it has been put together several times. If it's a new build it might go together 10 times. All the double checking should be done LONG before it gets final assembled. Unless you like degreeing a cam, checking P/V, piston to head and a hundred other things on final assembly.

You need to open your own shop. Then you can ***** about what it costs, how long it takes, ridiculous customer expectations and deal with **** when it goes sideways.
 
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