This is my story of how I got scammed for 5250.

It all started when I was in the market for a 98spec ITR motor swap. I ended up going to Evo garage www.evogarage.com. I spoke with the owner David the owner. He said he had a line on a 01 USDM ITR motor swap that he was rebuilding and would be for sale when complete.

I asked what the history behind this motor. A customer of his had a 01 ITR that had problems with excessive oil consumption. The owner decided that he wanted to do a 98spec motor swap and he would take his old motor swap as trade. The nature of the rebuild was a re-ring with original usdm pistons, oem bearings and seal kit. When the motor came in I inspected it and noted that 1 exhaust valve was replaced with an aftermarket valve but other then that the motor looked mint.

He was asking 4200 for the motor swap in pieces, I would assemble the the motor. I offered 4000 and paid him for the motor cash on the spot and took it home that day.

Immediately after installation of the motor swap the motor was smoking on cold starts and immediately my bumper was covered with black soot. It was clearly evident because my car is white. I informed him of the situation right afterwards and I didn’t was to come to any conclusions because I was not done break in and there was the possibility of my exhaust being contaminated and it was clearing it self out. After 3000km of break in it was clearly evident this motor was consuming a lot of oil. It was consuming 1 litre every 800km.

I at this time I started to eliminate out side factors that could cause this such as rich air/fuel mixture causing oil dilution causing excessive consumption.
-My vehicle reaches operating temp in 3km
-As per my wideband O2 sensor , AFR’s where where they should be 14.5ish cruise 12.8ish WOT
-I replaced my cat with another unit to rule out contamination causing black soot on my bumper
-I ran a chipped p28 with stock itr basemap for 500km to eliminate faulty ecu with no change
-I ran a vented valve cover and eliminate pcv system causing too much crank pressure
-leak down was 4% in all cylinders


At 6000km I had eliminated all outside factors that could cause black soot and oil consumption and based on the symptoms such as smoking on cold start and smoking on decel I was convinced that the valve seals were at fault. I went back and discussed things with him and he had agreed to replace valve seals under warranty. When I picked up the car he had informed me that the machine shop had mixed up the exhaust valve seals with the intakes.


Afterwards the visible signs of of smoking were gone but my bumper was still going black and it was still consuming about 1L/1100km. I tried several different weights of oil

I had spoken to him after the valve seal replacement and he said he would talk to the machine shop. I got back to him a couple weeks later and he said that the machine shop said that Honda said that 1L/1000km is acceptable level of oil consumption. I will take issue that this statement. That specification is for a motor that is well with in its service limit when everything is all broken in and loose. This spec doesn’t apply to a motor that has just been rebuilt to oem specs. If done right this motor should be as good as an brand new motor and I don’t know of any brand new motor consuming 1L/1100km with under 10000km. and covering my back bumper with soot after 200km of driving. They were basically saying nothing is wrong.

I went to a track day and after that the level of soot build up on my bumper went down but consumption was about the same. After that I was doing routine maintence and a plug inspection and noted that cyl 1 had heavy build up of carbon. There was defiantly something wrong with this cylinder. I went in with a bore scope and noted that the top of piston 1 was visibly wet.

I went back to evo garage and told him the situation and that this is not acceptable. You could argue that excessive oil consumption could be normal for these engines but you can’t argue that for it to happen in 1 cylinder is. He spoke with the machines shop and we had agreed that I would pull the motor and send it back. The machine shop was in Winnipeg and he would cover the cost of the shipping which is 500 dollars.

I went ahead and pulled the motor and when I pulled the cylinder head I had noticed that the back side of the intake valve and ports were moist. Oil seems to making its way past the guides into the combustion chamber. Condition of the cylinders were good with no signs of scoring, glazing or anything of that nature.


When I dropped the motor off I had inspected the motor with david to show him my findings. And I would just leave it with him. This was in Dec 6 2010. I called him on Jan 4th for an update and he informed me that he was going to Japan for a month and he will call me when he gets back. That’s nice having 2 months of down time for my car.

So this is where it gets really good.

He calls me Feb 7th and informs me that he received information that I ran a chipped ecu and that’s what’s causing my oil consumption and he will not cover anything under warranty. He then informs me that the machine shop will re rebuild my motor at a discounted rate of 1000 + 500 shipping to bring it back from winnepeg. So at this point I’m a little wtf. I asked him if the machine shop had located where the consumption was coming from and he said that they didn’t. They also didn’t find anything wrong with the cylinders and everything measured up ok. If they could find anything wrong I sure as hell wasn’t gonna pay them 1500 to rebuild it again.

