Horrendous experience w/ LMR (ongoing)
01-23-2015, 09:20 AM
#1
Horrendous experience w/ LMR (ongoing) I just wanted to submit my review of my experience with Late Model Racecraft for the world to see. It's almost embarrassing that I let it go on this long. I'm not here for a pity party, I just don't want people to get swept up by all their YT vids and whatnot. If you don’t want to read this long story, I give them 0/10 and would only recommend people that I hate to go there.
I’ll start off with what is almost ancient history. I trailered my car down there about a year and a half ago. When I originally brought the car down, a now former employee of LMR ensured me that they would be able to jump right on it. I supplied a roller with the entire driveline installed that I had put together. Not being a capable fabricator and not being a big fan of wiring, I contacted several vendors who either did not respond, said they couldn’t, or said they wouldn’t touch the car for a long amount of time. Unfortunately, LMR did not touch the car for the first 6 months it was there. I raised some hell, and work started happening. This occurred around January 2014. Along the way, there were two separate occasions when LMR mishandled my payments to the tune of about $3500. Luckily, I caught these mistakes as I’m sure they would have had no interest in treating a paying customer with any respect at that point.
Fortunately for them, around this time they let go of the employee responsible for communicating with me. I took this as a good sign, and decided to move forward with them since the car was already down there (I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to make the 13 hour drive to get it at the time and setting up shipping is a nightmare. More on that later.), and knowing that starting with a new shop may put me at the bottom of the to-do list again. More progress was made and eventually the car hit the dyno. It made great power on low boost (825 rwhp @ 11 psi), but blew through the converter on high boost. It was at that time that I decided that I needed to get the car back home so that I could pull the transmission and converter to get everything freshened. Steven (part owner of LMR) agreed, and they set up shipping for me. They ended up helping me out with a faulty boost controller, and giving me credit for the turbo they sold me as it needed rebuilt. However, I’d like to add that even though I have been asking for the complete cam specs for over a year, all I have at this point is the duration and LSA. This is pertinent info when speccing a new torque converter.
Once I finally get the shipping company to show up (another adventure unto itself, do not use AAA Transporters), my car is not ready to ship. The seats are not in the car and they do not know where my seat brackets are. The bumper has not been mounted to the car. Apparently the marker lights in my bumper do not clear the trans cooler. I know this may be shocking to LMR, but marker lights are not a high priority on a race car. The hood is zip tied to the car (I was informed that the Dzus clips were not riveted to the hood about two weeks ago. I figured in that time that this could be remedied). So the truck driver has to bail. He is rightly pissed off and I have wasted a $100 deposit with them now. Luckily, the driver did not accept the car or else I would have received a car less together than I expected it to be. I call to speak to Steven, and I am assured that he will call me. He does not, but luckily I have his cell phone number, so I call that. Call rejected on the first call, goes to voicemail on the second. Luckily the new sales associate/phone guy, Ted, actually cares about his job and calls me after hours to try and iron some things out.
I just called now, and instead of returning my call, Steven is on a test drive with another customer. That is where the situation currently is. Now I guess I need to make this 13 hour drive.
UPDATE:
The preceding message was penned by myself about two months ago on yellowbullet. Since that time, I have contacted LMR multiple times regarding all of the **** my car is missing that I supplied, such as a-pillar interior trim, Simpson 5-point harness, AEM wideband and fuel pressure gauges, B&M trans cooler, the incorrect passenger seat, and the drain plug for the breather system. The car has numerous scratches, junk all over the interior, all jamb nuts on the suspension loose, and some of the sorriest exhaust alignment I've ever seen. Not to mention a turbo that more than likely cannot be rebuilt by Precision. How a shop pulls this off after having a car for a year and a half while maintaining the reputation they do is beyond me. I hope that I can dissuade anyone who ever had the tiniest inkling to call them from doing so.
I’ll start off with what is almost ancient history. I trailered my car down there about a year and a half ago. When I originally brought the car down, a now former employee of LMR ensured me that they would be able to jump right on it. I supplied a roller with the entire driveline installed that I had put together. Not being a capable fabricator and not being a big fan of wiring, I contacted several vendors who either did not respond, said they couldn’t, or said they wouldn’t touch the car for a long amount of time. Unfortunately, LMR did not touch the car for the first 6 months it was there. I raised some hell, and work started happening. This occurred around January 2014. Along the way, there were two separate occasions when LMR mishandled my payments to the tune of about $3500. Luckily, I caught these mistakes as I’m sure they would have had no interest in treating a paying customer with any respect at that point.
Fortunately for them, around this time they let go of the employee responsible for communicating with me. I took this as a good sign, and decided to move forward with them since the car was already down there (I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to make the 13 hour drive to get it at the time and setting up shipping is a nightmare. More on that later.), and knowing that starting with a new shop may put me at the bottom of the to-do list again. More progress was made and eventually the car hit the dyno. It made great power on low boost (825 rwhp @ 11 psi), but blew through the converter on high boost. It was at that time that I decided that I needed to get the car back home so that I could pull the transmission and converter to get everything freshened. Steven (part owner of LMR) agreed, and they set up shipping for me. They ended up helping me out with a faulty boost controller, and giving me credit for the turbo they sold me as it needed rebuilt. However, I’d like to add that even though I have been asking for the complete cam specs for over a year, all I have at this point is the duration and LSA. This is pertinent info when speccing a new torque converter.
Once I finally get the shipping company to show up (another adventure unto itself, do not use AAA Transporters), my car is not ready to ship. The seats are not in the car and they do not know where my seat brackets are. The bumper has not been mounted to the car. Apparently the marker lights in my bumper do not clear the trans cooler. I know this may be shocking to LMR, but marker lights are not a high priority on a race car. The hood is zip tied to the car (I was informed that the Dzus clips were not riveted to the hood about two weeks ago. I figured in that time that this could be remedied). So the truck driver has to bail. He is rightly pissed off and I have wasted a $100 deposit with them now. Luckily, the driver did not accept the car or else I would have received a car less together than I expected it to be. I call to speak to Steven, and I am assured that he will call me. He does not, but luckily I have his cell phone number, so I call that. Call rejected on the first call, goes to voicemail on the second. Luckily the new sales associate/phone guy, Ted, actually cares about his job and calls me after hours to try and iron some things out.
I just called now, and instead of returning my call, Steven is on a test drive with another customer. That is where the situation currently is. Now I guess I need to make this 13 hour drive.
UPDATE:
The preceding message was penned by myself about two months ago on yellowbullet. Since that time, I have contacted LMR multiple times regarding all of the **** my car is missing that I supplied, such as a-pillar interior trim, Simpson 5-point harness, AEM wideband and fuel pressure gauges, B&M trans cooler, the incorrect passenger seat, and the drain plug for the breather system. The car has numerous scratches, junk all over the interior, all jamb nuts on the suspension loose, and some of the sorriest exhaust alignment I've ever seen. Not to mention a turbo that more than likely cannot be rebuilt by Precision. How a shop pulls this off after having a car for a year and a half while maintaining the reputation they do is beyond me. I hope that I can dissuade anyone who ever had the tiniest inkling to call them from doing so.
