" **CALLING OUT JOHNNY a.k.a. 4drferio/ImBroke ! **"

The situation began with my need for a D16y8 auto-manual conversion, as well as my friend's need for a well running D16y8 engine. Upon surfing Honda-tech, i came across the perfect candidate: "Just wrecked my 99 EX civic, parting out!" At the time, it seemed too good to be true; It turned out to be our worst nightmare.

For obvious reasons, it appeared as though this would be the most promising deal for my friend and I; we would essentially be killing two birds with one stone. Consequently, we began talking to Johnny about the condition of the parts we required from the car. For an easy reference, here's a brief part list of what we needed the most from the car:

- D16y8 tranny with NO grinds
- D16y8 Long block in good condition
- all lines, pedal assembly, clutch master cylinder etc etc for the auto-manual

After numerous discussions with Johnny, both online and over the telephone, we were inevitably convinced that the parts we desired were in great shape. He "guaranteed" that the engine and tranny would be perfect - it was obviously convincing.

We finally worked out a deal: 1200 for the car, which was still a little steep considering the towing fees and labor it would take to get the necessary materials out of the smashed front end! Nevertheless, it seemed fair enough. After all, we were getting the swap, as well as the auto-to-manual -- there were no complaints.
This is where it started going downhill. I was unable to go because previous plans. So I had my friend who was in need of the engine/head, and another friend is who is very knowledgeable about cars go for me. They arrived at Johnny's house rather late - it was dark. They saw the car and it was a mess. They gave me a call and filled me in on the details about the car. Obviously, we started having second thoughts about the conditions of the engine. However, they were incapable of making any physical assessments given there was no light. They asked for lights. His response: "sorry I don't have any flashlights." Hmm, seemed a little shady, especially when he pulled out a flashlight for the tow truck driver. They disregarded it because there wasn't time to inspect it any longer, we had faith he'd come through. They towed the truck to my friend's house. Upon removing the engine and tranny, we discovered two horrible problems.

- The engine had a crack about 3 inches in length, this was on the block itself -- irreparable.
- The tranny had a GAPING hole around 2 inches in diameter adjacent to the VSS

Needless to say, we were dumbfounded. That's two out of the three things we had initially purchased the car for, shot down the drain -- USELESS to us. We did what anybody would do, we called Johnny.
His obvious response was very disrespectful and intrusive. He was making several implications that we had switched up the parts. THANK GOD FOR HONDA INGENUITY! 99+ honda's have vin tags on BOTH the block and Tranny!! There goes that argument.
Also, he claimed that "there was no oils leaking on his driveway blah blah blah," but if you take a look at the pictures, (refer below) you'll notice that there were huge oil stains immediately underneath the front end of his car. He told us that was "only a cracked oil pan." Hah! On the contrary, the whole engine/tranny was shot. After we had a friend speak to him (buddy that works at a law firm) it seemed as though he was rough out of excuses. He decided to take another route of escape: "Oh, i gave my dad the money already, so it's gone."
So here I am, pissed as hell; making another scammer post on Honda-Tech. The difference here is that I will not only stop at discrediting this individual on Honda-tech, i will go as far as to take him to court. The filing fees will be superficial in comparison to the money I will be awarded from a Judge. I'd be aiming for labor, on top of full refund. So have a look-see Johnny, and I'd reconsider my priorities if I were you. Keep in mind, the ONLY useable parts on this vehicle were: The head, a couple clutch hard lines, and the pedal assembly. Tell me everybody, is that worth 1200+150 (tow) + Labor fees?

Let the pictures do the talking:

Heres us pulling the motor out:



This is what we found on the block:



Closer look(s):




We look on the back side of the block:


Closer look:



Top View:









Dont worry the pics of the vin's will be up tomorrow when i could take some during the day.

 

Damn, GODDAMN IT

I'd be pissed the **** OUT!

Bump for a solution.

