Very low mile, well documented Z06. Not a 150k taurus that's been who knows where. Previous Owner is a dead straight up guy, member of the vette/Z06 community. Was in contact with him long before the actual purchase, during, and still stay in touch with him after. I don't think he would go out and unhook his exhaust brackets and springs for fun.

I'm not out to make this any bigger than it is/was. I'm happy with the car, was before, am now, didn't mind fixing the problems. To my knowlege the PO never checked back in with Larry on the problems (obviously Larry can't rectify with no knowledge) but I'm presume there were enough little things wrong he didn't want to go back. Have no idea.

At this point it's water under the bridge, I do all my own work and live 900 miles away so it's a moot point anyway. But, my info is accurate, as to who and where the car was worked on, and what issues (none big, but many small) were left behind.

 

I was the seller of this car!
I paid speed Inc to install cam/headers etc... on my car. Car had about 9-10k miles give or take on it, when I had work done March of 05'. I sold car to Mark with @ 16k miles on it Late Dec 06'.
I have emails saved that I sent/recieved from Larry should anyone choose to see. Let me state, that I'm not out to badmouth SpeedInc and say they are a bad shop. Larry and his staff, were very informative, corresponded well during the process of me selecting parts and when my car was in the shop. The experience I had with the "workmanship" of my install wasn't the best though!
Here is my tale!
btw I probably won't check this thread so if anyone wants to email me feel free
jcook84889@insightbb.com

I corresponded with Larry re: a cam special SpeedInc was running for an Open house. Initially we had discussed running a 222/222 581/581 115 or on my near stock 2001 Z06. I had bought a set of coated TPIS headers and for what I considered a fair price SpeedInc agreed to install the headers as well.
Upon doing some more research I emailed and recieved confirmation that I wanted to change cam choice to 224/224/114. My primary concerns were driveability and reliablity. Initially that is why Larry picked the smaller cam, but seeing many good posts on the 224 I chose that and I must say it was a good choice. However, when I went to drop off my car, they still had the 222 info in the computer. I recieved a call from Larry later in the day or the next day, somewhat irritated that I changed my mind. I reminded him that we had corresponded via email about this and I could resend the email should he need a copy of it, showing we had discussed and confirmed the change to the comp 224/224 114 cam-we even discussed 112 vs 114 LSA but settled on 114 as Larry's recommendation. He wasn't sure if they had a 224 cam in stock. I said I wasn't in a major hurry, but I would like the 224 cam. I was told they would make the same power, I said that's fine, but I still would like the 224 cam. I was told they would make it happen. When I dropped off the car, I had mentioned that I just installed a Vararam intake the day prior, and I had forgotten to instal some rubber spacers, I asked that they do this, since they'd have the car apart anyway, and I also needed the filter oiled as I didn't have any filter oil at home. They said it wouldn't be a problem.
I recieved another call from shop guy. Wanting to know where the lug lock key was. Said, I just bought car, but assumed it was whever GM put it.

Car was ready in a few days which was agreed upon and acceptable, however ASP pulley was out of stock so was not installed. They offered to install at later date for 1/2 labor. I declined thinking it wasn't worth the time/hassle/money for me to take a day off work to drive in and have it done.
Picked up car and on the way home I noticed a few things.
#1 sewing machine sound typical of cam headers car-I emailed Larry, he responded quickly this is normal which eased my fears.
#2 Exhaust rattle- Larry stated he had personally driven my car, but hadn't heard any issues. I told him it occured over some bumps but only on larger bumps, sounded like an exhaust spring/clamp not fastened right. He said he would have the shop look at it if I wanted to bring the car back. I reminded him that I lived about 2hrs+ away by commute so this would be very inconvenient for me, and given my work schedule quite impractical.
#3 was told they couldn't find lugnut lock in the car. They cut off lugs and put on some generic lugs that woudln't accept the GM plastic covers.

***Now I must state an effort was put forth to fix the Exhaust issue, and I never followed up. In part this is my fault, but honestly I would expect a shop not to miss something like an exhaust spring in the first place. If this were the only issue I wouldn't have minded!**

Later in the following weeks/months, I noticed after I drove the car I'd have a 3cm area of oil under the car, in the area of the front timing seal leaking. Was an annoyance but never put time or effort into fixing it.

Checked my airfilter about a 2-3 weeks after I got car home from SpeedInc. NO OIL ON FILTER. Spacers weren't installed. I WAS CHARGED FOR K&N FILTERCHARGER KIT. I never recieved kit as well. Didn't really care when I picked up car, wasn't worth it to me to argue over $15-20, plus I figured maybe there was some labor in oiling filter that offset the kit cost etc... Well I was charged, but not oiled so to speak. Oiled filter myself. Emailed SpeedInc probably 3-4 times w/out reply.

