should I get a lawyer involved.

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boostedf22

dis is why im not
So lets start from the top to understand it all. Just got a turbo kit for my f22b1 motor. Not having any knowlegde of boosting Hondas, I asked for a Professional Tuner. Mark Brauning was recommended by a good friend of mine . Just from here-say. So I go to Brauning Motorsports . Get there about 10:30 am. After sitting around for 4-5 hours and nothing being done. They finally get a sec. And asked me a few questions. One was what has been done to motor . I replied all stock except I was informed when I bought this LOW mileage motor from Japan, it was Sleeved with Cast Iron Sleeves. And 550cc injectors. Ask me what boost am I looking for. Well talking to many , many , many other boosted accords, with my application I should get 14psi from my turbo. Most of them had 250 to even 335 whp on all Stock motors, so Brauning replied thats alot of boost on my motor. Comp ratio was way to high. Said my comp ratio was like 10.2:1. I replied it has 8.8:1. I know this . He argued it was not that low. Whatever. So he proceeded to hook up the Gm 3 bar map sensor. Sets a base map for the S100. Pulls it up on the Dyno. Makes about 10 Dyno power pulls, no more, burning the chip each time. OK HE'S DONE !!! Ok 233whp on 14psi from a t3t4oe, and 231fpt. I thought it was a little less than others on the same page as me . So ok I pay the 640 bill. Go to leave and yeah I hot rod it leaving . Coming out of third gear, BOOM, and the white cloud appears. So I drive it back, PISSSED OFF !!!!!!!!! They acted immediately like the tune had nothing to do with it, before I said anything. So I said FIX IT !! And lets get some upgrades so I can run 25-30psi on my motor. Come to find out my piston ring lands broke as they said after the motor was taken out and disassembled. The list of upgrades include, Darton Mid Sleeves, Carillo Rods, Weisco 9.2:1 pistons(stating with those I will lower the motors Compression which is ideal for boost), ACL bearings, rings and gaskets.

After expediting the machine work and parts, I get my car back in about 3 1/2 weeks. Which is good turn around time from what I hear. Excited about my built motor, so I can get on it and get some real power from the motor, I go and get it Saturday. He said " I set a base map for the ecu so you cant hurt the motor. Its in limp mode, retarded the timing another 8 degrees and raised the fuel flow to 30% richer so you cant hurt the motor during break in time. I said ok I dont want to hurt my motor thats for sure. So I pay the 5900 bill, and leave. Uhhhh WTF I can barely accelerate . I mean the car is running like DOG SH*T, definetly not what I was expecting after 6k. I dont make it a 1/4 mile and turn it around. Another thing is I didnt have a cover on my ECU. So I approach Mark Brauning and say " my car runs like sh*t. He said that is normal and its going to be like that until I break in the motor. I just agreed thinking he might have known what he was talking about. I drive the POS home 1 1/2 hours . I park the car and leave it alone for about 4-5 hours. Oh yeah another thing I used one FULL tank of fuel driving about 90 miles. INSANE !!!! I go to start my car and NOTHING, won't even start. I call Mark and he says the fuel is so rich its going to foul out my spark plugs. I replaced the plugs and nothing changes. OK he thinks its the ecu, so I drive 3 hours on a tuesday night to get my ecu. I need my car to drive to work . The rentals was killing me for 4 weeks. I get another ecu and hey the car starts and works. He said " I will give you the same tune you had when you were dyno tuned at 233whp, but I will make it alittle bit richer so it helps the rings seat. Piston rings need the fuel to help them seat." Ok the car runs a little better but trying to take it easy on the throttle and the car is just jumping and studdering like crazy !!! You have to give it full throttle to accelerate and not jerk you around so bad. Then my idle goes crazy, I lose all power and the speedo goes crazy and bounces all over the place. I take it back once again on that friday.
So getting up there about 10am, they start trying to fix why the car runs so horrible, 4 - 5 hours later he trys to send me home with a car thats in worst shape now then it was in before I brought in there. So I argued til I was blue in the face and after getting to a stage of cussing everyone, thats when the attitude changed. Ok a tech started working on the car, just looking at it, a few wires on the harness is messed up. That should have been addressed when the motor was installed, not to mention when the motor was installed the oil return line was pinched against the fan shroud cutting it and leaking oil all down the oil pipe. When I picked up the car on that Sat. he said my car will be smoking for a while from where I blew it and dumped 2 quarts of oil down the exhaust, so I never paid much attention to the smoke. Well after checking through the motor one day and saw oil all over everything, I saw the line all wet. I drained the oil and maybe I mean maybe 2 quarts of oil came out. I see they had to break more of the fan shroud to get it in there, but I didnt have that problem thats for sure. So then I was looking at the car and trying to figure out the idle and why it wouldn't stay running. Also the egr valve went bad they say, so the tune was off from when he tried to tune it earlier. It still drove horrible. No speedo but vtec. They proceed to retune it on the dyno and it pulled on 156 whp at 9psi, UHHHH something doesn't sound right. I was just so happy to see my car stay running so I can drive it the hell home. I left that night at 8:30pm with a 150 dollar bill, for tuning my car that should have ran when I got it . what tops it all, the car still runs like crap , no power . So I need someone who can actually tune a car !!!!! The customer service and workmenship is horrible, from my experience. Tried to blame the cars actions on everything but what they have touched. You know, my car was acting fine when they got it and it hasn't ran right since Brauning motorsports touched it !!!
Think I should get a lawyer involved. Sorry its long.
 
