icrnk

iTrader: (5)

I recently took ownership of a used IX so I wanted to get some things corrected. I drove to Dallas this weekend to have my IX checked for the following:

Boost Gauge not working: Per dealer the hoses were routed to steering wheel for aftermarket gauge that was previously installed.

Check for Tune/Flash to stock: The car previously had exhaust, aftermaket boost gauge, intake installed. I wanted to know if it was tuned as well and if so returned to stock map since it's now stock.

Antenna: Was broken off so needed to have screw portion drilled out.

Check Transfer case for leak: Dealer told me there was a leak at the transfer case when they were giving me reasons why my cat would not be covered under warranty.

- Great price, Great work.

- I would have preferred to have been updated on unexpected extended wait time searching for a tool.

Overall - All work done perfect at a great price.

KevinD

iTrader: (56)

i'm sorry you weren't happy with the service edward. unfortunately we are not run like a dealership (ironic because lewisville mitsus parts guy was picking his nose for 30 minutes while i was trying to get there for our appointment, i was a little pissed about that too), we don't have a well equiped waiting room, we don't have people there to open the door at 10 or to pick up parts while we continue to work on cars (but trust me, i am to the point of hiring someone to do that for me).

the shop is literally run by myself, and 2 friends who all do this in our spare time (nights and weekends). i appoligose if i mislead you in anyway in that respect. we try hard to make sure everyone gets their work done, and make sure it gets done correctly. since we just opened up the shop less then 3 months ago, we will take your experience to heart and make notes on what to improve on. Scheduling, and wait times are always difficult as some people come with huge problems which over the phone can sound like a 2 minute job. yours was not a difficult job, we just weren't prepared (laptop was dead from tuning cars at 2:30am the night before, and amazingly i didn't have any ez-outs... an issue from moving all my tools from my garage to the shop).

i hope you keep us in consideration next time you need work, and next time we will be more prepared. once again sorry for the inconvience.

denver

iTrader: (9)

Ok from my stand point. I am the Drill guy. I had to go to three differnt places to get the part to get the drill out. That is why it took so long, I spend almost 15mins stuck on an exit ramp waiting to get through a malfuntioning stop light. So I was not just running around doing errands while you waited, I happen to be driving by a food place on the way back to the shop, so I stopped to pick up some food on the way it wasn't more than about 5 to 7mins at the food place, the rest of the time was getting the easy out for your antenna. I apologize for your wait for that, but we don't do a lot of bolt extractions normally and didn't have the revers drills, especially that small (which is why I had to go to three places). We could have just said, "Sorry I don"t have what I need to get the broken bolt out", but instead we when and got what we needed extracted it the proper way, and fixed the problem. Whenever we normally have bolts break, it is in the turbos and I take the part to a machine shop I have access to and I machine the broken bolt out (about a 3 hour process per bolt).

The flashing back to stock tune, you have a stock 9 tune. We had to use Richards Laptop, because Kevin's battery was dead. Richard only Tunes EVO Xs, thats his role, he is the X guy, so I had to get a 9 tune from Kevin's laptop and put on your car. As Kevin said, we were not prepared with a charged laptop etc first thing in the morning, but Friday night at 2:30am, all your really thinking about is BED especially when you got up at 630am that morning.... :-) We figured it was faster to transfer what we needed than wait for Kevin's Laptop to charge, it may have seemed disorganized but again I wanted to be sure everything was correct.

All this stuff takes time. I apologize on behalf of all of us that you had to wait. We try to be as accommodating as we can to everyone. All of us have day time jobs, and we are at the shop till 2am 3am almost every night, and we work like crazy to get these cars out as fast as possible with out sacrificing quality.

KevinD

iTrader: (56)

i should also go over the work i did:

BOV was installed upside down, corrected that.
Inspected for transfercase leaks (there were none)
stock boost control lines were incorrect, obviously someone had a MBC on it and just tried to reconnect normal lines to it. result is you get wastegate pressure. i got the actual OEM lines and installed them for you.
drilled out your antenna bolt
flashed car back to stock
fixed vacuum line on fuel pressure regulator that had a Tee with an open end. VERY bad for the car. this also fixed the boost guage as it was the line going to the boost gauge that wasn't connected.

if i remember correctly your bill was less then 100 dollars. i think it was 55ish...

TxEvo8

iTrader: (5)

I've never had anything but top-notch service from Evolution Dynamics. That seems like quite a lot of sorting out for an Evo that has obviously been haphazardly put back to stock. Just like in your case, its never as simple as you might have originally thought and it seems as if the guys did more than you asked for. Only charging $60 too? Sounds to me like they took pretty good care of you.