Car stalls after warmed up, engine is stopped and AC is on, and after throttle "blip"! Sort of a goofy combo of events, but if I drive to work, stop car. Round at Hospital for say 1hr or so, go out to car and start it. The auto climate will activate the AC once it's started. Car will start and idle fine, but will stall when pulling out of stall, either backing out etc... where you give car some throttle, engage clutch/trans, then back off to idle when disengaging clutch===the car will then stall. Not a huge issue, but throttle cracker is not set correctly. I got HP tuners and laptop to help tune a 2000 WS6 that I did heads/cam/intake/headers on myself so I'm fairly confident this was the issue. Again, nothing huge as I learned to deal with it. Just another niggle so to speak!

Car needed 2 cans of freon in the spring after Speed Inc work. ***** big disclaimer here***** Not sure if it has ANYTHING to do with their work or not! I picked up the car in Feb, and obviously cannot test AC other than compressor working when I picked it up. However, when spring rolled around freon was low in pressure and effectiveness. Added 2 cans and everything was fine. Could have been during install process car lost freon, or maybe not. Not a big deal to me, just another issue.

So in summary! They didn't blow up my car and refuse to pay for it. They didn't do anything that was shady or hinky. My main problem is that they didn't pay enough attention to details. Oil leaks after cam change, front timing cover seal was either reused(paid for a new one) OR not installed correctly. Car had NO oil leaks prior to install. New owner has fixed the front seal and fixed the oil leak to my knowledge. Air filter wasn't addressed although I was charged for it, never recieved reply in emails I sent asking about it. Exhaust spring oversight! Lugnuts locks cut-KEY was in Car in the back with the can of fix it flat GM put's in the Z06. Tune issue(slight). Possible AC issue.

Would I use them again? Probably not! Would I say they are theives? NO!
Maybe my expectations are too high! But when I take a car like a C5 Z06 to a shop I expect they will do what they say they are going to do, and have it coming out as good or better than it was prior to them accepting the job and consequently my money. The cam etc.. was fine, the devil's in the details though with the above stated problems. Again, a few things that by themselves I wouldn't have really cared. In sum though they got a bit under my skin.

thx

 

I never touched the crank bolt in the car after picking it up from
Speed INC. I never had anyone else work on the car after you guys worked on it. HOWEVER, I will say that an ASP pulley was supposed to be installed. When I picked up car I was told it wasn't in stock and I could bring the car back later and they would install the ASP at 1/2 price labor. Now, I never looked at the crank bolt myself. I'm not sure what mark saw. But it makes me wonder a bit if it was Assumed I would come back for the ASP. These are all big IF's though and I don't think SpeedINC would risk such an action.
When I did the work on my 2000 WS6 in my sig(which I need to update btw). I made dang sure I used a long stage 8 bolt to begin putting the crank pulley on. The stock one can't really take the torque with the first few threads trying to pull that hog of a pulley on. Who would want to risk fubaring the crank for a $8 bolt? Again not sure, but I have no reason to distrust Mark here either, and let's face it. Taking a freaking crank bolt off is NOT HARD. There is not going to be the force there that could strip a bolt-come on!

 

never had to have the car "reflashed" after the colum lock repair. No changes in how the car ran before/after. I'm not sure what dealer did for the recall, but it was the lesser of the repairs where it was only some wire in the collum not the bigger repair that some had to do, as I recall.

I did tell you about the rattle, I have emails. Not practical for me to return for a fix.

I would have told you about oil leak but you never replied about K&N kit.

thx

 

btw I wouldn't have responded or made anything of this, but it appears SpeedInc guys have some sort of a smear campaign setup against Mark.
In my quick reading of his posts appeared to fully qualify his finding as things he was told and has found, not 100% fact etc...

 

only thing I fixed on the car was the ECBM. Only thing that was done to car between March of 05 and Dec 06 was oil change at dealer and recall for some collum lock thing.

You can believe that or not it's your choice. I choose to be above boards on my deals with people and will disclose things ad nauseum even overly so, risking losing a potential sale versus having someone feel like they got ripped off. Thank you very much! I'd rather sleep at night that have that on my conscience.

I can see where things like this could easily get muttled in grey, but my posts above will reflect my experiences, and by extension Mark's.

I'm not out to hunt down and slamm Speed INC. I think for 95+% of people they've done a great job. I unfortuneatly am not in that % of people .

Furthermore, for me to take a day off work or that amount of time to get back to speed inc to have issues that crept up addressed would have cost me at least $250-500. So I lived with it. I didn't come on the boards dragging this out at every chance. If someone wants to know why I didn't give them a chance to fix it that's why. It wasn't worth the time/money to have it fixed, which to me SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN WRONG to begin with! Workmanship was poor on that install.
I'm in the minority, which is GOOD! They have a following, they should continue to do well. I wish them well. I hope they don't have another disgruntled customer again!

 

John

I do not recall the email about the exhaust, but it has been awhile and as you can imagine I deal with many emails each day. I guess maybe it was installed, but maybe not tightened for some reason and it did come loose.... not acceptable though.

if the wheel lock key was in it's stock location I am clueless as to why the tech didn't find it.

Tune.... as you know some cars can use a little tweaking here and there

A/C .... again we do charge every car and check A/C in shop. I do apalogize if your system was short as you mentioned.

air intake .... guess this was overlooked and at min we could have still sent you the K&N kit.

