Beware Lake Texoma Area Engine Builder!
 

i know the board frowns on slamming other people, but after what i have been through i feel i need to disclose what happened.

i hiredthem to rebuild my engine in may of this year. i dropped it off at the end of may. the price was for a complete rebuild with a 1 year warranty. they said it would take 2 weeks. the price was competitive and the warranty sealed the deal. after dropping off my boat they failed to return my calls. the only way they would call me back is if i left a message stating i wanted to spend more money. they tried to install parts that i did not order and over charge me for them. a few thousand dollars worth of extra parts. that was most of the problem. i finally had them rebuild the engine then they wanted to charge me for pistons that they did not install. straightened this out and then they say they won't warranty my engine because someone else is installing the headers and that will void their warranty. whatever. just install the engine and let's stick to the original quote for a rebuild. i pick the boat up and find a few things installed half ass. this is expected since everything they have done so far has been half ass at best. i continue to find things installed incorrectly on my engine. tonight i find that they installed the power steering cooling and did not connect it to the power steering system. WTF?

is it so rough out there that they have to rob their customers of the service they paid for? i paid them in full for the agreed work and they can't even do the simplest things. they were 9 weeks to do a rebuild on an HP 500 and the engine has not run well ever since i've had it back. it just burns me up to see people cheat and steal from their customers so blatantly. did they think no one would see they didn't connect the power steering cooler? did they think i would allow them to charge for for items i did not ask them to install? they lied to me about everything. they even tried to tell me i did not have a standard bravo setup for the exhaust and wanted to charge me for custom tail pipes when i clearly have a standard bravo setup. the lies are one thing, but to steal from me by not performing the work i paid you for is beyond reason.

i know some of you will try to play the other side of this and tell me this that and something else. trust me that i have dealt with this situation properly throughout the rebuild ordeal and even threatend the "theft of services" issue on them earlier.

just take my word and do not use this area engine builder. they will lie and cheat you. i would not make such a bold statement if i hadn't just pulled my power steering cooler off the boat with the power steering hose not connected to the power steering.

email for details.

I'm sure your right and others are going to defend him, but think of this way, you just saved a lot of fellow high performance boaters a lot of time, money, and aggrevation.

I know a year or two from now when I decide to freshen up and supercharge my HP525EFI, I'm going with Innovation or Joey Gratton.

Good luck and thanks for the warning...

sorry for you...

is he from Turkey ?!?.sounds like he is from my boat builders family...

Dredgeking,
You did the right thing by letting us know. If you save one person the misery you are going through it is worth it. Hope you get everything straightened out.
Dan

i tried to contact american offshore, but they never responed to email or returned calls.

this engine builder makes you feel all warm and fuzzy before they cheat you out of services. no one near me offered a warranty and since he was crew chief for a super cat team, i thought he should know something. now i have a half ass engine with no warranty and now i have to check every nut and bold to see what other work he did not perform that i paid him to do.

candyman, the best way to straighten this out is to do it myself. i will perform all of my own work and have a local machine shop perform work under my direct supervision from now on. it's time for me to learn about engines. i paid the builder to do the work so that i would not have to do everything myself. a few friends offered to help me perform the work, but i did not want the inconvenience. i thought i would do the right thing and pay a "professional" to do it right. it has been too long for me to get any resolve out of the builder, but i did want to save someone else the troubles i have been through.

I feel your pain, I hope everything works out OK. I was crooked once too for about $40K. Letting everyone know was a great thing. Seems your were man enough to tell him to his face so you shouldnt feel bad about letting everyone know.I'm sure youll stand behind your actions. They have attorneys just for this type of instance. I hope you have good documentation and plenty of pictures. BOL Craig

there are no names since i felt that some of the pansie liberals would discuss law suits and blah blah blah. if sueing either party was in anyone's best interest, i should have and would have done so before this. this is not directed at you skaterize, but the others who feel that they should protect the names of thieves and liars. what good are the pictures i have? remind me how NOT to install an engine. i have great documentation, but all it does is tell me i paid for services i did not receive. will the engine builder confess to shoddy workmanship? no. are these things going to get my engine right? no. is sueing the rat bastard going to help me get my boat running properly? no. but telling the truth on the board and keeping a naive boater from making the same mistake i did will help someone esle.

like i said, this came to a head tonight when it was blatant that they cheated me out of services i paid for.

