Ok Iam getting the zex cam and skunk 2 gear next week. I just ordered it today. Ok first shop pyane technologys in mich. He first told me the cam was 500 and to install it without dyno would be 380? Are you ******* kidding me? So I say you can get the cam for like 280 on the net. He then says oh my mistake. Next shop king motorsports tells me is 480 just to dyno the cam gear. KISS MY ***!!! Now the shop Iam getting it at told me at first also the cam was 500. But install is only 150 so Iam going there. Why does everyone try and rip off the customer

 

i have the same problem with you.. i think its because im white.. i had a local shop owner/sorta friend tell me that whenever a whiteboy walks into an asian shop, they will get jacked..

at carboy here in houston you can go in there talk to one guy and he'll quote you 150 for the dyno per hour.. another guy will quote you 120.. one day i was buying stuff and without looking at prices i ended up paying 8* $4.50 for NGK copper plugs

at hyper also in houston, i was told i was gettin the phattest hookup price on an intercooler.. like 900 bucks installed right, i was completely amazed.. i came back and about 2 hours into the install it ended up being 1400 bucks.. i bitched and called around to other local shops and he lowered the price to 1200..

shops like these almost make me want to sell my civic and get a domestic car.. NONE of my friends with mustangs/corvettes/camaros have problems buying parts at reasonable prices..

all im asking for is a REASONABLE price when i walk in the door.. im not expecting a phat hookup or anything, but at least something close to what i could buy it from importparts for..

 

Crybabies. Do the **** yourself!! You might learn something..........DAMN we all here at Honda-Tech are here to help each other!! All you gotta do is ask someone.
****>>>>Rant over.....

 

Why do they screw u, b/c they can. You want the product and they have the service. So if you want the service that you otherwise can't get, u have to pay for it. That's how life works.

 

no, the question should be; why do you let them screw you over?
i'm sure its not because you're white or black or whatever. they do that to any random guy that walks in. if they see that the guy doesn't really know much about pricing they charge him an arm and a leg for something that shouldn't even be expensive at all. that's how every business is my friend. its all about the benjamins, you should know that by now. i'm white and on on top of that i'm bosnian with an accent. so they usually think damn this guy just landed here from jupiter or something, let's rip him off hehe. but if you throw in a few lines about the product, mention a couple of other shops and their pricing as well as your imaginary friend who can get that stuff for half of their price but he's out of town, i'm sure they will not charge you what they wanted to.
a lot of shops will do the same, rarely do you find a shop that will charge you the actual retail price if you look like you don't know what's goin on.
and like i said, i'm a white bosnian dude but i still get some nice hook-up's.
just shop around for best prices, don't settle for the first few shops you get quotes from, and don't hesitate to tell them they're asking too much if you know they are.
if you're not sure about pricing of a certain part you'd like to buy, ask your peepz here. after all, we are here to share advice, ideas, and to help each-other.


[Modified by EG6JDMspec, 8:13 AM 1/4/2002]

 

bwah!cause there the devil! do ityour self aint nothing there doing that you cant.buy your parts whole sale or get a buisness license...

 

Its all good man.... they are just trying to make money u just *** with them..." oh i saw it hear for 380 dogg... " they will usually match it. Learn how to work the game. Plus if u have cash in their face and not just window shoping they will be more flexible........ Become tight with a onwer! Get sponsored... its the way to go!

 

I hear that story over and over, again and again.

When I quote a price for something, it stays there. If I have to do more work, so be it.

For instance. I recently installed a set of Z10 bars for a customer. Well, little did I know he was in a front end accident, and 4 of the 6 nuts that hold the tow hooks on broke off inside the frame. It took me 3.5 hours of work, drilling and fighting with this guys car to get the bars on. Forget the time I spent adjusting everything afterwards.

Bottom line. I told him $80 to install it, and that's exactly what he paid. No more, no less.

Some shops are better than others. If they tell you a price, and you think it's reasonable, pay it up front. That way, if they come back and say, oh, uh, it took longer than we thought, tell them, "Well, you said it was going to be $xxx and that's what I'm paying for".

There are instances that you might need to pay more, but in the case of the IC guy, that's total bullshit. $400+ bux more is not acceptable. I would have told him to take it out and give me a refund, or stick with his original price.

 

I've got story...listen if you want...or don't. There's a moral at the end .