well you totally got ass raped, and if i were you id want to do something about it.
not sure what you could do, but calling a lawyer cant hurt
 
You can get a lawyer involved, but honestly it probably isn't going to do a whole lot of good. Yes, from your story it does sound like you got screwed over; however, unless there was paperwork signed it's your word against his...and if there WAS paperwork signed I can just about GUARANTEE you that somewhere on there it says 'For off-road use only' and 'no warranty is expressed or implied', both of which are going to make your entire argument null and void. As far as your first 'bad' experience, with the 'mystery modded' motor that blew up, you can't really blame him for that. You came in with a motor that you 'think' had sleeves and injectors done to it, but with no real knowledge of what could have actually been done to the motor. You claimed that it had 8:1 compression, with no real way of knowing what the compression could actually be, and he wanted to tune accordingly and safely. The fact that your motor blew the first time really isn't his fault at all.

Even though that wasn't his fault, that should still have been enough to convince you NOT to go back to him. Very rarely do I have a bad experience with someone and then continue to do business with them, regardless of who's at fault, MUCH LESS would I go back and spend 6 grand with them. IMO that's your own fault; if you had doubts in the shop after your first experience with them, you shouldn'tve gone back to them. I'm not saying you didn't get the short end of the stick in this situation...but sometimes with things like this you need to just live and learn.

You can get a lawyer, and take it to court, but then you're going to pay shitloads in lawyer fees, be in and out of court all the time, and in the end what's more than likely going to happen is you aren't going to come up with anything more than you already have. The court is more than likely going to say that the work performed on your car was done so without any warranty whatsoever, and as soon as your car left the shop you were on your own.

If you want to go ahead and give it a shot, be my guest...but it's my advice to you that you're probably better off moving on and saving yourself more of a headache.
 
I was informed my car had a warranty. When I approched him on the sat and told him my car runs like shit . Uhh he said I can give you all the power in the world. But it voids your warranty. I said well fuck that !!! I knew that I had 550 injectors. All f series come with cast iron sleeves. So it was all stock and had 8.1 comp ratio .
 
When you picked up the car after the built motor did you have to sign anything or pay the full bill? If so, then you took posession and they can argue that you did something out of the norm. You can try a lawyer but I think you're fucked unfortunately.

Post this story on one of those lawyer forums. B posted a link for me once that turned out to be VERY helpful. I posted my question and within an hour there was a team of lawyers debating each other on the best way to attack the situation. Google legal advice forums :)
 
I was informed my car had a warranty.

Do you have it in writing?

If you don't have anything in writing, you're fucked.
If you have paperwork that says 'for off road use only' or 'no warranty is implied', or even if the paperwork says nothing at all about a warranty, you're fucked.

The only way you've got any chance at all is if you have signed paperwork specifically stating that you have a warranty, and also specifically stating what that warranty covers.

Other than that, it's your word against his...which, sad to say, won't hold up in court.
 
but what i am getting at is when i picked up the car and paid,. the car has not been right sense. I informed Mark of this and he said that is the way its susposed to be, the other 5 techs say no way. I paid for something and didnt get what I paid for .
 
is your car still in the break in period?
8 degrees of timing retardation is gonna have a drastic effect on your power
wait for your final tune

but either way you got fucked
 
None the less, he can still say it was fine when you left and he cant prove or disprove how you treated the car.
 
Should you get a lawyer? No. Consult with one first, but i highly doubt youll get anywhere. Granted verbal agreements are as good as paper, but then the kicker lies in the proof, unless you recorded your conversations you have nothing.

What warranty are you talking about? One provided from Brauning or from a dealer?
 
Try to work it out with the tuner. Get the Better business bureau involved.

And get some realistic goals. What would it take to make this a fair transaction for both parties involved? Its tough to say, because you had so much work done on the second motor. I assume the motor is in good shape, just has bad electrical and/or tune issues?

What would be a fair outcome for you?
 
but what i am getting at is when i picked up the car and paid,. the car has not been right sense. I informed Mark of this and he said that is the way its susposed to be, the other 5 techs say no way. I paid for something and didnt get what I paid for .

Yes, we realize that...and what I'm getting at is paying a lawyer probably isn't going to get you anywhere. If you do not have in writing SPECIFICALLY that you have a warranty, and SPECIFICALLY what the warranty will/would cover, and SPECIFICALLY what you paid him to do, you aren't going to accomplish anything by going to court. If the only evidence you have proving your side of the story is your word, and don't have anything hardcopy, you might as well take it to Judge Judy, and I'm not saying that to be a dick at all. Your word against his will NOT hold up in a court of law. Unless there is written (and for that matter, signed by both parties) proof of what he said he would do, you probably will not win a court case.

Sure, your car might be blown up at this point...that doesn't make any difference. You wouldn't be the first kid to pull a car out of a shop after having a badass build put in, get a few miles down the road, romp the shit out of the car and blow it less than an hour from getting it back from the shop. This I know from first-hand experience.

If you have signed paperwork stating that you have a warranty, exactly what the warranty covers, and exactly what was supposed to be done to the car, you might have a chance. Otherwise, save yourself the lawyer's fees and chalk this one up as a lesson learned.
 
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