Crew Chief?

Sorry to hear about your problems and hope you get the boat worked out. Just because this guy is a crew chief does not automatically qualify him to rebuild engines. He should be able to rig a boat and not leave parts hanging, he should know what a Bravo looks like and he should respect other boaters and customers. Supercats do not have their engines built by their crew chiefs, they are sent out to an authorized professional.

Good luck with your problem.

talking about Leon? He came off as an ok guy. So, welcome to the club.

I wouldn't be opposed to naming names if I have proof. You can't lose a liable suit if what you say is true and you have proof. Yes they could sue you, but if they lose then that is even more proof that they cheated you.

It bothers me more when I get cheated then someone later says, ya, same thing happend to me, I could have told you that. That is what really irks me. Look at blister boy and Donzi, do you think he would have gotten satisfaction he hadn't raised all kinda hell? What about the guy that had the Bajaboats.com site that used to rip baja, but won an arbitration to keep from having to cough up the site name to Baja? I'm sorry but right is right and wrong is wrong.

People get away with this because no one is willing to step up and say how it is.

And now back to your regular programing.

what's done is done. i don't want to pursue it any farther. i've been cheated. i learned my lesson. i just want to save someone else the trouble.

I know how you feel
 

These guys sweet talk you just to get your stuff into their shop and then the honeymoon is all over with!

Here's a word of wisdom when dealing with some of these sweet talking engine builders; get a QUOTE and get it in WRITING, then have them SIGN IT and make sure that if you put any money down that it is written up on an invoice showing that it is for parts. Do NOT pay in advance for any labor. I know of a guy who asked for a quote and got one, but made the mistake of NOT getting it in writing and also made another mistake of paying in advance and didn't ask for a copy of the invoice and the invoice was later lost/misplaced----how convenient :rolleyes: and he was still taken for a ride. He was a good paying customer too.

They're the ones who lost his invoice----you'd think they'd give him the bennefit of the doubt---nope! But they sure as heck made sure THEY got the bennefit of the doubt though!

The guy goes to pick up his stuff and they hand him a BIG suprise! Meanwhile they have all his stuff in their possesion and THEY KNOW IT! So he pays the bill just so he can rescue his stuff and then later find assembly/parts mistakes in the valve train.

The guy ended up giving some money back so you can say he at least did that, but it was nothing near the amount he was cheated.

I won't say who it is, but if the shoe fits---wear it!

Sounds like you got it pretty bad from this guy. It's stuff like this that grinds me to the bone! :mad: :mad: :mad:

A friend of mine sued him and won, only thing it took
five yrs to get it settled.

Sorry to hear about what happened. I'm in the DFW area and if you're looking for someone reputable that knows his stuff I've got the guy. He's got my boat right now making it a little funner. Don't know where you are in Texas but I towed 5 hours to bring mine to him down on Lake Travis. My boat is not quite in the same class as 99% of the boats on this forum but this guy does awesome work on monster HP stuff but also keeps us family boaters going just a little faster than the next guy. Email if you'd like his phone and/or email to give him a call at his shop. You can give him a call and see what you think. I know of people that drag their boats across the country literally, for him to do the work, build engines, rig etc.