How is the car running compared to how it was running when you brought it in? If it is better, was it worth the $60 and 4 hours of your time?

tnt1106

So, you are upset with yourself for bringing your young child and your spouse to a specialty car performance shop during some of the hottest days of the year so far?

For the work listed above the total amount of time that you waited is much faster than many if not any other shops you would wait at.


And all this for less than 1hour labor rate at a Mitsu dealer?

icrnk

iTrader: (5)

I wrote a nice reply back but it didn't go through and I don't feel like typing it again. I knew there would be atleast one of these replies and that's fine for the arm chair quarterbacks. I take that Kevin sees that, "we will take your experience to heart and make notes on what to improve on." For me the one thing that would have been great was just a quick 10 second update along the lines of, "hey, Denver is having a hard time finding the easy out and got caught in traffic." That's all. I understand PC's not working, I understand autoparts guys taking long, I understand and knew about the waiting room. I am satisfied with the work; yes the car is running great. This is not an all negative review. It's a real life review where somethings could be improved upon. Not everything is perfect. If you read my post I make mention of the great price so it's fine if you echo that for anyone that reads this but don't think you're telling me anything I didn't know. The work was fast and accurate once the part was there and a laptop was available. Take away the hour or so unknown wait time and this is an all positive review.

I'm not upset about bringing my spouse and daughter. My spouse wanted to come as she likes our Evo too. Hindsight, she said it probably would've been better if I dropped her off at a mall but then again I probably would have gotten lost. Also, she would still have been stuck at a mall for longer than expected and I would not have had any explanation other than, "they're waiting on part; not sure what it's taking so long." That scenario still doesn't change my experience much so let's come up with some more suggestions. One I was going to do was to go rent a car but then I'd have to hassle with returning it after a few hours. Another one I actually was going to do was buy the Easy Out kit and bring it with me (no lie). Man I should have done that; there goes that hindsight again.

Thanks for the summary on the work Kevin. I will put that with my records. Thanks for your reply too Denver.

And my check engine is the cat (P0420) code so I'll see if Perrin can help.
Thanks to those that see this as a review and not a complaint session.

So just to clarify as I'm kinda new. Is the Service, Parts & Tuning Review section only for all good reviews unless it's about Vinshu or some other already hated place?

icrnk

iTrader: (5)

See the quote below. When I was setting up my appointment I went over what I knew needed to be checked and asked to have additional checks done for which I would pay for their time. So no, they didn't do more than I asked to be done. Try to look beyond what you already want to believe.

"yours was not a difficult job, we just weren't prepared (laptop was dead from tuning cars at 2:30am the night before, and amazingly i didn't have any ez-outs."

denver

iTrader: (9)

The best thing to say is:

We appreciate the review, and apologize for the delays, we will do our best to improve your next visit.

KevinD

iTrader: (56)

for your CEL, you might want to try a spark plug anti fouler. although if you were throwing the code with the stock cat, i would bet the problem is the sensor, not the stock cat and the aftermarket cat.

if indeed both cats aren't working up to par, the antifouler method is about 15 dollars. autozone sells "spark plug anitfoulers", you need the largest one they sell (basically looks like an extension for the end of the o2 sensor. from there you need to drill out the center enough for the o2 sensor to thread into it. then thread the antifouler into the pipe where the o2 sensor currently is. this effectively spaces out the o2 sensor most of the time (not all), eliminating the code. if that still doesn't work we can eliminate the code from the ecu. my car doesn't have a cat at all, just two antifoulers and i never get the p0420 code.

KevinD

iTrader: (56)

i feel very insulted by the comments about our shop appearance. your experience with aftermarket shops is obviously limited (most of them are dumps). we spent a great deal of time cleaning the floors and coating them, painting the walls, boxing everything up into containers that are sorted, tinting the windows so your wife wasn't cooked alive. and to get this kind of response, well i can just say please take your business else where. there are other shops, and i try hard to make sure everyone is happy (i try way too hard most of the time). i think you'll be better off going to the dealership for your work in the future. they have a waiting room usually, and will be happy to take you for all your worth when they don't know whats wrong with your car. and FYI, the dealers here often times call me in to work on the evos for them.

good luck with your evo, i hope you can find a shop to your satisfaction.

oh, and as an enthusiast, i can assure you that all three of us are better qualified (we are all engineers with race car backgrounds), then any mechanic you will find at any shop.

icrnk

iTrader: (5)