I was thinking this was a big miss understanding so I go down to the shop on the following Monday Feb 7th to try to figure something out. When I get there he was clearly not in the mood to talk and basically told me to **** off and if I want my motor back its 1500 dollars and that the motor is already rebuilt and on its way back. At this point now I’m really wtf. So I later find out that while he went to Japan for a month he wasn’t in contact with the machine shop and they just went ahead and rebuilt the motor with out anyone’s authorization. You can’t just go do 1500 worth of work with out my consent and just expect me to pay. He going on to say that I’m ****ed because I bought the motor with no receipt and he could easily say that he never sold me a motor and theres nothing I could do about it. At this point I’m pretty much dumb founded but with out the motor here theres nothing I can really do but wait til it comes in and deal with it then.

2 weeks later I call him and he informs me that the motor is here. I head to his shop and basically inform him that at this point there is no reason to prevent me from boot ****ing him in the head and taking my motor back. Its at that point he wants to be reasonable and decides to take off $350. I decide to cut my losses and pay him 1250 and take my motor with no guarantee that anything is going to be fixed but aleast I’m not held at the mercy of him.






you can see on the edge of the valve face is the accumulation of oil

real nice for a motor with 12000km on it

 

http://www.hondatuningmagazine.com/f...e_s/index.html

 

Ed, you should really try telling whole story as you're only telling your side of the story.

I was going to stay out of it at the shop, but since you decided to post this up on the forums, you should really tell the entire truth and not only what you want others to see.

Here's the run down from my understanding.

You bought the motor from David at Evogarage that had just returned from the machine shop he deals with in Winnipeg. They have never screwed up any work in the past 10 years he has dealt with them and your miss-matched valve seals was the first issue he has ever had with them.

David 'warrantied' the valve seals for your with his own money since it was an error on the machine shops part.

David asked you if it was better and you said the oil burning is better after that.

Fast forward 15,000kms, and at least one track day at Mission.

You then bring up the oil burning again after a LOT of km's placed on the motor.

You tell David that you had a stock ECU on this motor the whole time when infact you used a Hondata unit on it shortly after swapping the motor into your ITR. This fact was verified by another shop and you were told which shop this was as well after the fact.

You also tuned this Hondata unit yourself and the other shop stated that it was difficult to start the car (hence why the other shop popped the kick panel to find a Hondata there). The other shop only did exhaust work for you and did not touch the car otherwise but they are witness to what was in the car.

David then asked you again if you were running a stock ECU to break in the motor. You told him you were for the second time.

Do you feel it's reasonable to bring up an oil burning issue after putting on that kind of miles and track days on the motor?


You're not stating a lot of actually what happened Ed and this is 3 weeks after you picked it up already.

You wanted to talk to the machine shop as well and David had no problem with you talking to them so he called them up with you in person. You then asked the machine shop questions and unfortunately flat out lied about some of the stuff the machine shop to you on the phone. Perhaps you could chime in on that as David asked for the phone back and the machine shop guy said to him flat out, 'David, i did NOT just say that to him'...

I have no problem with you Ed, nor is it really anyone's business until you decided to post this stuff up on the forums (and yes, you did threaten David by saying you would post up on forums, which is fine cuz you're entitled to your opinion). If you're going to post this kind of stuff up, you should really post up the entire story instead of just your side and OMIT some pretty key things.

Your friends that you brought down to 'boot****' David were actually more level headed about the whole situation than you were.

Your friend was respectful enough to talk to David about this privately in his office and even he agreed that he felt David was 'probably right in this situation, but you were his friend first' after hearing David's side of the story (which was news to him as he didn't hear it all from you). He was the one who was able to negotiate the deal for you in the end and we all respect him for that.

He had the respect to shake hands and even told you to shake David's hand in the end so props to your friend for being a stand-up guy.

In a way, i can see your point in not authorizing the repair on the motor. The machine shop felt that they had a reputation to uphold so that is why they rebuilt the motor (wiseco rings, new OEM bearings and seals throughout) for the cost of $1000. To my understanding, that's a pretty good price.

However, they probably should've ate up the cost if it was infact their fault for the motor burning oil. They didn't feel that it was a machine shop error but they also suspected the tune to be faulty (you could've washed the rings out with too much fuel perhaps?).

I'm sorry dood, but if you're going to accuse a shop of scamming you, you should really post up all the facts for everyone to see.