Oh, he swings through the OSO neighborhood from time to time as well. You may see in his sig "Full Throttle Marine".

i do have a written quote. that's where it shows pistons included in the rebuild price. on the build sheet no pistons were installed. he still wanted the full price of the quote and he didn't do all the work. that was only one issue. there have been many issues. he installed a cam and hydraulic roller lifters without me authorizing the work. he tried to charge me over $1000 just for those parts and would not give me the cam specs. hmmmm. when i asked why he did that he gave me some excuse why the hydraulic roller setup was the way to go. turns out i already had a hydraulic roller setup in my engine. i had him remove those parts from my engine. and again he installed them without my direction. this is another of the examples.

most of the install issues i'm upset about i'm findng after the fact. i did notpay him until the work was done. i have a quote inwriting. but i did not crawl on my head upside down in the engine compartment when i picked the boat up. on the surface, the install work looked half ass. now that i have had time to go through the boat carefully i am finding coolers not even hooked up. they must be for decoration. and many other things installed improperly. things that do not take any more time to do properly, they just weren't done.

I feel bad about your experience. A while back I asked OSO members in my area about any experiences with a local builder. I must have received 20 replies. Some said he was the worst and don't deal with them to.. He was the best. Who knows ??

Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

We all work hard for our money and its B***S**T to have someone take advantage of us.

I haven't run into that as of yet, but I'm learning the tricks of the trades on this board.

I use Victory Marine back in Houston and I've had good luck with them, and will continue to use them until something happens.

Man, that stinks! Why does it seem so hard to find honest people these days?

i have had a few people email me and PM me with similar experiences. i would like to see them posted here so that i don't look like the lone disgruntled customer. this will also help deter the next guy from being sweet talked into bad service.

You're not alone Dredgekeing...
 

I brought my boat to him to debug my then new motor. I was at the end of my rope, having spent most of the summer trying to find missing HP. I knew him from a couple of years back, when he was with the marina. I never had any work done by him, but thought he really seemed to know what he was talking about. He's a pro!

Anyway, I dropped off my boat and said I didn't want it back until it ran right. He said that he should pull the motor and put it on the dyno. Sounded good to me. I had regretted not doing it myself. He seemed impressed with my setup and constantly asked what I did for a living. He pulled the motor and didn't have a dyno at the time. We arranged for me to drive ~80mi to meet him in Mequite at a shop that had a new dyno.

He did one pull and said that I needed a new cam. ????? I said, you don't even know what cam is in it now! He didn't check the timing, BSFC #, nothing. He brought it back to his shop and over the following week, I talked to him several times checking him out. He said that we needed a cam on a 110 lobe center and that the whole thing would cost me around 4 grand. 4 GRAND! FOR A CAM?! The whole week he was itching to take it apart, said he needed to cc the heads.:confused: I told him I would be there the next Sat. and not to touch it. When I got there I pretty much repeated the whole conversation and said I was taking my toys home. I also asked how a single dyno pull could cost $800. When I checked out, the bill had been reduced to $400. I think he knew I was steaming, but I have no idea why he reduced it.

I went back to my machinist (Fuestal Racing in Fort Worth and paid $500 to spend an entire afternoon on the dyno and collected all kinds of data, along with ~95 more HP. I don't know why I ever doubted their ability. All of their work was a bargain and NO SALES PITCH. Maybe that's why my dumb a$$ didn't consider them in the first place.

The guy in Mesquite wasn't too swift either. He seemed nice but mentioned that he didn't know why everyone wanted Corrected hp numbers, and that he didn't know what they were corrected to. Here's a guy that just plopped down 50k on a nice, new dyno and he doesn't know what corrected figures mean and doesn't collect any BSFC #s. :eek:

DanL has the name right. After these two incidents, I started to have more faith in what I could do and know. I also started to respect Hans Fuestal more and more (Randy is their marine guy). No BS, and they stand behind their work. It only cost me $1400 to have all block machining and short block assembly done. How much better can it get?

