Turbo Negro
Lookin' for 10's
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
I bought a bone stock 87 GN about a year ago with 98k mi's on the clock. The car was in decent shape, and ran well. It was all there, & it all worked.
I immediately began reading & asking questions here about restoration & upgrades. I learned alot in a short time, thanks to the TB Community.
I started with a basic spring cleaning, then went about acquiring all of the basic bolt-on's listed in my signature from vendors, & more recently from a couple of members (new trans, converter, & turbo).
I also relied on a member here, that owns a local shop, for installation of all the new parts. It didn't exactly go as well as I would have liked, but he has offered to make it up to me. And here is where your input is needed. I spent right around $5k there, spread over 3 visits. Each time my car was in the shop for 2-3 weeks.
The first phase included rebuilding the suspension, brakes, a/c, body mounts, upgrading the entire fuel system, exhaust, cold air intake, and adding alcohol injection. When I picked the car up, I was told they had accidentally swapped the front control arms on the car L to R, & had a hard time aligning it until they figured it out. Also 2 of the new body bushings could not be bolted in, so they were sandwiched in place with no bolts. I was told the alky controller had been sent back, checked out, returned, and re-installed, and was working, but with no led lights. The boost was set at 20#'s and the Alky was not spraying. By the time I got the car home, I had an audible vacuum/boost leak under the hood. 2 days later the a/c was blowing warm again.
I fixed the vac/boost leak, then trouble shot the alky system with Razor on the phone & found a bad splice on the ground wire for the controller, which I repaired.
The second phase was to fix a leaking rear main seal, replace original oil pump, & timing set. I drove the car home to find an oil leak on the filter adapter housing. I had to replace an o-ring that had been pinched during installation. I later discovered the timing chain tensioner I supplied with the new TA set had never been installed. It re-appeared in the trunk of the car during the next phase.
Phase 3: Trans, converter, Precision SLIC, & new 62/62 turbo. The converter had to be sent back, wouldn't fit the trans input shaft. A bur in the splines was found. It was repaired under warranty. Got home with the car, put on 100+ miles before getting into any boost, then at 5lbs... POP! Blew the up-pipe off. One of the T Clamps was not tightened properly. The brand new intercooler has 2-3" of fins mashed together in a few areas where it looks like someone drug a finger across them. And last but not least, the wastegate hole on the new turbo was not ported before going on.
So now what? The owner of the shop admittedly told me he is burned-out, doesn't even want to work on his own turbo Buick anymore, and has been letting his helper work virtually unsupervised on my car! He did take responsibility, apologize, & offer to make it up, though. I told him "I didn't know how, at this point I'm not really comfortable having any more work done there".
So what's all this worth??? What should or could he do to make this right?
I immediately began reading & asking questions here about restoration & upgrades. I learned alot in a short time, thanks to the TB Community.
I started with a basic spring cleaning, then went about acquiring all of the basic bolt-on's listed in my signature from vendors, & more recently from a couple of members (new trans, converter, & turbo).
I also relied on a member here, that owns a local shop, for installation of all the new parts. It didn't exactly go as well as I would have liked, but he has offered to make it up to me. And here is where your input is needed. I spent right around $5k there, spread over 3 visits. Each time my car was in the shop for 2-3 weeks.
The first phase included rebuilding the suspension, brakes, a/c, body mounts, upgrading the entire fuel system, exhaust, cold air intake, and adding alcohol injection. When I picked the car up, I was told they had accidentally swapped the front control arms on the car L to R, & had a hard time aligning it until they figured it out. Also 2 of the new body bushings could not be bolted in, so they were sandwiched in place with no bolts. I was told the alky controller had been sent back, checked out, returned, and re-installed, and was working, but with no led lights. The boost was set at 20#'s and the Alky was not spraying. By the time I got the car home, I had an audible vacuum/boost leak under the hood. 2 days later the a/c was blowing warm again.
I fixed the vac/boost leak, then trouble shot the alky system with Razor on the phone & found a bad splice on the ground wire for the controller, which I repaired.
The second phase was to fix a leaking rear main seal, replace original oil pump, & timing set. I drove the car home to find an oil leak on the filter adapter housing. I had to replace an o-ring that had been pinched during installation. I later discovered the timing chain tensioner I supplied with the new TA set had never been installed. It re-appeared in the trunk of the car during the next phase.
Phase 3: Trans, converter, Precision SLIC, & new 62/62 turbo. The converter had to be sent back, wouldn't fit the trans input shaft. A bur in the splines was found. It was repaired under warranty. Got home with the car, put on 100+ miles before getting into any boost, then at 5lbs... POP! Blew the up-pipe off. One of the T Clamps was not tightened properly. The brand new intercooler has 2-3" of fins mashed together in a few areas where it looks like someone drug a finger across them. And last but not least, the wastegate hole on the new turbo was not ported before going on.
So now what? The owner of the shop admittedly told me he is burned-out, doesn't even want to work on his own turbo Buick anymore, and has been letting his helper work virtually unsupervised on my car! He did take responsibility, apologize, & offer to make it up, though. I told him "I didn't know how, at this point I'm not really comfortable having any more work done there".
So what's all this worth??? What should or could he do to make this right?
