boutweld1

I want to let everyone on this site know to watch out if you ever deal with Cal Speed & Performance in Bakersfield, CA, owner Jim Voyles. I only want to post facts here so I can't talk about him as a person and what I know he is now. I will say DO NOT let his niceness fool you like it did me. I will also say WATCH AND READ EXACTLY WHAT YOU SIGN!!!!
Last year on 10-5-12 I dropped my blazer off at Cal Speed to have LS1 Conversion and 4l60e swap, add vintage a/c, headers, custom exhaust. This job was to take 6 weeks and I gave him $5,000 down. After 3 weeks I was to pay 1/2 the difference and in 6 weeks when blazer is done I was to pay the remaining balance. I am to receive pics and video of the complete build as well. I live in Louisiana but have been working in Central CA for a couple years, that's how Jim ended up doing my truck.
Mid November I hadn't heard from Jim so I emailed with no response. I wait till after Thanksgiving and I email him again. Finally I get a response. The truck isn't ready. I ask for pics and on 12-6-13 I receive 4 pics of engine in truck. That's the only 4 pics I ever received. Well, in a week I email him and he says he will have truck complete for Christmas. Well as of Christmas I did not hear from him. I email him after Christmas and he says he is behind and needs more time. On 1-10-13 I email him again asking about status and he gives me excuses about parts and other things but he asks me for the 1/2 payment. I kinda of blow up on him bc I am not getting my truck now and he has had the truck 12 weeks. Remember the build was 6 weeks. I still send him a cashiers check that day for $3,500. I email him again & again & again and get nothing but excuses. My wife and I leave Portland to go home to Louisiana to visit family supposed to be a 10 day trip. I email Jim over and over while on vacation and he keeps pushing it back farther n farther. I had to stay in Louisiana 11 extra days so Jim could get the blazer ready. Finally on 3-5-13, I arrive at Cal Speed which is now exactly 7 months after I dropped the truck off for a 6 week Ls1/4l60e conversion. Jim and I sit at desk, I hand him the remainder of balance of $4,329.50 and he flips thru contract by saying first couple pages are same as original, here on the back page is added parts and slides it to me and says sign. I did just that not knowing he had totally changed the paperwork. I drive off in the truck and it doesn't make it 20 miles before problems start. Truck had no power and the tranny felt weird like it was my old tranny. I bring it right back to him to fix a laundry list of issues. He has to send to Brandon's Transmission for work to be done. I email Jim and ask him about tranny. He advises me at this time that he chose without asking my permission to keep my old 700r4 tranny. In the beginning I told him I had rebuilt the tranny but I wanted 4l60e and the original contract states LS1/4l60e swap and I never agreed to anything but that!!! Well on his own he chose not to change it and chose not to tell me. But what I didn't realize until I requested a copy of the invoice that he changed the wording completely and took off the LS1/4l60e swap from the original and put he used my original tranny. I signed it without reading. After this post if you choose to do business with him make sure the papers say what they said originally before you sign it, or don't sign anything after the original agreement. Well over 10 days I stayed in hotel waiting for the truck. I left Bakersfield 4 times in 10 days and never made it more than 100 miles burning 20 gallons of fuel on 100 miles. Truck ran horrible and got 5mpg. After 10 days I told Jim I was going back to Portland and he offered to ship truck when ready. I will let you know he posted my blazer on his FB page as a 20 mpg cruiser and had 370rwhp but he gave me a dyno for 347rwhp. No way truck made that HP running like it did.