 

im sorry for your misfortune. never buy anything at night with insufficient light. hopefully everything works out weather in court or elsewhere.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by eg6sir-s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">im sorry for your misfortune. never buy anything at night with insufficient light. hopefully everything works out weather in court or elsewhere.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I bet this is a hard lesson learned for them. But I bet the buyers were going by the seller's words and were probably excited about picking up such a deal.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by eg6sir-s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">im sorry for your misfortune. never buy anything at night with insufficient light. hopefully everything works out weather in court or elsewhere.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I know it wasn't our best idea yet, but he assured us SEVERAL times that everything was in perfect shape (the things that we needed at least). Had I been there, it might have been different because I ALWAYS have a flashlight in my car. But it's to late for the "shoulda woulda coulda's" now. I didn't want it to come to this, but neither Phil (he needed the head, nor myself can afford to loose this kind or money right now. Phil was just scammed for a blown y8 before this, and all this money was from my birthday. If Johnny decides to step-up and take this like a decient person would, I WILL delete this thread and change my opinion about him. But for now, I feel that he has taken advantage of us.

Thanks for the support, and we all hope to get this solved outside of court.

 

i know john and hes good in my book, and i hope he will post in here and help u clear things up man.

 

Modified by phatboi at 2:36 AM 6/4/2005

 

hey ther brad and phil...

i sold the car to phil..brad you shoulda been there..the motor was perfectly fine when i had the car..i never check it out after the acccidents..so if this is true then i dont know..
i even gave you guys extra parts off my kindness..i never knew this will happen..i never knew about this..this is the 1st time happening too me... and yes i already did gave the money to my dad..i dont got to liee about that...what else can i do..i sold the car as is.. you guys had all the time too check it out.i was even late to go out with my family...

 

1 more thing...about the flashlight thing..
BS!...i dont even have a flassh light..
when the tow man came..i turn on the bathroom light on..
bath room light n flash light whole different story..i would never scam some1 like that cause i wouldnt want that to happen to me

 

holy coooka mooonga!!!!! with them pictures...u need ur money back.

 

Johns a cool guy in my book also. hopefully you guys can work things out or something

 

I understand you would be upset, but for a situation like that I would say its the buyers responsibility to inspect all the parts before laying down that much cash. I know if it were me & i didnt have a flashlight, I wouldve driven to a store & bought one & came back. Even if someone told me everything was fine, I would still take the time to make sure & would definitely not do the transaction at nite. The cracks you show look like they might not have been noticeable without taking off the header so I doubt johnny was purposely trying to mislead you. I think you should just salvage whats left of the cars interior, suspension, body, etc & try to make back your money. i'm sure you could get at least $800 for just the shell to someone lookin to build a race car or something.

Now I'm not trying to take sides, but ive dealt with johnny a few times for parts & he seems like a cool dude from what i've seen. Hopefully some kind of arrangement can be met between you guys, but I dont think suing should be one of them.

 

ok this is for "SOHC4life 96"

first of all..while you was searching around and on H-T for "parts" for you use and you stumble on John's post about his car and parts parting out. didn't you not see the pics of the car being totaled?

second..you yourself and whomever the other person that wanted the other parts SHOULD have gone and see/inspected the car.

third...you never go and look at a car in the middle of the night without any sort or lights (flashlight) and you never inspected the car at nite time anyway. especially when it a totalled car and you "HAD" second though.

fourth...i'm sure that with 2 of your friends there checking out the car, they should have plenty of time to see the whole car and decided on weather to buy it or not. )i know they had plenty of time cause i talked to John right before they arrived and during the process and after they left.

fifth..not to be an *** but it was your friends decision on weather to buy the car or not so really you should have discuss this matter with them.

this is jsut my pin-point out on your error in this transaction. and believe me niether John or I have ever looked at the car engine bay after the accident..i came to him place a few time after he had his accident and he was in bed in pain for a few days. i looke at the car and glance at the engine with the hood up and never inspected anything..it was just sitting there.

 

basically comes down that you should of looked at the product before buying it. shaddy as it may seem about the flashlight it wasn't his fault you had to come during the night. bascialy when it comes down to it its what he said vs what you put down for the car.

hope you guys both resolve this situation.

 

john would never scam someone. i apologize on his behalf but john is a very cool dude and would have never meant any harm. i hope you folks can work something out and keep this outside of court.

 

those cracks look like they could've been from the accident?

 

i know john he's a good person and he would never try 2 scam any 1 when you bought the its was crashed from the front you should have taken a better look at every thing but hopefully you guys can work sumthin out and fix this problem

 

i dont think john is fucked up to do this kinda ****. think about it. if he knew that **** was cracked n lied n told u it wasnt. He would kno that u would find out once u get it home n u would diff. come back at him. who in there right mind would want to go through all this trouble. the car was label "TOTALED", its the buyers responsibility to check out everything before they purchased.

