GaryJ

Hi Guys:

A few years ago I started a project on my 79 928 and researched around and found a mechanic not too far away from me with a good reputation and experience building the 5 Liter Hybrid engine and also the stroker engines on the 32 valve cars.

It took two and a half years to complete the build and he admitted he just didn’t do anything for over a year, plus during that year he didn’t respond to my e-mails or phone calls. He is not too far away from but over 200 miles so no quick trip. He finally finished the job and the car ran great.

The car was built with the idea of half a dozen track day per year and some GT duty. After a few days of driving I noticed a few drops of oil on the garage floor, it took some pictures of the floor and sent them to the mechanic and kept a close eye on the oil but I wasn’t really showing any loss. The mechanic said it didn’t look like a big deal and when I bring it back for the check-up he should be able to get rid of it.

I went on a run with the local 928 group, the car ran well and was only down less than half a quart. I had a track day scheduled so I called the mechanic to make sure everything was a go. I had only had the car two weeks but the mechanic had put on about 900 miles breaking it in and I had added another 300 so it was a clean bill of health for the track. The mechanic suggested I get a particular type of oil and maybe slightly over fill the car for the track.

I showed up at the track ready to run and since I hadn’t had the car for 3 years and they had changed the track a bit since then I signed up for the novice class with an instructor. I checked the oil and filled it slightly above the full line. The first session was pretty much a series of parade laps with the last 5 allowed to be hot but not really any passing.

I went out for the second session and the car was running great. I came up behind a mid 80’s 911 Turbo and I was closing on him pretty easily which I didn’t expect. As I got close to the Turbo we heard a slight warbling sound and I figured the waste gate on the Turbo was having a problem which explained why I was closing on him so easily. He waved me around on the back straight and I passed him but the warbling didn’t go away. I pulled off into the pits right away and when I came to a stop the oil pressure light came on so I parked the car and let it cool for a couple of minutes.

I checked the oil but it didn’t register on the stick. I put the other quart of oil I had brought with me in but it still didn’t register on the stick. My instructor was nice enough to give me a ride to the local auto parts store and I picked up some more oil. Three quarts later and it finally was up to the line. I started the car and the oil pressure was fine but there was a slight ticking sound. I called the mechanic right away and he said to be on the safe side I should tow the car to my house and he would come down and take a look the following week.

The mechanic showed up with a trailer and decided I shouldn’t even start the car so we just pushed it on the trailer and he took it back to his shop. I called him a couple of times but again I didn’t get any response so I decided to head up there and I found him in the shop. He showed me the drain plug and said there are some pieces of what look like bearing on it so he is going to have to strip the engine down. The happened July of 2009, one year ago, over the past year I have called and emailed two to three time a month with no response. I stopped by three times but he wasn’t there and remember this is almost a 500 mile round trip for me.

I finally heard back from the mechanic yesterday almost exactly one year since he came down and picked up the car. The build cost me over 20K with the mechanic and I paid for the heads, block, trans, and rear axle separately. (the 20K was for the engine build, transmission and rear axle swap, polishing of the spider, and a custom exhaust) He told me he could find nothing wrong with the engine that would cause it to loose oil so I must have just let it run low on oil and the engine burned up. He said I would need another rebuild but he would give me 20% off the labor. I was pretty shocked and disappointed by this news I thought for sure he was fixing the car while he had it this past year and he was being slow since he had to do it on his dime. After all I had only had the car for three weeks.

I did not neglect the car and run it out of oil, I actually topped it up less that an hour before the engine let go. But even so how can he say that that in less than 3 the car would lose all of its oil and there was nothing wrong with the engine?

Here are my questions.

Does his opinion make any sense at all?

Am I wrong to feel he should be fixing the car at no cost?

Should I even let him do the next rebuild?

If he insists I pay the full freight minus a small labor discount should I just retrieve my car and find a new mechanic for the next build and sue him for the next build cost?

Any ideas to resolve this in fair and amenable manor?

At this point I feel I am being taken advantage of since I let him of without even harsh words when the original build took so long and now he has the car for a full year without communicating with me and now wants me to pay for the engine part of the build again.

Your thoughts and possible solutions are welcome I am afraid I am just too close to this and too frustrated to make a clear and fair decision. Like most of us money is not as easy to come by as when I started this build almost 4 years ago.

Thanks,

Gary

Mike LaBranche

I would find another mechanic. You are measuring time in years... and that's just absurd. I don't care how good he is [sic].

atb

This isn't going to get any better with this mechanic, I would give up any chance of having him warrantying his labor or parts unless you had received it in writing ahead of time.
Get your car back, and if you want to pursue it legally you need to have your motor disassembled by a mechanic who can qualify to testify as an expert witness and state affirmatively that you're motor failed due to the negligent build by the earlier mechanic. Short of that, I think it's a write-off.
Track motors have a reputation for breaking unexpectedly, and even though we in the 928 community know differently a jury won't.