The way i see it, you tried to scam David at Evogarage for something you messed up and then tried to 'warranty' it nearly a year later with a ton of miles and track days on it.

(for the record, i am a friend of David's so take my post with a grain of salt if you'd like but i thought some facts needed to be stated)

 

Thanks for chiming in Mashimaro, its always good to hear from both sides of the story. Its a crappy situation for both parties involved and hope this gets resolved at both ends

 

no worries dood.

the situation was resolved 3 weeks ago when the OP picked up the motor from Evogarage and the OP's friend negotiated that the $1000 in parts and labour was to be split $650 and $350 by Evogarage, shipping was billed to the OP ($500 total).

 

Here’s my side of the story.

First off, some background info;
- the current on going rate for a USED ITR swap is around $4,500.00 to $4,800.00
- the reason for using the machine shop in Winnipeg is because of my long and good relationship with them. Over 10 years we have been working together and never once have I had any problems. They have always made it a priority in taking care of my customers and myself.


Ed came to me around the end of May, 2010. He was in the market for a full ITR motor swap. Unfortunately at the time I was completely out of stock on the JDM ITR swaps.

I did however mention to him I had a freshly rebuilt ITR motor that had just came back from the machine shop. I told him in detail of what was done to this specific motor; top to bottom rebuild, new rings, new bearings, new gaskets, resurfaced cylinder head and valve job. At this present time, the engine was not yet assembled, I told him I was looking for $4,500.00 READY TO SWAP (ASSEMBLED). Ed was looking to spend less than that, and asked how much for just all the parts, he would then do the assembly himself. We agreed that $4,000.00 would be fair. All necessary parts would be given to him, assembled short block, cylinder head, clutch, flywheel, transmission and so forth. If he needed anything else, I told him he would be more than welcome to come back and I could supply him with additional parts/info/help.

(The motor was originally sold to me by a friend/customer who had purchased a JDM ITR swap from Evo Garage. Which is also the reason why I was not able to produce Ed with an invoice, because Evo Garage did NOT import the motor. It was a personal transaction. ED KNOWS THIS FACT AS WELL.)

(Typically with all Evo Garage ENGINE SWAP PACKAGES, I included on the invoice; type of engine, year, serial number and ecu number for my own records.)

I also told him it would be sold as is, however I did grant him a start up warranty, plus ONE month warranty on no excessive oil burning and knocking.

After agreeing to these terms, Ed decided to make the purchase.


A month had past, he came back complaining that oil was burning. I asked him if he had broken in the engine in a non-aggressive fashion, typical daily driving and if he was using the stock ECU. (It is critical to use a stock ECU during the break in period.) He told me that he was a mechanic and knew how to break in an engine and was indeed running the stock ECU.


Ed claimed that the motor was burning oil during cold starts; we agreed that the valve seals should be looked at. (Even though it was already past the ONE month warranty period.) I was still determined to help him out. I had him leave the car with me so I could take a look at the valve seals. Upon disassembly, I had found that the machine shop did misplace the new exhaust valve seals on the intake side. I covered the cost of the all necessary parts and labour for this to be resolved.


A few weeks after I was contacted by Ed, informing me that the oil burning issue was solved.


Around September, Ed came by the shop informing me that the oil was still burning oil. He did mention that the motor was strong, makes power and what not. For he had been taking it to the track and drag strip. He said he would keep a record of how much oil it’s burning and would get back to me on a later date.


Ed came back around the end of November. He said that he had taken his car on a road trip to Calgary and it burnt about 1L every 1,500km.

Still very much willing to help Ed out, I called the machine shop asking them if they could pull up the record of this job and see what might be causing this issue. The machine shop called me back informing me that they called ACURA TECHLINE themselves and had this to report. ITR MOTOR BURNS A LITTLE BIT OF OIL WHICH IS NORMAL. They then said what’s happening right now is border line acceptable, and they would not do anything even if the car was sold brand new at the dealership. I did not tell Ed this because I was still wanting to take care of him.

I talked to Ed and asked him again if he was running a stock ECU, he assured me that he was. I believed him, and would still like to take care of this. I always hate to have an unhappy customer. We agreed on sending the motor back to the machine shop, if it had checked out that something was indeed mis-performed on their end, I would cover the shipping and machine shop would pay for all parts and labour.

By the time Ed pulled the motor and got it to my shop, it was already December. I told him that he would have to wait a while because it was getting close to to the holidays, plus I would be away on vacation in January. So you probably won't see the motor till the end of January or early February. He agreed and left the motor with me.

