faithless

Hi guys,

I'm inquiring about a 951 in the autotrader. I talked to the PO and it sounds like the exact specimen I've been looking for. White ext. tan int. 1987. What I would like to know is what any of you have heard about the local shop "Stuttgart Southwest" in Tempe. The PO says he has been taking the car to these guys for the past 5 years. Any opinions/information? Thanks!

Sam Lin

Good shop. Do a search in this section for more info.

Sam

faithless

Thanks for that advice! Yes they do seem to be one of the best then don't they! Thats nice and comforting, since this car has been in their hands for the past 5 years...

Sounds like I should try and get to know Joe.

Also, if I decided to get a PPI done, what would be the best place to get it done? I wouldn't go to Stuttgart Southwest, just because of the fact that they might not want to tell me something that the PO wouldn't want them to tell me. Not that I think they are untrustworthy, but I'd rather get a 100% honest inspection, with no possible catches. Sounds like Chris at Technodyne would be the best place?

Sam Lin

Technodyne is no more, Chris has moved to CO and is now Premier Motorsports.

I'd trust Stuttgart, or Don Jackson.

Sam

faithless

Oh yeah, forgot bout' Don Jackson! How much does a PPI generally run? Do the guys let you stand under the car and let you ask tons of questions? Sounds like a ball!

Sam Lin

Send me an e-mail.

Sam

Jeremy Himsel

Stuttgart is a decent shop #2 if you ask me. Sometimes their troubleshooting skills are marginal when it is not straight mechanical stuff (electrical, drivability, funky smells) and I've known of a few circumstances where they fixed a replaced quite a few parts on a vehicle and the problem still existed. I had them go through my head last year and they didn't follow my instructions regarding the valve guides so they took an extra week. The flip side of that is I purchased a car that had a rebuilt motor by them. When I pulled it apart they did a very nice job of assembling it and I even picked up a few tricks on sealing the case. Overall I wouldn't shy away from any vehicle that has been regularly maintained by them.

Don Jackson is the best IMHO. They've been around a long time and are great bunch to do business with. The follow the book strictly and won't do anything that doesn't resemble OEM unless you ask them to. A few years ago they had a guy Roland that has cut a few corners of a few guys cars which kind of sucked (I think he works at Stuttgart now). He's long gone now and only the family works there now. Don has been working on p-cars since the 60's.

Becks is # 3. I've seen a few cars that they worked on that I thought were marginal at best. I do believe having a cheap vehicle owner trying to keep the repair bill down was a contributing factor. They do have a decent following though.

Stay away from Exotic Motorwerks. They are a hack shop and the lawn mower repair guy at sears is a better option. They did a rebuild on a RL member's car and it was really, really bad. He brought the car to me a week later and it was mickey moused together, the water pump was seizing up, it didn't make boost, was way over priced, they used the cheapest/incorrect hardware and less then 2 years after the rebuild the car is leaking like a strainer. I have a ton of stories about them but I can't type all day.

Good luck.

azmi951

My car had work done by Chris at Technodyne ( I now work with one of his formar employees) and then by Stutgartt when Chris moved to CO.

At 155k miles my car is still ticking away beautifly. Anyone who has been to a PCA event in the Phoenix region may know it. It belonged to Paul Kujawa (sp) and is white with a burgandy interior he suposidly went to a great number of events.

M758

I remember meeting Paul at few track days a few years back. That was when I was still doing DE's. Never did many PCA events. Mostly NASA(now proautosports) and ASRA.

z3bra

One thing with Stuttgart Southwest, they seem to be very honest about things.

They don't go by book hours, they go by actual hours for labor. Jack, who's the owner, explained that as being better because techs aren't rushing through stuff to get as many book hours as they can get knocked out in the least amount of actual time and the techs are also more willing to help each other out on things that way when something comes up that needs more than one person to do it.

My biggest gripe, and it's not Stuttgart Southwest's direct fault, is the parts shop that shares the building with them. It's a separate business but they do have some sort of relationship established that makes them the de facto parts dept for Stuttgart Southwest. The guy that runs the parts portion is certainly a nice enough guy, but he doesn't take credit or debit cards which makes doing business with them a pain in the ***. Because of that I'll usually drive up to Don Jackson for parts instead of buying from him even though he's only about 5 miles from the house vs. 25 to Don Jackson's shop. I wouldn't mind paying enough more for the parts or having him pass a transaction charge along to me so that he doesn't have to pay the processing fees if he'd just take plastic.

That said, I think Don Jackson knows what they're doing as well as being nice guys that have always been willing to answer questions for me even though I'm only buying parts instead of having them work on the car which also keeps me going out of my way to buy parts from them.

Jeremy Himsel

I recently had an ex-AZ shop owner contact me about this post and asked me to reevaluate it. To be quite honest I probably was a bit out of line and unfair on my first two and last sentences. I guess my hands got ahead of my ***. The car I'm referring to was not worked on by the owner of the shop and I'm told it was one of his techs that did the R&R. While I have no direct experience with the owner (Dan), I hear that he is really good with the water cooled cars and his spec 944 cars make quite a bit of HP. Ultimately it is still the shop owner's responsibility to ensure that every car that leaves the shop with a level of quality that reflects the shops image. In this case that didn't happen as it should have which leads me to believe they're still at the bottom of the local list but probably not as far off as I originally suggested. As far as the "ton of stories I have" a few of them are second hand, and the others involve circumstances related to service and satisfaction following the botched rebuild. Maybe Exotic is worth giving a shot these days as I'm sure some things have changes but I think it should be approached cautiously.

faithless

z3bras post brings up another question:

Which shop sells OEM 951 parts for the best price?

I live in Scottsdale, so I believe one close shop is Powerhaus? I could care less how far it is, because I drive into Tempe every weekday as it is. I want to do almost all the work myself, so I'll be interested in picking up parts for the best deal.

tifosiman

Hey Jeremy, that was admirable of you to come back and post that.

In my book, however, an entire shop is only as good as it's lowliest tech (in agreement with you). I have had a few instances where I have had issues with shops goofing things up and heard the excuses like "this guy is new" or "it was that tech, not the owner". To me it is all the same. Needless to say I do most of my own work now anyway, and if it is something big I have a very trusted p-car mech I take mine to locally that works by himself.

z3bra

Faithless, I typically order from Don Jackson or a place down on 32nd street and broadway (approximately) called Autohaus. Autohaus is cheaper but they can't get a lot of the rarer 944 specific stuff whereas Don Jackson can. Normal maintainence parts are usually no problem though. For example I got tie rod ends from them for about 60 bucks each vs about twice that at most places.

The primary caveat with Autohaus is that they don't do counter sales. You have to order ahead of time and then just pick it up as a will-call since they don't have a "parts counter" type setup that they look stuff up for you. If you have Porsche P/N's it's no big deal as their website can usually find them based on that, they're tough to get through to on the phone sometimes. I'm happy with prices and most of what they sell is OEM. The big catch is they're not quite as convenient to shop at. The website for Autohaus is http://www.autohausaz.com

As for Powerhaus, they're more of a modification shop and considering they don't even post prices (they just list $Call) for the few maintainence oriented things listed on their website, I'm guessing they're overpriced as all hell.

Sam Lin

I go through Sunset Porsche, Zims, or Lindsey Racing for nearly all of my parts orders. Just plan work a couple days ahead, it's always cheaper even after shipping.

Sam