[Whtbullitt]

I think I will go the small claims court route if needed after further research. I will talk to them first but if they don't satisfy with a fair settlement I will pursue further. I am not trying to get work for free but I think I was overcharged 50 hours! The total of all the invoices is 88 hours labor for -
fuel injector replacement -
New fuel pump
Procharger
Battery relocation and kill switch
4 gauges installed
Even being generous I think 3 hours for injectors, 3 hours for pump, 18 hours for Procharger, 5 hours for relocation and 8 hours for gauges. Which is 37 hours I think is acceptable and fair. Am I off on my estimates?
My biggest concern is getting my car back from them, I hope paying the bill to get it doesn't affect a court case.

 

[2001sleeper]

Paying the bill will absolutely affect a potential court case. I would figure out a way to get the car back in your garage and let them take you to court. If they are shady, they will most likely be quick to put a lien on your title, but they will have a tough time with the car not in their hands.

I am not a lawyer and just brainstorming.

ultimately, there are reasonable time frames on installs and they should have to answer for all of the extra hours.

 

[96pushrod]

I think I will go the small claims court route if needed after further research. I will talk to them first but if they don't satisfy with a fair settlement I will pursue further. I am not trying to get work for free but I think I was overcharged 50 hours! The total of all the invoices is 88 hours labor for -
fuel injector replacement -
New fuel pump
Procharger
Battery relocation and kill switch
4 gauges installed
Even being generous I think 3 hours for injectors, 3 hours for pump, 18 hours for Procharger, 5 hours for relocation and 8 hours for gauges. Which is 37 hours I think is acceptable and fair. Am I off on my estimates?
My biggest concern is getting my car back from them, I hope paying the bill to get it doesn't affect a court case.

88hrs is ****ing absurd.

 

[stangjumper]

There is no way they are going ty give the car back to you if you didn't pay the bill 100% from what they think is fair.

 

[sn95gts331]

Your about to realize that most current labor in the US has been dumb-ed down to an incredible low mimicking cheap foreign policy rules all the way down the rabbit hole.

Simply put, The men who used to work on cars in the 90's and early 2000's are NOT the same quality of minds as they are today. Most of the good fabricators and pioneer's of the aftermarket industry is being forced to retire and all of that knowledge is slowly becoming lost and obsolete.


Nobody has to think anymore. These performance shop workers don't read instructions. they think they are working smarter and are "professional" by tackling problems with cutting, welding and rigging when if they just took the time to read the instructions the engineers left for them they wouldn't have to do all that unnecessary cutting, welding and "idiot fabricating" to begin with.

Point out ONE shop you've seen recently who will do a proper star pattern torque tightening on your lug nuts.... Exactly... now you think they put your transmission, clutch, pressure plate and intake, back on using a torque wrench instead of their impact?

I hate taking my own cars to anyone anymore because of this. The only people you can rely on is yourself or true enthusiasts which are extremely hard to find. If a shop doesn't know what a 1979-1995 5.0 Mustang is or has trouble working on them then you know they shouldn't be working on ANY car whatsoever.

 

[Whtbullitt]

I hate taking my own cars to anyone anymore because of this. The only people you can rely on is yourself or true enthusiasts which are extremely hard to find. If a shop doesn't know what a 1979-1995 5.0 Mustang is or has trouble working on them then you know they shouldn't be working on ANY car whatsoever.

That's exactly what I told the shop the other day. I said the foxbody is easily the most modified car in history and simple to work on compared to newer cars and all the parts I supplied are tried and true. No excuse for their incompetence.

From what I've read, I can write paid in protest on the receipt, and I will email them that as well before I pay, to show I disagree with the price. I have already sent out estimate requests to 5 other shops and have napa and AAA estimates printed for what I can, the fuel pump and injector install and diagnosis. I really don't want to do any court action but seriously, this is like $7000 extra I'm pissing away if I don't.