I took my car to a shop for a motor swap because I dont think I know enough to do the swap myself. They promised the engine would have between 40 and 50k miles.
I dropped the car off on Nov 22 and they didn't even start it until Dec 20. Then they realized the tranny they had for it didn't have a working 3rd gear. They showed me the car the engine came out of (94 Integra LS) and the odometer read 94k. I was pretty pissed. So not only has it taken them a month and its still not done, but it has twice as many miles as they said. Well after looking at everything they put together, I noticed that oil is leaking from the cam seal and they reused the Civic throttle cable which is too long for the LS motor. I still dont have 3rd gear because theyre waiting on another tranny.
The moral is...learn how to do things yourself. It's going to take an investment in tools and such but it's better than getting screwed. If you find a local shop that's cool, support them. But dont let them do things for you that you could easily do yourself. Our cars aren't that hard to work on. The next swap I do will be done myself.

 

i do 99% of my own work.. after removing the jrsc from my car and installing a custom turbo, the promise of a 2 hour intercooler install sounded GREAT.. little did i know it was 500 bucks over the quoted price and took 9 hours to install..

needless to say i dont shop at either of those places anymore..

i dont see how you people figure its OK for someone to jack you when you walk in the door as long as you can talk them down.. you should HAVE to talk them down they should just give you a reasonable price right from the start.. you dont walk into best buy and see ps2's for 600 bucks and then talk them into selling it for 300 (or whatever the current price is)

 

It just sucks you have to basically fight with the person to get the price you know other people are paying. For instance I after being quoted 500 for the cam I am like well its 283 on zex's website. Hes like let me call them. He then called back and said the tech said it was a mistake and it is 500. Christ I know its not 500!!! Iam sure they would let that big of a price mistake go for so long. I would do it myself but I cant even change my oil so playing around inside my engine is way out of my league.

Troy

 

I work at a shop that does nothing but Acuras and Hondas. We've been in business for over 10 years and we have a very solid client base in terms of routine maintenance, major services, engine and transmission rebuilds, etc.

In the past 3 years the shop has gone deeper into the performance sector of this Honda market. In the past 2 years this shop has done over 25 DOHC swaps in vatious chassys, and they have even built a parts department which I am in charge of.

My boss has one rule for me when selling parts:

Sell at 30% over our cost. That's a totally reasonable deal, made even MORE reasonable by me finding the lowest cost possible - then I can sell it for even cheaper than the next guy but still make the required 30%.

The thing with THIS shop is that we quote everybody the SAME price reguardless of how smart or stupid they look. We have a set price, so we quote that price. Shops that judge a potential customer and base their quote from there are retarded. What happens when that guy starts asking around, or even worse, finds a link to H-T and educates himself? Then he'll be pissed at the dumb-*** shop and he'll do all that he can to warn others too.

As for adding more money to the original quote? If we quote a guy for an engine swap, and he supplies us HIS own engine, what happens when it shows up with missing parts? motor mounts, hoses, sensors, etc. Are we supposed to just EAT those costs?

NO. What we do is while we're quoting someone, we let them know that there COULD be additional costs if we have to order parts or do additional labor. And BEFORE we order any parts or do any extra labor we CALL first to okay every dollar that is added to a repair bill.

As for our parts department? I am having trouble finding dealers who will give you a good enough discount without having to do a $10,000 buy-in. It's very hard, and until I can find a good enough source for parts we will continue to make all of our money on the service department and the labor from the high performance jobs.

Research my friend...that will get you more deals than you can imagine.

 

it's only about the $$$$

 

not to be a bastard about the whole thing, but DO THE WORK YOURSELF OR THERE IS A POSSIBILITY YOU WILL GET SCREWED!!! If you do it yourself, then you know every little detail of whats going on and you have no one to blame for yourself....i understand being screwed on parts , you cant help that sometimes if you dont know how much something should cost. I wouldnt take my car into a shop for anything, ive put in new clutches, completely rebuilt cars, and if i dont know how to do something, i call some friends and we'll figure it out (or check on here!) Moral of the story is, try to do it yourself, and not to sound like a dick to whoever said they were looking at a cam gear without knowing how to change oil...take some time and learn about your engine and how your car works, you'll appreciate what goes on when u get mods much much more!

 

greed. its plain and simple. sometimes stupidity or lack of knowledge is key here, but no sales dude EVER admits to not knowing their products.

 

Greedy is one reason.

 

Local shops around here want like 400 bucks for there Eibach Prokit...

 

I installed the zex camshaft and skunk 2 gear in my honda myself. You don't get screwed that way. I have a 94 ex and it took about 3 hours to install with camgear adjusted. Need to take later to get the gear dynoed for better results but installing the camshaft is not that hard. I haven't been on this board for long but everytime that I have a question somebody has an answer. Do the work yourself and if you get stuck just ask for help