i guess i have to find a new shop to go to and only got a tune no actual work done there

 

i found owen to be very helpful. even to me, someone who he knows has no money and will not be paying him for anything but tunes. my car performs very well after he tuned it and puts out very nice numbers for the lack of mods done.

on a side note, while i have had no negative experiences with hpe, they havent been very helpful when i call with a question. for some reason they keep telling me i have valve train issues.

when my car was tuned the first time, would barely run before the tune. (i thought it was because the cam was too big to run on the stock tune) chuck kinda guessed at the tuning parameters (which was all he could really do) all they wanted to tell me was i has bent valves and pushrods. turns out it was a bad opti. (how chuck couldnt see that while tuning is beyond me)

months later i called wanting to talk to owen about a high rpm miss being a potential tuning issue. again i was told bent valves. turns out plug wires wont stop burning on the headers

 

about a month probably... but you also have to remember during this time i was replacing sensor and going over the car with a fine tooth comb to find a problem with owens advice.... I told owen imediately when the car didnt idle correctly. It didnt work correctly to begin with and i let hpe know it too. and they charged me 120... full price.

 

Fuel filter is about 2 months old... i only fill up at chevron.... if it was the fuel pump the car would have leaned out high end and owen would have mentioned it... i can check it but i can guarentee its fine.

 

I talked to gary he said it was 120 because your buddys insisted it be put on the dyno. Also from my understanding you made apointments canceled them then reschedule a couple of times? Correct me if im wrong. Also kinda hard to tune for a surging problem when motor is not warmed up. After your buddys have been driving the car.

 

Does the car do this only when it is first turned on in the mornings? Or does it do it every single time you turn it on. Even if it is warmed up. I have been skipping around the thread and it sounds like you have a cold start problem when the car is cold and still in open loop. Then after it warms up and goes into closed loop the car drives fine because the ecu corrects the parameters that are off. This is not a very big deal and can be fixed very easily by most.

 

youguessit like someone said its more then likely a cold start issue. If a vendor is charging you 450.00 or what ever for a retune is crazy. It takes a few mins plus 2 or 3 pulls.

 

If a tuner is telling you the MAF could cause cold start problems, they are retarded. Don't let them retune it and find someone else.

 

Im sure a r d is great at LT1's.

 

I had a similar experience with Corvettes of Dallas/Sean Freese. (not sponsors) We put a large cam in the TA and for 3-4 weeks he could not tune it or keep it running every time we tried to do a burn-out or at idle. I figured anything longer than a week you should at least call the customer and inform them of what's going on. We had to go up there ourselves just to see what the deal was. We then had a talk with the manager to voice our frustration and he said leave it with him one more week. We took it home just to check all the mechanical parts and the MAP sensor, etc. was OK. It needed new gaskets up top but nothing that would keep the motor from running. Took it back to him AGAIN and for another week I heard nothing so we gave up and took the car home. It was pretty sad that someone with so much experience could not get the tune right and did not keep me informed. He basically told me he doesn't like "tuning" money, he only likes big money cars that will benefit him. My husband and I ended up putting the old cam back in, and we got the car idling just fine after 1 hour of work. We now do our own tuning. Bewildered, I got a call from COD this week and they had the nerve to ask me for money due to them. Seriously? I told the manager I don't owe them any money since he NEVER got the tune right and the service was horrible. Not to mention he blew up 2 of my motors in the past from leaning them out and fried a transmission just by not paying attention. Where's my compensation for all that? I didn't want to bring this up here but the whole thing was never made right. Then, on top of that, they said they are no longer accepting my business there. Wow, some shops really DON'T care about service anymore!

There are 2 sides to every story. Sometimes shops get overly busy and cannot answer every call and request, but they should make any mistakes right to keep the customer. Some people are hard to please, but in the end we all just want our cars to run right. I agree, there's not enough "helping" and more "bashing" than anything. But, people also deserve to know what happens too. I hope this turns out well for you - you should learn to do your own tuning. You would learn a lot. There are also plenty of good, notorious shops in Houston, none of which I've had experience with yet. Proven track records are with LMR, in my opinion. They've proven themselves time and again. And, don't get mad at me, I'm just telling the truth.