 

[sn95gts331]

That's exactly what I told the shop the other day. I said the foxbody is easily the most modified car in history and simple to work on compared to newer cars and all the parts I supplied are tried and true. No excuse for their incompetence.

From what I've read, I can write paid in protest on the receipt, and I will email them that as well before I pay, to show I disagree with the price. I have already sent out estimate requests to 5 other shops and have napa and AAA estimates printed for what I can, the fuel pump and injector install and diagnosis. I really don't want to do any court action but seriously, this is like $7000 extra I'm pissing away if I don't.

I wish you the best. There is zero excuse for what they've done. I really would not want to let them get away with it.

 

[boostup89]

they think they are working smarter and are "professional" by tackling problems with cutting,

"Professional" just means they collect a paycheck, nothing more.

 

[Trogdor]

Pay with credit car then do a chargaback once you leave the parking lot?

 

[rednotch]

I think I will go the small claims court route if needed after further research. I will talk to them first but if they don't satisfy with a fair settlement I will pursue further. I am not trying to get work for free but I think I was overcharged 50 hours! The total of all the invoices is 88 hours labor for -
fuel injector replacement -
New fuel pump
Procharger
Battery relocation and kill switch
4 gauges installed
Even being generous I think 3 hours for injectors, 3 hours for pump, 18 hours for Procharger, 5 hours for relocation and 8 hours for gauges. Which is 37 hours I think is acceptable and fair. Am I off on my estimates?
My biggest concern is getting my car back from them, I hope paying the bill to get it doesn't affect a court case.

Gauges and injectors some what over lap for installing sending units with the upper pulled, my concern would be the diagnosis fees if they milked it for the no start the car was delivered as, they probably wasted a ton of time and padded the rest of the bill. but for the work done 88 hours is crazy unless your leaving out a ton of Fab work.

 

[Whtbullitt]

Gauges and injectors some what over lap for installing sending units with the upper pulled, my concern would be the diagnosis fees if they milked it for the no start the car was delivered as, they probably wasted a ton of time and padded the rest of the bill. but for the work done 88 hours is crazy unless your leaving out a ton of Fab work.

Their invoices are so lumped together so it is hard to have an exact hours number for each portion but roughly they charged 13 hours to diagnose the no start even though I told them prior I ran diagnostics and my belief was the distributor that may be faulty. They tried to say it was the ecu and wiring harness. Even 5 hours is too much to diagnose that imo.
As far as extra fab work, all parts were given, battery box, wires, complete Procharger kit etc. One line for example has a cost of $981 and 8.25 hours to "cut off the 4" outlet on the intercooler and install a 3", mounted cooler 1" lower and 2" to the left to allow bumper to fit. Modified charge pipe setup to clear. Started fabricating support for charge pipe through inner fender to prevent rattling."
There was nothing special they had to fab, I mean this is all things that have been done to foxbodies and all cars thousands of times. I'm pretty sure over 11 hours to install a battery relocation is insane. They quoted 3 for that.

 

[Whtbullitt]

Also, did I mention they've had my car for 109 days?

I also want to thank everyone for the comments, thoughts and suggestions. I appreciate everything.

 

[Whtbullitt]

Another update. I emailed them about the billed hours for the Procharger and injectors. He said because I bought the wrong injectors - Deatschwerks 86-04 GT DeatschWerks Matched Injector Set 42lb 60lb 95lb 200lb, that is why the labor was so much. Granted they did have to buy adapters but they bought them to realize they bought the wrong ones. Same with the Procharger, he claims the F1A and intercooler I bought is not standard therefore the install was more. I feel like they still overcharged no matter what they claim but I can tell they are going to be dicks about this.

 

[2001sleeper]

How does not having injector adapters add a lot of time to the install? That is just ordering some adapters. I could maybe see an additional hour if they are going to move your car out of the shop until the parts arrive. You don’t charge labor hours while a car sits.