GaryJ

Thanks Mike, very clear and simple.

GregBBRD

There has to be more to this story.

Where did the 5 quarts of oil go? If it wasn't leaking out of the engine like a slashed artery, it would have smoked so badly that they would not have let you even get on the track. It didn't just disappear...

GaryJ

Hi Adam:

Thank you for your thoughts and since you are in my area you probably have understand the situation well.

This wasn't a track motor it was a build to be used occasionally on track days but by no means a race engine and the mechanic understood this and we didn't go to maximize HP so we would build a nice and stable engine.

I had hopped to resolve this in an equitable fashion but I guess this shouldn't be my goal.

He has had the car a year now and disassembled the engine so he really could give me back any collection of parts and claim that it was my engine so I don't think I would be able to get another mechanics opinion since I doubt he would give me anything back that shows he may have done something wrong.

I can't help feeling that I have been abused but I guess there is no remedy for that.

Thanks,

Gary

GaryJ

Hi Greg:

I completely agree with you! It was a Porsche track day there were corner workers everywhere so if I was burning oil or dripping oil they would have had a black flag flying at me. That is the question I have been trying to get an answer to, where did the oil go. He said it just ran out of oil, it can't run out of oil in 20 minutes and believe me I wasn't driving the card hard yet and the instructor said he would be glad to talk to the mechanic and verify that.

It is hard for me to completely believe the mechanic since he had the car for a year without contacting me despite my best efforts.

How could a car lose so much oil and not be burning it or as best I know not leaving it on the track.

Thanks,

GaryJ

Hi Greg again,

Here is some information that might make more sense to you than it does to me. When I asked him to explain the oil drops on my garage floor he said that he had used a clemetic (sp?) head gasket and there was a small area that it didn't seal but it wasn't critical and wouldn't explain the oil loss but at this point I am not sure I believe him.

Thanks,

Gary

danglerb

How do you spend $20k on a 5.0L hybrid build?

4 quarts of oil isn't going to poof in 20 min on the track, something happened. Didn't you see any drop in oil pressure before the light came on?

20% off on labor is bogus, pick up the car and parts and get a second opinion on whats wrong.

mark kibort

what a disaster! Yep, you have to find out where the oil was going. you lost oil, and the engine grenaded. a leaky head gasket, cometic (its how its spelled), is a tricky head gasket to install, and if he didnt install it right, then you could have water leaks into the oil, but I dont think really the other way around. burning oil takes time, expecially to consume, near a gallon.
a rebuild on a 928 engine, with nothing really special (like boring, alusi'lling, etc) is a couple of day job. all you really are doing is installing bearings, pistons, crank, etc. the only hard part is removing the engine. (3-5 hours) and putting it back in (5-8 hours). Its not a multiple year process.
I feel your pain. especially the driving, calling and no response for the year.
time to find someone a little closer.

mark kibort

what did he show you on the drain plug? nothing in a bearing failure really shows up on the drain plug because bearing pieces are not magnetic. the filter will hold the determinant factors.

get the car back and find another mechanic.

by the way, what hybrids has he built? do you know of the owners?
Its kind of a small club and most that have done it have posted here. Its not like its a big project, and we as racers, dont do anything to the rebuild to make it a racer or a street car. all stock tollerances will be fiine for as hard as you can beat on it.

what kind of oil were you using?

Burned up the motor? what does that mean? did he tell you of the damage and details of it?

mk

IcemanG17

no 5L hybrid should cost anywhere near $20k.......time to find a new mechanic......Doc Brown could get you a 6.5L Stroker for close to that amount......and it would run for a long long time too

The only way 928 engines fail in such short time is two ways:

1: assembly error (could be as short as 2 hours run time)
2: Bad parts (typically rod bearings....might last a while under light load....10 hours at race pace)

atb

Not that I'm Mr. Experience, but I've never known Cometics to leak oil. If anything they will weep coolant, anybody every heard of this? Just curious.

GaryJ

Hi Danglerb:

The 20K was for a little more than just the engine build, trans and axle were swapped out, the suspension was upgraded, a custom exhaust was made, polishing of the intake, and some work on the brakes. If everything worked fine I wouldn't feel ripped off but I do feel I paid top dollar for a professional and shouldn't be facing what I am facing.

GaryJ

Hi Mark:

Thanks for the post and I did follow your posts and advice before I started the build.

He just showed me the drain plug and said there were bits of bearing on it, I really didn't see anything.

There was definitely oil dripping before the track day and I sent pictures of the garage floor to the mechanic.

He said the cometics gasket casket was a slightly different shape and didn't seal one area that would allow some oil to splash in to a chamber that only had a paper gasket and would allow the oil to seep out, but he said it wouldn't have caused all the oil loss.

At this point I am not naming names the mechanic's or other customers but his reputation in this area was good for building motors and he lived somewhere else before where a lot of cars were modified back in the day.

Thanks

Gary