It gets worse. Most of these morons know each other. There's another one in Rowlett that has a head the size of a weather ballon. Business initials, R.M. I always thought he knew his drive stuff, but did not trust his hp ideas. Turns out he's a hack at that too. After 2 trys at putting a 1.5 gearset in my bravo, he blew a gasket and told me it was all my fault. Funny he would get mad at me when I have to come in with kneepads and mouthwash to get anything done there. I'm not at all alone in the group that he has treated this way. He has a reputation. I should have noticed when he couldn't keep his own engine together...

Point is, now I do everything possible myself, or learn how. And I remember who treated me right, and get referrals from them. Randy (at fuestal's) pointed me to a drive guy that is down to earth and does great work for a reasonable price. It's nice being able to let the knee scuffs heal up now.

An ironic twist: Randy and the drive guy both worked for said texoma guy in times past. Both had long stories of why they refuse to continue to work for him....

Let me know if you want any contact information for my guys.

brad, your story sounds very similar to mine.

Dredgeking, believe me----you are not alone! It hurts to get the shaft, especially when a person has been a decent paying customer. You think it would help if customer takes his stuff to the builder during the fall/winter because that's usually when business is slow or at least slower in many of these shops and they can get to it much sooner---nope! A customer trys to be a gentleman about it and stuff STILL doesn't get done-----so, the customer has to get a little bit FIRM with the shop (because it's like he has no other choice) so now the engine builder gets ticked off when in most cases it's his own fault, but then trys to make you (the customer) look like you're the one whose at fault and then feels like he's justified in handing you a BIG bill. What a CROCK! Then what happens is now that he's ticked off you wonder if your stuff is going to be assembled carefully and correctly like it should be.

What some of these engine builders must realize is that the offshore hi-perf boating community is usually a tight knit community. Boaters talk to other boaters. These boaters like to look under the engine hatches of others because the engines are an important part of what makes up this sport. So, when a boater raises his engine hatch to show his commrads, they ask questions like; "How much power does your engine(s) make?" and, "How many cubic inches do you have there?" Then probably one of the biggest questions inevitably comes along;.........."Who built your engines for you?" And whether the boater is satisfied or not he usually will express his views, feelings and opinions from there.

Offshore boating is a repeat business----word eventually gets around about who's who and how they were treated. One thing that needs to be understood by some of these builders is that 3 nickles are better than one dime. If they treat the customer well, then they will probably get some repeat business----but some don't really care I guess.

Dredgeking, of course this is my opinion, but it's based off experiences that I know of from myself and others. This web-site is a forum where the average every day "Joe Boater" can ask questions or express his views (good or bad) with others who share about the sport/hobby he enjoys. This forum was founded by just another average everyday offshore hi-perf boater who loves the sport. That's why one of their statements is "For the love of the sport" That's what this forum is about.

When I told my experience to others, there was no one, and I mean NO ONE, that had anything nice to say about this guy. Geez, I wish I would have heard that BEFORE. Boat dealers, out of town shops, locals, everybody knew this guy. One of his ex employees even went so far as to say that there was a reason that he carried a shotgun in his truck. Beyond reason takes on a new meaning.

As bad as that seems, I actually don't harbor that much hate toward the guy. He's smart, I was stupid. He wasn't malicious, like my buddy in Rowlett (R.M.). He's a real work of art that hasn't gotten out yet.

before i took my boat 400 miles to see him, i spoke with him twice and expressed how important it was to communicate with me. that i had just had a guy in port aransas texas screw things up on my boat last year and i DO NOT want someone else to try the same thing. he assured me that he would communicate with me and that there would be no issues. when i dropped the boat off, i discussed the communication factor again. how VITAL communication is to creating a LONG LASTING customer relationship. how if this rebuild went well, then i would want to install a blower over the winter. all he had to do is what he agreed to in his quote and we'd both be happy. some people can't see two steps in front of them. he is one of them.

i don't hate the guy. i was naive. i'm learning more all the time. i'll do my best to avoid this situation with anyone in the future. i just want to help a fellow OSO member avoid the headaches. if not with this guy, maybe this will help someone else to look more carefully at what their engine builder is doing. knowledge is power.