Some time had past since the motor was sent out, I was informed by another shop that Ed has been using a HONDATA S300 programmable ECU in his car. Ed had brough his car to them for some exhaust work, and the shop had the hardest time trying to start his car. Ed's car had such a hard time starting, the shop decided to take a look into it, try and see what was going on for the guy, which lead to them witnessing the HONDATA S300 unit in place of the stock, OEM ECU.


Fast forward, February 2, 2011. This is the day I got back from my vacation, I contacted the machine shop to get an update of what was happening. They found the motor was burning oil in all 4 cylinders, however there seemed to be alot more being burnt from cylinder 1. They told me they dis-assembed the motor and found out the rings on # 1 cylinder had signs of heat score. I informed them of my new found information regarding the programmable ECU, we both agreed that warranty should be void as this is the customer's fault. Machine shop rebuilt the motor once again putting in wiseco rings, new bearings, new seals, re-polished the crank and refinished the cylinder head. The motor was even re-assambled this time to eliminate any further issues. Because of my relationship with the machine shop, they decided to help both Ed and I out as good will, the total bill with part and labour was discounted to $1,000.00.


I called Ed and asked him once again if he was using a stock ECU during break-in and he assured me that he was. I told him that I found out he was using a HONDATA programmable ECU. He then admitted to it and told me that he even reduced FUEL on all 4 cylinders to see if it would reduce oil consumption?!?! In all my years of tuning, I have never heard of anyone reducing fuel to lower oil consumption. I believe the ECU was put in to make more power. Ed felt that there was something wrong with the stock ECU, so his solution was to replace it with a HONDATA UNIT, not running a stock map. At this point I was pretty fed-up with Ed who had been lying to me this whole time. I felt that he was trying to claim for a new motor or money back as he had screwed up on the tuning this one himself. Before ending the conversion, I told him he needs to bring $1,000.00 for the machine shop and also $250.00 each way for shipping. He told me he would have to think about it. I receieved a call from Ed later that night asking if I would take the motor back and to give him $3,000.00, I told him sorry, no.


Ed dropped by the next day and asked if he could talk to the machine shop. I honestly did not see the point and I told him that if I had known he was lying to me, I would not have sent the motor out in the first place. Anyways, I granted his requested and got himin touch with the machine shop. He talked to the machine shop on the phone himself, and then told me that the machine shop told him that they did NOT find any problems. I asked him to hand me the phone, immediately hear a yelling over the phone "WE DID NOT SAY THAT" I asked Ed, why are you lying to me again?! Ed got mad and threaten me, he told me to call him when the motor comes back and then left the shop.


Couple weeks after, the motor is now back from the machine shop. Ed shows up with 2 of his friends, their goal was to try and pick up the motor without paying. A fight almost broke out at the shop and his friend threatened me saying - "It won't be nice for business if there are trouble while you are working, etc., etc.") After some time of quarrel, his friend asked and listened to my side of the story. After listening, he said "I am sorry, and that you are probably right, but I am Ed's friend and Ed is looking for some form of discount, lets just get it over with."

I don't see any other shops or manufacturers granting warranty on a product that has been tampered with. In this case, a motor using a programmable ECU with a faulty tune.

So end of the day I had to lose out some money for Ed to leave with his motor and friends.

This will be my one and only post regarding this matter.

-david@evogarage

 

In the end though, the machine shop screwed up the first time, if they wanted to save their reputation and rebuild it again without consent it should have cost $0 to the customer. That's their call that they made, and they should have eaten that cost as a cost of doing business.

If the motor was always consuming in that one cylinder only than it doesn't matter how many miles were put on it as long as it was documented that it was always that one cylinder, the blame goes to Evo Garage and the machine shop IMO. Fact is though, stock ECU or not (as long as he's using a proper map for break in and driving it correctly) it seems like that rebuild was ALWAYS burning too much oil.

If on the other hand it was never documented until 12-15k later, then it becomes muddy and the OP has no leg to stand on IMO.

The OP also sounds like he was extremely unprofessional with the bringing friends to the shop crap. It's hard to service a customer who's like that so that may have contributed.

edit: After reading david's post open, the OP seems even more at fault assuming that's all true. Even if one is in the right, lying about facts to someone you are doing business with will ALWAYS back fire and once they find out that you lied all respect goes out the window.

 

To be honest, I can't believe they gave you any sort of warranty or support considering you took care of the assembly.

If anything I am happy to hear that they accepted fault for the incorrect valve seals, consider that when you say that they are scamming you, if they really were... you probably would have been told to **** off back when the valve seal issue was discovered.