Now, I go to Portland and I constantly email jim asking about truck but get answers saying nothing wrong. Well end of April another 7 weeks later I receive truck only to be he shipped it COD. I refused it so he had no choice but to pay for it. Well I got the truck and drove it 99 miles and it burned 10 gallons of fuel and ran like crap. I forgot to mention the truck has smoked from day 1 and the exhaust fumes in the truck are so bad you can't stand it. Well I took the truck to a dyno shop and had it tested. The shop looks at the work and says it looks like a hack job. The shop dyno tests it and it has 253rwhp not the 370rwhp Jim advertised and not the 347rwhp he gave me dyno paperwork for. I ship the truck back to him at my cost of $650. He says he can't find anything wrong but says he is looking over it. Finally 5/28/13 I have to start work in Vacaville, CA so I fly in to Bakersfield. I drive the truck from Bakersfield to Vacaville, 337 miles and I burn 67 gallons of fuel and the truck is running horrible, smoking, and intake leak causing exhaust smell inside, and muffler breaks bracket breaks for the 5-6 time. I take to shop in Vacaville to rewelding it and they ask me who did the work bc it was horrible and looked like a blind man ran the exhaust and headers.
Well, on 6-16-13 after my wife has to drive 800 miles to come and bring me her vehicle so I could bring my truck back to jim. I drive truck back and he changes motor bc he said nothing is wrong with other motor bc he can't find anything. I will tell you I asked him over n over to drive it. He said he did drive it besides running on dyno. Every time I drove it something went wrong after a long run so no way he ever drove it any distance. He changes motor but now he burns up tranny it he doesn't tell me bc he knows I will be upset bc He was supposed to do 4l60e swap from the start like I mentioned earlier. I find out it's burned up from John and Brandon's transmission. Jim only told me the governor needed to be changed bc shift points were off but in fact it was burned up. Now it takes till 7-28-13 for me to get it back which is 1 week shy of 10 months now on a supposed 6 week build. A couple months back I had got the CA BAR involved and they had stated Jim's work was subpar and recommended a full refund but I was very naive and was still trusting Jim. Well on 7-28-13 I made a big mistake and signed that I would drop BAR claim and relieved Jim of liability. I signed it bc he SWORE to me truck was fixed and I wouldn't have any further problems so I trusted him. Well, I take truck and tranny makes it to Stockton and tranny burns up AGAIN. Now I ask him to do the 4l60e swap he was supposed to do from day 1. He does swap and now charges me another $834.50. 7 weeks later 9-15-13 I arrive at his shop to pick up truck and pay him his $834.50 and he sears the truck is now fixed and I will never have issues . Also in this meeting he mentions that his shop finally took apart the first motor that he said had no issues but I said ran like crap and they found that the timing chain had jumped a tooth. He also gives me excuses that he had fired 2 guys that did work on my truck bc of subpar work. I now leave his shop and I make it 50 miles to Pixley, CA where truck starts backfiring like a cannon and tranny is throwing out fluid. I bring truck back and drop it off. He swears it's my transfer case leaking but how does a transfer case throw fluid 2 ft forward to transmission while going 70mph and transfer case is behind tranny. I now threaten legal action bc truck will never be fixed properly. I saw an attorney yesterday and while their Jim called to say the truck was ready also. I pick up truck and I make it to Stockton but I burned 25 gallons of fuel on 230 mile trip and it smoked and backfired the complete trip and the exhaust fumes in truck are so bad you can't keep windows up. It's been almost 1 year and I never took possession of truck till now and it's still running horrible. A 6 week build has cost me $13,664.50 plus $1,300 in shipping costs to Jim Voyles plus thousands in other fees bc of his actions. I learned some things along the way. DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING WITHOUT READING!!!!! MAKE SURE YOU ONLY USE ORIGINAL CONTRACT!!! DO NOT LET HIM PRESENT ANY NEW PAPERWORK ONLY GO BY THE ORIGINAL!!!!! This is only part of the story. I have over 400 emails of nothing but bs from him.
From what I have gathered from others he doesn't crap in his backyard of Bakersfield. This only seems to happen to out of towners. You can read more jobs like this that he has done on Camaro5.com, customgm.com, gmcullsize.com, forums.corvette.com, and performancetrucks.net
He has different screen names on those sites but you can google or yahoo : Jim Voyles Bakersfield, CA. You will find much much about him there. To bad Ifound after the fact and experienced it first hand. It's your choice to do business with whom you want, I just wanted to share and let you know where to find out more before you let happen to you what has to me and many others.

RPM WS6

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