If you are having a shop do work on your car, you need to be careful who you have do the work. While this seems a simple task, it's one that can mean the difference between going broke and selling your car or having a finely tuned machine working for years with no trouble.
Having been a automobile enthusiast all my life and owning ZZP for 9 years, I can give some great advice on picking a shop. Here at ZZP roughly half of our work is redoing another persons or shops work. Often time redoing the work is more expensive than doing it from scratch. Here is my advice for having work done:
1. Choose a shop with a good reputation. If you don't know anything about the business you are taking your car to, you are risking a lot. Every shop whether good or bad will usually tell you that they are the best. Do your homework and pick a place with experience.
Understand that shops do not charge you for a result, they charge you for working on the car. If you bring your car into a shop YOU are taking the responsibility to trust that they know what they are doing. If they do work that isn't needed, you still have to pay for it. If there is a problem and they diagnose it wrong and start repairing things that don't need to get done, you still have to pay for it. This is how all shops operate and no one would be able to stay in business working for free every time a customer felt they diagnosed the problem wrong. Every shop can make mistakes or diagnose issues wrong or recommend incorrect parts. The idea is to work with a shop that is knowledged enough to minimize this chance.
2. Have one company do all or as much of the work as possible. If you have multiple people or companies under the hood, no one will be responsible for anything. This will leave YOU as the person responsible for any and all problems and failures. It is not right to expect a shop to be responsible for a car that another shop was also working on. We deal with this issue often in that people do what they can themselves, then have us do a little that they can't do and expect that we are going to warranty the entire car. Sorry guys, it doesn't work this way.
3. Make sure the work is done by someone who is large enough to pay out a liability claim. What if your engine fails or car is heavily damaged or crashed during a test drive? Can the individual or shop cover this? Are they insured? Smaller places or backyard mechanics can be great to save a few dollars...until there is a problem.
4. Ask the shop ‘what if’ type questions. What if my engine fails after you work on it? What if there is a fluid leak? What does your warranty cover? Do you have a warranty?
Real life horror stories
I am having starting issues with my Grand Prix GT. I turn the key and it does one of two things:
1. Shut off (the lights and everything are on)
2. Start at 1500-2000 rpms and stays there ( I was able to go 4 miles without touching the gas pedal because it stayed at 2000 rpm)
When it shuts off, if I rev the motor it will eventually stay on, but it sounds like it is struggling to stay on, it would stay at about 700 rpm and go slightly up and down.
I have brought it to the dealership 3 times. The first time they changed the PCM ($600) and then they cleaned out the throttle and expressed to me that it was full of carbon deposits. I got a tune up at about 120,000 miles, with all high end parts. When I bring it to the dealership they seem as if they have absolutely no idea.
Had this been an experienced shop, they would have tried another PCM or installed a used one before ordering a $600 PCM for the customer.
A customer purchased a ZZP catback exhaust. Then they went to Midas to have it installed because they were $75 and ZZP wanted $100 to put it on. Midas did the install and the customer left. Shortly later the gas tank melted and gas was leaking. The car was towed into ZZP with the customer demanding we pay the towing bill, replace the gas tank and repair the exhaust. We explained that we were not responsible because we didn’t install it. Midas claimed they were not responsible because it was a ZZP exhaust and didn’t fit correctly.
When ZZP got the car in, we discovered that Midas had taken off the heat shield, shoved the exhaust against the gas tank and bolted everything down. They installed a pre-fitted catback system as the customer had asked. Investigating we found that the engine in the car was a replacement from a Regal with a different rear manifold. This put the entire exhaust out of wack. The factory exhaust, being much smaller than the 3” ZZP exhaust didn’t have a problem.
Had the customer purchased his part and had it installed at the same place, the shop would have been responsible. With 2 shops involved the customer was responsible for the entire repair. Had a shop experienced with 3800’s installed the exhaust, they would have noticed the different factory rear manifold and taken care of the issue during the install.
A customer from VA had a coolant leak and the car ran poorly. He took it to the dealer who replaced the supercharger and intake gaskets. Gave it back but the problems persisted so he returned and they replaced a ‘cracked lower intake’. Gave the car back but it still had problems. They told him the head gaskets were bad and replaced them. The problem was still there and they said that the heads were cracked. They wanted to replace them and he called ZZP. They wanted so much for factory heads that he could buy ZZP ported heads and pay for us to install them. He shipped the car here. We found that they had lost one of the throttle body spacer studs and replaced it with a bolt. The bolt bottomed out just as it appeared to tighten the TB. This caused the throttle body to not seal properly. Coolant to the TB leaked and got ingested into the engine. Total cost to dealer? Close to 3 grand. Total cost to get his car here? Around $500. Repair bill at ZZP? Less than $200.
An shop experienced with aftermarket products would have found this problem. Any shop that knows the 3800, would know that lower intakes do not crack.
A car came in from CT that barely ran. Customer had been working on it for over a year with a friend who knows the car helping him. We discovered valve springs were installed with the wrong retainers giving him 55# of seat pressure. One injector connector had RTV in it and was not making connection to the injector causing it to run on 5 cylinders. Head gaskets had RTV on them causing a loss of seal. Once these issues were fixed this 3800 with an XP cam and intercooler only dyno’d ~220WHP, had KR and high boost. We determined that the double roller was installed too far advanced and tore it back down. We were incorrect and later discovered the exhaust was so restrictive that we picked up over 80WHP by changing the cat back to better stuff.
Any shop can have a hard time fixing large problems including ZZP. A backyard mechanic doesn’t have the tools or experience to know what could be wrong with a setup.
A customer from WI with every high end mod we sell for an M90 car could not run faster than mid 12’s. They spent nearly 15k in ZZP parts and did a meticulous job with the install. All scans seemed perfect but the car just didn’t run the times. We dyno’d it and it made ~300WHP. After some time we tried removing the RT cat to see if that would help. The car picked up 60WHP and we tuned from there.
It’s not possible without a dyno to know if your car is making the power that it should.
I high end build that should have run low 11’s was stuck in high 11’s. The car had already dyno’d over 400WHP and we had not changed anything. It took 3 days to figure out that we had changed something. We had painted the alternator bracket and it wasn’t making a good ground with the engine. Adding a ground wire dropped 4 tenths off the car’s ET.
Sometimes simple problems are the hardest to find. When you say you didn’t change anything, you better literally mean it!
A customer with our centrifugal kit in Canada was having problems getting the power out of his car. He added a complex wet nitrous kit at an installed price of over 2k. The car ran 14’s. Taking a long drive to ZZP, we removed the nitrous kit, discovered the RT cat was not flowing well and removed it. We then invited our customer to come to the track with us and with our driver piloted the car to run 11.7.
Off brand and RT cats often don’t flow well on high HP builds. Many times these cats can still be seen through giving the impression of high flow and low restriction. Only dyno testing can often reveal the problem.
--------------------------------------
After MANY MANY issues with this engine I've finally given up with this car. I had to pull the motor apart Three times before my machine shop(s) could get it balanced "Right". And then a rod let go because one of my machine shops shaved material off the small end of the rod (to balance it) and it let go of the wrist pin at 6000 RPMS. Made a mess of the Block, and the $900 JE piston set (4 pistons are still good). As soon as I get it back together its getting sold. Thanks for the help thus far, ill be looking into buying a G8 GT.
Buying a ZZP engine has its advantages. We recommend always using a shop you can trust with experience.
|