Sorry to hear about the whole situation, but given the facts of this story it's hard to believe that Dave did not have the best of intentions.

 

Agreed on the warranty bit. If I were Evo I would have never offered ANYTHING on a motor in parts.

I wouldn't be surprised if his engine is the last one they do that for too.. I wouldn't blame them.

 

Shitty situtaion for sure. I've seen this exact situation happe with numerous B18C rebuilds with local big name shop here locally. I can vouch for David and know he is a good reputible business man that has been doing this for years.

For the record, I also sold a perfectly healthy ITR engine that blew-up (melted piston #3) shortly after my customer had installed it. I had even provided the the actual correct Hondata engine tune (Recently tuned by Church Automtive). However the customer decided to try and re-calibrate the fuel MAP and leaned it out so badly that he melted a piston. I felt really bad for him, but couldn't imagine giving him any type of refund.

 

I don't know if it is me, I see wrong spark plugs were installed. I think aftermarket replacements or OEM should sit a lot further out.

Also, the cylinder seemed like it has been combusted with coolant and some detonation. If everything are stock this should not look like this, I am guessing wrong map was run with the engine. Sorry to say, IMO, it's an installation error !

I cannot say who's right or wrong between you (steady R) vs EVO Garage but personally, I have dealt with David at EVO and he is a not that kind of guy who will easily to tell a customer to "F" off! I am pretty sure he will compromise to work out the best solution for you !

 

how many more forums are you going to try and spread your smear campaign to buddy?

 

+1. You bought a used motor through a private sale Ed, the fact that you have had any support from David shows that he's a stand up guy.

 

Bad situation all around but after reading both sides (err all 3) thoroughly, I believe that everything was settled when the final due amount was split $650/$350. The startup and oil/knock warranty was given as a sign of faith in his own product but that's probably irrelevant in this situation. I say that because the initial oil burning was squarely on the machine shop and it seems to have been rectified appropriately.

The ensuing problems are a separate issue and when one considers the time passed, mileage, vehicle use, custom tune, and OP's inconsistencies, it's difficult to think that any warranty continued to be in effect

 

^ exactly. there's no way dave could have known the machine shop installed the valves incorrectly. this was a private sale, he wasn't obligated to give you ANY kind of warranty.

 

lol if i had a shop and Steady R brought his friends over to "beat me up" i would shoot them for tresspassing on private property and the intent to hurt me so i would say it was all in self defense or just plain have the cops settle it, i think Steady R is really immature and the shop did everything in its power to help him even when he was lying about the ECU, the shop did NOT scam you, you were just to ignorant and need to go back to school and learn real automotive mechanic/tunning before you ever touch your car or another ever again.

 

So wait a minute....he left the shop paying $1,250 for the fully rebuilt motor THE SECOND TIME?....so hes saying he got "scammed" $5250 when in all actuality he got 2 rebuilt ITR motors for that price? Are you ******* kidding me?

So he put thousands of KM's, and track and drag days on the first motor, obviously beating the **** out of it....then now has the same motor with another full overhaul?? and he has the ******* ***** to complain on the site about this ****?

People pay $5200 for a 98+ JDM ITR swap that has 50K+ miles ON IT to have it shipped to there door....AND you had it fully rebuilt? wiseco rings, new bearings, new seals, re-polished the crank and refinished the cylinder head are you kidding me?

my only feel for the OP is the timeline in waiting for motor..but in reality, you lied in the first place about ECU and tune (which is most likely the major underlying reason for all of this anyway) and got to beat the **** out of the first motor....so i retract that statement becuase 2 months to have a motor shipped, disassembled, rebuilt, re-assembled, and shipped back isnt all that bad...


im getting mad about this and it has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with me...so im going to stop typing 75wpm in a frantic rage......

your an idiot....and im lookin to do some business with EvoGarage if thats the kind of standup guy David @ Evo seems like going WELL above and beyond to try to help his customer.....

 

Never pay cash for anything anymore ever!!!! Money orders can be stopped

 

Shitty situation...IMO the OP let to much time pass before taking action. Also, taking the car to track days when there was a serious oil consumption problem was a just terrible/stupid idea...

 

That and admitting of reducing the fuel, letting it run lean which killed the rings...

 

shouldnt your break in the motor before driving it hard anyways?

 

Did you actually read the thread?

 

No, he didn't.

 

Interesting... the OP hasn't showed back up in this thread...

 

Does this thread need a title change?