 

[Whtbullitt]

How does not having injector adapters add a lot of time to the install? That is just ordering some adapters. I could maybe see an additional hour if they are going to move your car out of the shop until the parts arrive. You don’t charge labor hours while a car sits.

Here is what he wrote -
For the fuel injectors, if it looks like there's two to three times as much time as normal, you are correct. You provided the wrong injectors. They were too short and had the wrong connectors. We installed them and we tried to clearance the fuel rail mounting bolts to make them work. That did not work. We then had to install extensions. That required doing an injector remove and install all over again. Remember, whenever accessing the driver side injectors the intake has to come off. We installed the injectors, extensions and connector adapters provided. We installed the intake manifold only to discover we had a vacuum leak because the injectors, extensions, and adapters were all too tall to allow the intake to seat properly. We ordered adapters that would work with this scenario. To install those once again the intake manifold had to come off to access them, make changes and install the intake again. I billed 5.25 hours for all that. In reality we had more time than I billed for. The 5.25 hours is more than justified. If the correct injectors had been provided this wouldn’t have been a problem.

 

[2001sleeper]

So they knew they had the wrong parts, tried to install anyways?
And I have no idea why they tried to put an intake back on knowing they had a clearance issue. That is pretty easy to see before going through the process of bolting things down.

 

[96pushrod]

Do you have part numbers for all the parts you provided? Like the exact procharger kit you bought.

The injector thing for example: if you bought the wrong injector and work stopped to get the correct extensions and adaptors, then the customer should be liable for time lost. However it’s not like you were just there to get injectors installed, so I’m guessing there was other things that could be accomplished in the meantime.

 

[Whtbullitt]

Do you have part numbers for all the parts you provided? Like the exact procharger kit you bought.

The injector thing for example: if you bought the wrong injector and work stopped to get the correct extensions and adaptors, then the customer should be liable for time lost. However it’s not like you were just there to get injectors installed, so I’m guessing there was other things that could be accomplished in the meantime.

I do have all the part numbers somewhere lol. I am annoyed with the injectors because they say for 86-04 but when he told me they were too short I said, ok, you do what you need to do and get to make them fit. In that case I feel he needed to make sure they fit the first time after he got the adapters and extensions. The Procharger is a drop down menu purchase. It is a polished F1A with the race blow off and race 3 core intercooler. Only thing custom picked was the pulley size to try and stay near 8 lbs boost this year. He didn't charge for down time because like you said they had others things to do in the meantime as well as other cars.
But hopefully on a positive note after the email accusing me of buying poor parts I called and explained everything calmly and clearly breakdown of where I felt screwed. I explained I left the additional parts purchases for the injectors up to him to get, therefore it was longer my "incorrect parts". I also said my Procharger kit is nothing different than can be ordered by anyone else and they didn't follow Procharger's install recommendations. I also mentioned the battery relocation of about 11 hours. He tried to say about taking out the interior, I said dude, the drivers seat is 4 bolts and the back seat pops out, it takes 5 minutes max. I also mentioned the roughly 13 hours to diagnosis a bad distributor, I said I did all the work checking prior and told you it was likely the distributor and it shouldn't take any shop that long to figure it out regardless.
He says he doesn't want this to be a bad experience and will work on a price we are both comfortable with and he would like to see my car again for any future work. We will see what he comes up, I have a figure in mind I am comfortable with so we will see.

 

[TomV]

Perhaps Procharger can help afterwards. Since this is supposedly a "Procharger approved installer", I would contact them and suggest the shop needs additional training to keep that approved status.

 

[Whtbullitt]

Perhaps Procharger can help afterwards. Since this is supposedly a "Procharger approved installer", I would contact them and suggest the shop needs additional training to keep that approved status.

Love the white my man! Mine is a 93 white as well. I will be putting a call in with them at some point to discuss this as well, I think it is a bad look for them to have approved installers do such work.