 

Well, I am sure HPE is just dying to help you out now after this thread.

I just can't imagine them not trying to work it out with you if you were to talk to them in person. Businesses don't generally fire customers unless they really feel like the person is just too much of a headache. If that's the case you are not telling the whole story. I'm saying this, and I don't even give a damn about HPE.

 

Your tuning woes mirror my own experience with HPE back when Chuck did all their tunes.

 

People need to list shops exp on ripoffreport.com

 

Not necessarily true. I was not too much of a hassle for COD and they don't want my biz anymore. I just wanted my car to stay running right. In fact, I gave them lots of props/credit when I got my feature article in GM High-Tech Magazine, which in turn brought them tons of cars that needed work and I made them more money! I wish I had not mentioned them at all! Look what I got for it! (Not trying to hijack.)

 

After looking back at my invoices, I see the last time we tuned YOUGUESSIT car was on 7/24/2009. The way I work, is I give every customer 30 days to give me a call if their tune needs to be changed at no charge(as long as they dont change anything). If you call me 3 months later and tell me you tune has changed, I am going to tell you we can retune it for you 125.00. Also after talking with Owen the car needed to have intake gaskets replaced and maybe other gaskets due to a vaccum leak. Therefore, we tuned the car as much as possible the first time with what we had. We didn't build the car, therefore we cant retune it 5 times because the car wasn't properly built.

 

Wow, new owner and still having tune problems? I went through a huge headache with HPE with it's old ownership over a tuning issue, so I feel your pain. In fact, I'm pretty sure alot of us do.

 

just get some software and learn to tune it yourself...

i can not speak for any shop,but i am sure tuning is not their bread and butter,just the crust...

 

I quit going to HPE when Josh and Steven left, LMR does great tunes and has good customer service, they arent cheap but you get what you pay for. when i got my car tuned there the WOT tuning was awsome but the drivability was a little off at certain RPM's. They told me to drive the car for a while and that if anything was wrong to let them know and as soon as i told them i had an issue they asked if i could bring the car in that day which i did, Joe took the car for like a 45 min drive and the car has driven great ever since. oh yea and they didnt charge me for it.

 

I think basic problem solving applies here. When I have a discrepancy with someone, the problem ALWAYS gets solved with a compromise. Meet that person in the middle, they get a little of what they want, you get a little of what you want. Sure, your policy is 30 days. Was that made clear to the customer while your shop was making him unhappy? Being reasonable from both parties will get you closer to where you want to be and may actually renew your relationship. You know what a customer's policy is? Never to do business with a shop that only cares about company policy.

Youguessit IMO hasn't been disrespectful or out of line expressing his concerns. I work in advertising, and trust me, youguessit is nowhere near the category of irate customer. But Gary, what you sound like is "**** you, youguessit, this is our policy, too bad." Meet him in the middle somehow, he sounds reasonable.

Youguessit, man, I really feel bad for you. I feel bad for anyone that has a horrible experience with a shop. These cars mean more than just a car to many of us and being part of a community like this shouldn't include shitty experiences with shops that have poor customer service.

+10 on everything said about LMR. I have gone in there with the stupidest questions; last time I asked them if they had any bolts for LS1 front accessories, even though they were working on 500-1000hp high end cars. They were totally respectful, treated me the same as one of their high end customers, and did their damndest to get those bolts for me. Steven, Patrick, Jordan, all put up with me at the shop with a positive and friendly attitude, and I walk away with the best experience. They are just as cool on the phone too. Not tryin to sound like a nuthugger but you gotta give credit where it's due. LME, TSP, same thing, great shops, they make you feel like they care about your car as much as you do.

Gary@HPE, man, attitude like that will lose you customers, TRUST ME.

 

Compliments of 14.1 compression...



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