We're all just looking at this wrong. (okay, maybe it's just me and couple of others :rolleyes: ). I think (DID) that most mech are on the level, until proven otherwise. With the shear number of morons out there, maybe that notion should be turned on it's head. Take notes here, theres an idea coming. Maybe a kind of peer review system could be implemented. I guarantee that if Dredgeking and I had heard a couple of them, it would have saved us a bundle. I'm talking about quantifying and documenting exactly the process that Kaama described. Kind of like what happens on ebay. If this sport is as close knit as Kaama describes, it would have a positive use. The liability might be too high though.

Oh, how I DO KNOW what you're talking about!

brad, you have a great idea here. the peer rating system for vendors, dealers, etc. similar to ebay might very well be a useful resource for the members of the board. it might save many people their hard earned money. a seperate section where companies can be rated would be great as long as people were honest about it and it was not used just to get back at someone you have a disagreement with. the downside is that it may limit or hurt some of OSO's advertisers, but it is what the board needs. if an advertiser is not an honest vendor, then i don't think OSO should promote their products anyway.

No question that it needs to be on THIS board. I just don't know about the liability aspect. What if Joe Dip$hit from lake texoma gets made because nothing but bad things are going on his review. Would he sue the members reviewing him or the board? How would you keep people honest about their reviews? What would stop someone from slandering a business because of a personal quest? Those things would have to be figuered out. It doesn't do anyone good if it turns into slanderfest.

Maybe the board god should give it a think.

how does ebay avoid a slander fest? i think the same concept would easily fit this board.

I think it's probably more an issue of numbers. When some guy that nobody knows is selling bookcases on ebay and rips off a customer somehow, nobody else knows or cares, unless they are looking to buy bookcases. The table is turned here, almost all of us are looking for Engine stuff, whether it be service or power. I would guess that we would all pay close attention. That is also why we wield considerable power ourselves. But I can see it now, "so and so did engines for a racer in apba and I don't like apba, so I must not like his gardener either, blah blah blah..". Some people don't know when to quit. How do we keep that from happening??

I think there are many marine businesses that surf this site, but taking part in it can be like wading through a shark pool for them.

If somebody decided to slander a business under this forum, they would undoubtedly take on a new user name every time. If that can be revealed, it might work.

Good Engine Builders/Rebuilders
 

I have been lucky. I have had two experiences with boat mechanics that also build engines.

The first is Jim Burns of Regency Marine in Rowlette, TX (near Dallas). Jim is the owner and chief mechanic. He is awesome! 972-475-0100. He treated me fair, and I know of other people that are happy with him.

The second is Bob Lloyd of Full Throttle Marine in Spicewood, TX (near Austin). Bob is the co-owner and big-block mechanic. He is also incredible! 830-693-5591. I know of several people that are very happy with him.

I only had one conversation with the Texoma mechanic, but it left me with a bad feeling, so I never went back.

Good luck in whatever you do, Dredge.

Well, there you go, I think the guy is a psycho and Clay thinks he's great. Freedom of opinion at it's best.

OSO would never allow its users to rate vendors or advertisers or prospective advertisers. After I banged on one of their paid-up advertisers for beating me pretty good, Jeffrey pm'd me and asked me to stop because they were pissed about the bad press. I called the advertiser to straighten things out and was told whats done is done, we won't refund you. With that in mind, the powers that be still insisted that I lighten up. Thats part of the reason they conveniently can't locate my charter membership.

Ahhh...........the power of money!

I thought we did this for the love of the sport?

There you go, another plug for Bob at Full Throttle Marine. :D

He's got my boat and I'm anal as hell but I trust him 100%.

see, we have some postive responses for another guy. the peer ratings work, they are not organized on the board and it's difficult to find postive or negative comments on vendors. had i known more about Full Throttle, i may have gone there instead of going to the wrong guy.