Kudos to County Corvette in Westchester, PA! (Long!)
06-06-2012, 04:31 PM
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Kudos to County Corvette in Westchester, PA! (Long!) Let me start by saying that I own a 1999 C5 Vert with approx 63k miles, which had been recently modified by a well known shop with a new CAM, Fast 102 Intake, 42lb’ers, Nick Williams 102 TB and 4.10 Gears. After two separate visits with their in house tuner, the car left the shop averaging 8-13MPG on the highway! I did the math manually and the DIC was accurate. The shop blamed it on the 4.10’s and 42lb injectors and said that was how it was going to be.
After doing some research I wasn’t buying it and decided to move on and try another tuner.
As a member of the Corvette Forum I ended up going with one of their very well known and respected tuners and figured they would be a slam dunk. Well when I say they basically put me through hell and back is an understatement. It was a complete nightmare and ended up costing me another $1,100 in addition to the above mods. Tuner #2 had the MPG where they should be, but the car would not hold a steady idle, surging from 300-1400RPM’s at red-lights and constantly stalling. It was embarrassing to say the least! And if I turned on the AC forget about it!
At this point I was at my wits end and baffled how the other forum members did nothing but rave about these guys hence I took the chance and gave them a shot. I won't be unethical and mention any names, but it baffles me how some of these places are staying in business.
Now I know these shops are extremely busy this time of the year, but you shouldn’t just bring in every car you can get your hands on and do half assed work, half assed tunes and avoid customer phone calls, etc. It's called proper scheduling!!!
Anyway...this is when I decided to stay away from the recommendations of the Corvette Forum and attempt my own hunt for the right person. I knew there had to be somebody out there who could get it running right and put forth the correct effort in doing so. Well with a simple Google search I found County Corvette in West Chester, PA. Not knowing anything about them I called the shop and spoke with James Turner, their Performance Specialist, explaining my situation / frustrations and he was very professional stating their tuner (Mike from Rapid Motorsports) has been tuning their cars for the past 4-5 years and has a very good reputation. James then proceeded to say he would talk to Mike and get back to me. But having similar conversations talking to other shops, I wasn’t holding my breath.
Well I was already surprised that James got back to me the next day and setup and appointment to have Mike look at my car the following week. Having such bad customer service experiences with other establishments, I figured “here we go…they’re just going to just fit me in…yadda…yadda…yadda”.
Well when I arrived at their facility I was amazed! People this place is the real deal! And huge!
I met James who took me on a complete shop tour, starting out by showing me all the remarkable cars they had restored from the ground up, and took me through each department explaining all the work they perform. All I can say is that this place is awesome with a capital A. They do it all from A-Z. The shop (and cars) were absolutely meticulous! I worked in a body shop for 14 years and couldn’t believe how clean and organized this place was.
The last stop was meeting Mike from Rapid Motorsports at the dyno. It was nice to see that he wasn’t already working on another car!
I explained to him all my issues, who had their hands on the car, etc. and he proceeded to say with confidence “I’m going to just start from scratch”.
Well I have to tell you, I’ve been to four very well known tuners over the past two years and Mike has definitely impressed me the most. He’s the type of guy that won’t quit till its right and very thorough! He answered all my newbie questions without insult, and after about three-four hours had the car tuned perfectly!
As I’m a member of the Corvette Forum and have previously obtained much information from LS1Tech, I figured it was time to join and give County Corvette the recognition they deserve. If you get a chance I would highly recommend you stop by and check the place out. If you need a tune, Mike is da-man!
After doing some research I wasn’t buying it and decided to move on and try another tuner.
As a member of the Corvette Forum I ended up going with one of their very well known and respected tuners and figured they would be a slam dunk. Well when I say they basically put me through hell and back is an understatement. It was a complete nightmare and ended up costing me another $1,100 in addition to the above mods. Tuner #2 had the MPG where they should be, but the car would not hold a steady idle, surging from 300-1400RPM’s at red-lights and constantly stalling. It was embarrassing to say the least! And if I turned on the AC forget about it!
At this point I was at my wits end and baffled how the other forum members did nothing but rave about these guys hence I took the chance and gave them a shot. I won't be unethical and mention any names, but it baffles me how some of these places are staying in business.
Now I know these shops are extremely busy this time of the year, but you shouldn’t just bring in every car you can get your hands on and do half assed work, half assed tunes and avoid customer phone calls, etc. It's called proper scheduling!!!
Anyway...this is when I decided to stay away from the recommendations of the Corvette Forum and attempt my own hunt for the right person. I knew there had to be somebody out there who could get it running right and put forth the correct effort in doing so. Well with a simple Google search I found County Corvette in West Chester, PA. Not knowing anything about them I called the shop and spoke with James Turner, their Performance Specialist, explaining my situation / frustrations and he was very professional stating their tuner (Mike from Rapid Motorsports) has been tuning their cars for the past 4-5 years and has a very good reputation. James then proceeded to say he would talk to Mike and get back to me. But having similar conversations talking to other shops, I wasn’t holding my breath.
Well I was already surprised that James got back to me the next day and setup and appointment to have Mike look at my car the following week. Having such bad customer service experiences with other establishments, I figured “here we go…they’re just going to just fit me in…yadda…yadda…yadda”.
Well when I arrived at their facility I was amazed! People this place is the real deal! And huge!
I met James who took me on a complete shop tour, starting out by showing me all the remarkable cars they had restored from the ground up, and took me through each department explaining all the work they perform. All I can say is that this place is awesome with a capital A. They do it all from A-Z. The shop (and cars) were absolutely meticulous! I worked in a body shop for 14 years and couldn’t believe how clean and organized this place was.
The last stop was meeting Mike from Rapid Motorsports at the dyno. It was nice to see that he wasn’t already working on another car!
I explained to him all my issues, who had their hands on the car, etc. and he proceeded to say with confidence “I’m going to just start from scratch”.
Well I have to tell you, I’ve been to four very well known tuners over the past two years and Mike has definitely impressed me the most. He’s the type of guy that won’t quit till its right and very thorough! He answered all my newbie questions without insult, and after about three-four hours had the car tuned perfectly!
As I’m a member of the Corvette Forum and have previously obtained much information from LS1Tech, I figured it was time to join and give County Corvette the recognition they deserve. If you get a chance I would highly recommend you stop by and check the place out. If you need a tune, Mike is da-man!
06-06-2012, 05:02 PM
#2
If I followed your post correctly, Mikey from Rapid tuned your car. If this is correct then I'm not at all surprised you're happy with his work. He does excellent work.
06-06-2012, 05:10 PM
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Yes I guess it's kind of confusing mentioning both places. But yes...Mike from Rapid tuned my car....at County Corvette's shop!