I have seen stock car leak oil and anything is possible after digging into the motor. We would have been glad to address this for you. The fact that you are over 2hrs away should not be held against us for a few things that needed to be addressed. I know that there shouldn't be issues, but **** does happen and we have always stood behind our work .

We are not after Mark, but you have to see it in our eyes too as he is not the owner ! John you have now cleared things and we stand behind that some things where not 100% correct.

again we wish you would have made the time to drop it off to address these rather small issues. We would have made sure to compensate you for your time and inconvenience.

 

please email me on this situation

We have cars here ovenite and sometimes months and have never had issues. There are times cars do sit outside and customers are made aware of this.

99% of the time all cars are inside overnite

We had a couple incidents about 3 years ago. We have since had no issues and also installed surveillance .

 

90% of the stuff I have done to my car has been through them. Contact Larry. He is a great guy. Trust them with your car.

 

I'll vouch for Speed Inc. They have always taken care of me. Even when I dropped of my jacked up car with the I-pipe in the trunk...they got it cleaned up.

Speed Inc FTW!

 

I wouldn't have expected you to compensate me for my time. I feel it's admirable of you to bring up the option though. Again, I don't want to start a lynch party, b/c as I stated above, each issue was "small" it was the addition of several issues that "tweaked" me. I really feel like you have a good shop, but I'm honest in my descriptions above. I think for 99% of people they would have been able to bring the car back and been satisified with the re-work. I'm just different in my responsibilities and expectations.
Again, I wouldn't have minded each issue taken seperately and in single. In total though it was not a good experience. I don't attribute that to you Larry, but it is a reflection of the workmanship of the tech that worked on my car. Too many problems to be considered "OK". I do appreciate your effort in addressing this though. I wish you the best. Maybe I'll hit you with an email sometime and we can discuss some options on a 2 project cars I'm considering. I'd consider giving SpeedInc a 2nd shot IF IF IF you were going to be the pointman and oversee things!
Otherwise, I'll stay out of this thread as long as nobody else attacks my character or Mark's.
John

 

John...would love to work with you again...shoot me an email whenever you have some things in mind.

also regarding your email mentioned : I respond to every email I receive, so if you don't get a response within 24hrs PLEASE email me again

thanks

 

First I would like to say speed inc is not perfect but no one is. Mistakes happen especially when you deal with so many vehicles, orders, and people. What makes speed the best shop imo is that if a mistake is made they will go out of their way to try and fix it. I haven't really dealt with all the employees at speed but I have dealt with Tom, Larry, and Frasier. Each time has been a pleasure. Tom has gone beyond what is expected time and time again. Speed answers emails faster than anyone I have dealt with and that is a comfort when a mistake has been made. It's a relief to get a response letting you know it will get worked out. So I would and will continue to recommend speed inc for shop services and orders a like.
As far as cars being broke into, I haven't ever heard of or had an issue. Yet if it does happen all I ask is I get to see the video before the PD does

 

Well, I had spent over 5 figures with them over the last couple of years. And I can say the following. Larry, Tom, Jon are great people to work with. Stand behind what they say and do. And have never had any problems with them what so ever. They are what makes that company grow.

I did have some problems with them. But I did give them a chance to fix them and they did. It did suck having to to go back a few times. But they did make the situation right. They did always seem to go out of their way to make things right. So if for some reason that you did have a problem. I would feel comfortable to say that they will correct it. So as far as their place goes. I would say this....... They would not have been in buisness as long as they have if they were a "hack shop"!

 

i left my car there overnight for about 2 weeks or so. The situation i was in, i dropeed my car off there at night before. Never had a issue with my car there for 2 weeks. Not speaking for everyone but my car was fine there.

 

Not recent it was 3 years ago, I didnt rember seeing a gate up and ive heard talk of putting up camaras?



Thats the only complaint, other wise I cant say anything bad about you guys in general

 

I had Speed do the H/C on my C5 and overall it was a great experience. Larry was great to work with and has very good customer service skills IMO. He invited me to come to the shop to check out the car while it was apart, and when I picked it up we went for a 20-30 mintue ride to make sure the car ran and performed to my liking. He made sure to tell me that if I felt anything was off with the tune or install to bring it back and they would take care of me promptly.

Larry, Ill be calling you soon for a touch up on the tune. FAST 90/90 and svo 30#'s are going on this week. Also, when is the open house? Im gonna try and make it this year.

 

thanks for the good word everyone...we do our best and at times it just doesn't go as we would like. We are always there if or when a small issue occurs to back our work.

There is not a shop or business in that matter out there that will not make a mistake or have an issue.

The thing that matters is will they be around & stand behind their work ?

camera's are up and have been since the incident over 3 years ago

if anyone ever needs anything or thinks they have an issue...EMAIL ME !

I will make sure you are handled promptly

 

Jeff

give me a week or so notice when you are ready...maybe 450 rwhp ?

Open House : April 21st is the plan

 

If it doesnt make 450rwhp Im holding you responsible.

Sent you an email.