 

man i'd understand if you sent him money, and you never got what you expected, or even not get anything but with having people go there ,and look at it, and hand him personally the money, and then leave, and then get mad at yourself for not being there to look at it closer, and then bitch about how the guy "scammed" you i think is kinda childish. looks like your fault. by giving the money, and taking the car pretty much closes the deal. how can you not of think that with a front end crash like that, there wouldn't be anything wrong with anything in the engine bay is kinda stupid. sorry bro. hope it works out either way

 

Here's my two cents. After have purchased John's right hand drive eg off of him at night, not looking at it in the day, never driving it before I bought it and going on his word of what was there and what wasn't every dent and detail and spending 7 times the amount he sold you his 4dr for I would have to say that he is not a scammer and that this was not intentional. When somebody says "salvaged" it usually means just that, "salvaged". It is the buyers responsibility to inspect the vehicle to it's fullest. There is enough information online, with the post, and with comments to say that in fact, there was some type of verbal agreement assesed between you two and by purchasing the car that night you agreed to the vehicle's condition. You should have had a flash light or waited until the day time to check out the vehicle. You inspected, you purchased, the car is yours that is that. Another thing, those pictures, who took them and when? Obviously those are your pictures because they are taken in the day time. Whose to say that you didn't cause that to the swap or damage it while taking it out? Before you flame him on H-T and mention court you needed to settle between you two for a little longer before you took it to that level.


ANOTHER THING! The first picture shows someone pulling the swap out. It's day time in the pictures, why didn't you inspect the swap while still inside the car and if you had found any problems you could have called and said "I haven't touched anything, this is what I found". But by taking the swap out, kinda makes everyone think you were ok with the swap and then it got damaged outside of the engine bay.. just another thought.. If you didn't like it you should have left it in the car.

 

i knoe johnny and hes a koo and honest guy. i recently met him and purchased several parts from him. such as his omni coilovers which were fine after i inspected them and bought them. this is not really his fault, cuz u as the buyer had all the time in the world to look at the car, look at the motor. ur the one droppin cash on it so u should be aware of what ur gettin urself into. you had no reason to buy it then and there, u could have came back several times to see it over and over and bring who ever u want in the world, but u didnt and u ended up makin a bad investment. i guess u can say johnny lucked out and u didnt but thats life, it aint his fault u wernt careful in checkin the motor, im sure he didnt realize all that was wrong with it cuz if he did know, he wouldnt have sold it like that. i mean **** the car is all smashed up, u should have checked it better if u assumed this would happen..

johnny is a good guy in my book, and if i sold something to someone and they tried bringin it back, i wouldnt give them **** cuz they had all the time in the world to completely inspect it and decide on it.

 

what a shady guy

 

Hello everyone. I was one of the people helping this guy out with the swap. There were obvious mistakes that were made before the engine was even purchased, however, it came from BOTH SIDES.

The seller gave them his WORD that the engine and tranny would be running excellent -- that was the whole point of the purchase! He said it would start up and run fine, with vouches such as yourselves, and given the time they went to go check it out - it seemed as though everything would be fine. This is what they're hard earned money went to.

They don't want all of their money back, they want compensation for what is lost, is that hard to understand? I'm the one that works at the firm, and frankly, it wouldn't be to hard to get them their money back through court. I hope it doesn't come to that. I've dealth with a couple of you guys like jdmcarboy, and hasback_00. You seemed like excellent sellers. I don't see how you can't see through your friend's partial mistake and admit that a partial refund is necessary.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 4drferio &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">1 more thing...about the flashlight thing..
BS!...i dont even have a flassh light..
when the tow man came..i turn on the bathroom light on..
bath room light n flash light whole different story..i would never scam some1 like that cause i wouldnt want that to happen to me</TD></TR></TABLE>


Thats on the BS side, i was the other guy that was there to look at the car. What about pulling out those big *** yellow lights when the tow truck guy said he needed more light, before his boss came and said they cant do it.

Also at the same time you kept saying over and over nothing is wrong with the motor minus the oil pan, you didnt even turn on the bathroom light for us when we asked for light.

The car was totalled we understand, we didnt want the car we wanted the motor and tranny. Theres no way in hell we could have made those cracks on both the tranny and the motor by pulling it out and dropping it. The tranny hits are on the top and the motor is on the front. My hoist is to lift 454 motors, honda motors are like paper for it.

 

damn guys. sorry to see/hear that. hope you all can get this settled.