Judson951

Ok this is my deal I bought my car about a month and a half ago. So I set up an appt. with a very good shop in town to do a whole front nose job on it. (timing belt, water pump ect.) So the appt was Aug 23rd. It is now 25 day's later and still my damn car is not fixed. Granted they have only had it for 18 business day's. I also took in my exhaust and chips for them to put in while it was there. And they have not even touched them yet. I dont want to be an *** and bug the **** out of them everyday and then they dont do quality work.But I want my damn car back. So back to my title what the hell can I do?

OriginalSterm

pick up the car, find a new shop. i've had my car sit at places for a long time as well. very frustrating and can be more frustrating that paying a little too much to get it done in a timely manner. 25 days now, who knows when it will be done?

theedge

Start bugging them... I did my waterpump job myself in 7 days, and that including going to work, waiting for and picking up parts, buying or making the needed tools, and taking my sweet *** time so as no to screw anything up. Shop time for a waterpump job is 8 or 10 hours IIRC, and the belts and rollers and such are best done at the same time for a good reason, because they have to be removed ANYWAY to do the pump. If youre having the front seals done, that would add a few hours.

Chips should take an hour tops, getting to the boxes requires lifting a velcroed sheet of carpet, undoing 6 or 8 screws/bolts, opening the box (four more little screws I bet), swapping the chips, then reverse.

Exhaust, well certainly not THAT long...

Is this an actual repuatable PORSCHE experienced shop, or guys who mistook your car for a Mazda but said "Sure we'll give it a go!"????

Judson951

No they work on Porsches every day. Sam Grant took his car there before also. They always do great work.

SamGrant951

Its a privately owned foreign car service shop. Porsches are always there, the part owner owns a 87 951 and has owned it since new. (14k miles btw) I used them exclusively from 97-02. They are good, but apparently somethings up over there. I feel for ya Justin, seriously sucks that they cant stick to a timeframe and deliver.

theedge

Might wanna call and ask about the status of your car then. IMHO, 18 business days is unacceptable for a fairly ""basic"" job like belts and waterpump and chips.I could see 18 days if it was a full blown engine removal, machining, rebuilding, etc etc but they should have NO problems doing the jobs youre paying them to do in the time suggested by the manuals, especially if they work on a lot of Porsches. Did they give you a date they said theyd be done by and a price estimate? Dont let them overcharge you, especially if theyre doing the age old thing of installing/replacing crap you didnt ask them to...

hacker-pschorr

They could very easily be having a parts issue with Porsche. Porsche has really changed their parts system over the past couple of years with a big change the past month. It's affected a few shops up here on almost every repair.

Tony K

Last summer, my 83 needed a head gasket. It was my daily driver, and I needed it done ASAP. I called the two most prominent, recommended, blah blah blah shops in Cowlumbus, and they both told me it would be a 3-4 week wait before they could get me in. They were tending to all of their regular customers, who obviously needed their race cars prepped for the next track day. i.e, we're still in the busy season.

I am glad that they told me up front that they could not fit me in, but at the same time, they just lost any chance of ever having me as a customer. If I ever need a shop again, I'll haul it up to Twinsburg.

I resolved my situation in the best way possible: I bought another 944! ...to drive daily. Then fixed the 83 myself as time permitted.

Luis de Prat

If their labor rate is overly competitive, I can see how work could pile up on them. When I first got my 83, I used to take it to a VW-Import shop in Louisville which was quite competent and had the best labor rate in town. They did a decent job, but every time you took the car in, it was a 1-2 week proposition.

In the end I figured it was worth the extra $10 per hour just to have the car back within a reasonable time. Good luck with it.

theedge

If I was in his spot and that was the problem causing this, id prolly be ok with it if they called me and told me. If they just hung onto my car without an update about something out of their control like that, well id be mighty pissed, MIGHTY pissed.

I see it has good business practice, ESPECIALLY when youre charging that person a crapload of money. A phone call isnt a big deal either, even if youre a mechanic. Thats just my opinion tho...

M758

Well that is what sucks about having a shop and get some in trouble.
Some guy comes in and needs work done. You know you have alot of work and get to it right away. You have two options.

1) Tell the customer "Sure bring it in!" Then hang on to it for few days hoping to slip it in where you can and get it out in reasonable time or hope the customer does not notice that took too long.

2) Tell the customer the truth and risk sending him going to another shop only to never have him return again.


The right answer for the shop is #2, but it very tough when guys just never come back. It can be tempting to bring them in and "hope"to sneak it through. Down side is exactly what the first poster had a problem with.

rpm's S2

I think this comes down to communication. What was their original time estimate? Have they called with an explanation or update?
If you are forced to bug them - rather than them calling you- then it is time to pull the car. All of this is a 1-2 day job, tops, unless they are having a specific problem. In which case they should have called.
Communication.

Serge944

A 1/4 decent "mechanic" can do the job in a single day. Ok...2 with the exhaust and chip.. Looks like your 944 is on the low priority list...must have a lot of 911's in right now!

Good luck getting it back.

slowazzporsche

Always when taking a car into a shop, give them a deadline. Something realistic like jobber plus 2 days, and that's if/when they get to it. What I mean is.. from the time it has hoist time, add that plus jobber and then 10-20% or so. I always do that, along with writing up EXACTLY what I want done and including a verbal estimate of time and money the shop gave me. Understandably one may run into problems but you're paying insurance right now, and that's wasted money to sit in some shop! Call them, ask the status, ask when it's expected to be done and ask what problems they've run into that it's taken 3 times the acceptable amount to finish it. It's not unreasonable to ask this, it's not harsh. When in business you're always given a deadline, construction, medicine, law, you name it. If you don't do this you end up having the car sit there for far more then the acceptable time.

I've had a car sit there for a week then I come to pick it up and turns out they didn't even get it up on a hoist, that's rediculous. Then they charge me to fix a problem and they didn't even fix it properly!

Judson951

The great thing about this whole deal is that I had an appt to drop the car off on the 23rd which I did. Then the car sat outside 2 weeks untill they even got it in the shop.