I have owned 5 camaros since I turned 16. I am currently working on my 3rd 4th generation. It's Is a 1995 Z28 with an M6, headers, cat back, bilstein shocks, Eibach springs and Z06 replica rims. I got what I thought was a great deal on the car from someone who had let the car sit for 8 years. It had some front end damage but was mostly cosmetic. After spending a few weeks cleaning the car and the fuel lines and putting in a new gas tank I got the car to fire up. Then I discovered the car had a rod knock. The previous owner couldn't remember why he parked it. Long story short I got the engine rebuilt and had the shop add a cam and port and polish the heads. When I got the car back it ran great and had plenty of power, then the next day began stalling. And it had the check engine light on for the MAF sensor and knock sensor (which the shop had replaced) I took it back and they got to work on changing the sensor. Then they couldn't get the SES light to turn off. So they took it to another shop who did get the light off. When I went back to pick up the car it had a terrible miss and no power. They diagnosed it as a bad plug wire. I came back a week later to pick up the car and it was still the same. No power at all. The shop took it back to the guy who fixed the SES light. He diagnosed it as a bad wire and possibly the computer. Needless to say I was livid at the shop for not fixing the plug wire first before they took it back. I had the original shop change the plug wire and I picked it up last Friday night. It died on the freeway after driving 20 miles. I had it towed back to the shop and after figuring out it was the MAP sensor they got the car to run for about 5 minutes. Then it died again. At this point it's been over a month since the engine was finished and I haven't driven the car more than 50 miles. Sorry to be venting but I am betond frustrated at this point with these mechanics that can't seem to figure out what is going on. I want to take it somewhere else but I can't afford to pay anyone else to work on the car after spending so much to have the engine work done. I have the shop until this week to sort the car out after that I'm getting the BAR involved. Has anyone done this before and what can I expect them to accomplish for me. Thanks for the help. If I should post this in any other section let me know and i will do that. Thanks.

 

As long as they are willing to throw parts at it to fix it without costing you anything, then Id let them figure it out. Also whatever you do while the car is IN their posession, do NOT **** them off. Its like pissing off a cook thats preparing your meal (we've all seen Waiters lol). The BBB is a good source as long as its a reputible company that has a reputation on the line. They will at least show that the dispute was never resolved and it will hurt their long term standing as a quality business. But civil suits cost money and time.

I think the fact that they knew it had a bad wire and they didnt check/double check all the wires afterwards shows they have less compitence than they probably should. maybe list everything you can think of on here in the proper forum, everything thats happened, in chronological order with whatever details you have, and use the knowledge of the community to HELP the shop fix it for you. The most experienced mechanic can over look a simple issue trying to think about all the complicated fixes, i do it with my cars and computers all the time!

btw welcome..Im new myself..but seems to be a great community and I guarantee you, you will find the answer here if one exhists



*btw...document dates, times, people you spoke with, phone conversations, etc and get as much in writing they claim they are responsible for. a lawsuit is only as strong as its evidence.

 

Thanks for the advice. As much as I hate it being there for so long. You are right, as long as they have it and are spending there time and money it's not costing me anything. Every time I have challenged him on something he gets very defensive. When I demanded that he change the plug wire he starts telling me how many hours its going to be and how many things he will have to remove to just get it unplugged. So I looked it up on this site and told him from the information I found with the proper tools and a lift he should be able to get to it without removing everything. And in the end he admitted I was right in that regards.

 

Sorry to hear you're starting out with a load of issues. So, does the shop have a tuner that tuned it for the cam and ported heads, or did they have another shop tune it?

 

That's another thing. I still have to have it tuned for the changes.

 

Without a proper tune, can we expect proper engine functions? just a thought.

 

At this point I need them to get the car to a point where I can drive it more than 20 miles before I have it tuned. And also since it hasn't been registered since 2005 I need to have it smogged before I can start driving it all over the place. Hopefully once it runs it will be good enough to pass smog. If not I'll have to have it tuned first.