It wasn't an insult, just a woman's opinion. They're allowed to have those now. The shop didn't bother me; otherwise I would not have stayed. I though the floor coating was nice; remember seeing the ads in Automobile for that gray color you had and wanting to do that at home. Sorry I didn't comment on the nice floors. I did notice the tint was dark when I attempted to look in while waiting for you in the morning as I wanted to make sure I was at the right place. Did you not like my nice white Reeboks; you didn't say anything about them. I've been to a few other shops a while back and never though of them as dumps; not even your shop. It's okay for you to think of them as dumps I guess. I won't go to a dealership, there are other shops I want to try. Thanks for wishing me luck. Seriously try not to read too much into things and try to take anything I wrote as an attack. The main theme of this writing was service as it pertains to unknown time waiting. Not the shop, not the workers' skill set, not my shoes. I will be the bad guy that expected too much on getting information. You have a following on the boards and DFW area which is why I drove out there. Now I didn't give your shop's service 5 stars and I'm a bad customer. I will try other shops and not care if they don't look like a dealership; actually not all dealerships are that nice. The one by my house isn't the newest and cleanest.

"oh, and as an enthusiast, i can assure you that all three of us are better qualified (we are all engineers with race car backgrounds), then any mechanic you will find at any shop" - What is this about? I never questioned your work.

Also, no matter what, most everyone will be on your side as you are a great wealth of knowledge on this board. As far as telling me to take my business else where that's fine too. I don't want to go where I'm not wanted. My dad turns down jobs when he sees that someone will be extremely picky. Sorry for being so picky on wanting some sort of customer service to go with great mechanical work.

K1tt3n5

iTrader: (7)

Stop whining you paid almost nothing and your car is exactly how you wanted it. I've never heard anyone be unsatisfied with kevin richard or denver. They all work their butts off and it shows in the great quality work they do.

JakeTheVIII

iTrader: (35)

I really just can't believe this.

I can just imagine you sitting there with wife and child. Hot, bored, and mad. Mad because you thought it was going to be a fun family outing...

You are the type of customer that nobody wants to see. A little nit-picky whiney baby complaining about how hot it is and counting every minute it took for a very qualified professional to do simple work you coulndn't do alone. You are in TEXAS....doing something OUTSIDE...Welcome...

It's a good thing it wasnt my shop, I'd have sent you on your way. I think the problem was that you got to be too involved during the entire visit. If you would have just dropped your car off, gone and did something, and came back when it was ready, I bet you'd be a lot more pleased. Or at least stayed in an enclosed waiting room so that you didn't have to be exposed to real humans that have to eat food. AND do you a huge favor, driving around like a madman looking for a part they needed for JUST you.

What do you expect a race car shop to look like? A victorian mansion on the lakeside?

Kevin may have been a little late for the appointment, but sounds like he made it up to you by doing all these things at the rate he did them for. It's unfortunate that you were hanging over his shoulder watching the clock the entire time.

And let me tell you- There's not really anything better than "a bunch of enthusiasts that decided to open a shop". Try someone who's not an enthusiast next time and post up how your car turns out.

icrnk

iTrader: (5)

There is not really any whining other than everyone else not liking my review. I had my review so I'm off my soapbox now. I actually was not hanging over Kevin. I went out a few times but didn't stay long because I did not want to be that guy that stands there watching everything although I was interested in it. You are right that had I just rented a car the outcome would have been different. So would it have had I just had a simple update. Again I didn't complain about the place, just mentioned a woman's observation that some of you are trying to make a mountain out of to get away from the main issue being a lack of communication. Once again, there was no complaint of work, price, and I understand issues come up. Isn't it fair to for a customer to be kept abreast of what is going on? Hey, doctors are busy and they seem to be able to find time to do it; or send someone to do so on their behalf. Minutes were not count doing work. It was the lack of work being done for a reason I had no idea about because nobody thought to acknowledge that I was still there. Just an acknowledgement of sorry for the long wait on the part. Had I had a choice I would have said not to worry about it because that was not a big deal.

There is all this talk of great customer service about shops here. There have been bad reviews of not only shops but online stores because a person ordered something and had been waiting with no updates on why a part was possibly back ordered. How is my non-communication issue different here? I'm not telling people not to go here; just posting my experience as I saw it.

If it bothers people so much can one of the admins remove this review. Reason is that it's not adding any value to the community. I myself like reading reviews and make a decision not just on one review and even sometimes ignore a review as some things that another person may find important are not that important to me. I guess I'm a weirdo here and my minority view doesn't count.