Jake's Performance not performing

I'm a bit disappointed today.

Approx 2 weeks ago I noticed my custom radiator had another leak. Coolant has been visibly leaking on the ground slowly and now the overflow bottle was dropping in level. I dropped over to Jake's to show him. Note: This is the second time its sprung a leak, and its a brand new custom radiator to suit my car.

He said he was flat out and to bring it back in 2 weeks then he would organise for it to be fixed under warranty by the radiator guy who made it for Jake.

2 weeks was today. I rang up and asked to book it in to be fixed. I've had to top up the radiator with water because the overflow bottle was now empty as more had leaked. He was typically flat out and told me the name of the radiator shop and to go there directly to ask them to fix it under warranty. Could have simply told me this 2 weeks ago, but anyway.

I dropped in at the radiator place. They weren't all that helpful, but I understand where they were coming from. He stated that they made the original radiator to Jake's specs for a fixed price and weren't aware later on that it needed to be further modified to avoid colliding with my turbo dump pipe. The guy advised me that because one side of the frame had been removed to clear the dump pipe, that it wasn't strong enough and its going to warp and continue to leak whileever its like this, even after repairing it each time. I told him from my perspective that I just paid for a brand new custom radiator and I expected a solution that worked, I didn't pay for half of a radiator - so I asked him if it was physically possible to make a radiator that would suit my needs? He didn't want to comment without checking with Jake what kind of arrangement could be made because he didn't want to be out of pocket.. He asked me to tell Jake that they won't do it for free and see what Jake wanted to do about this.

I rang Jake back and explained the situation. I was told because it has been "14 months" since my car was completed, its now out of warranty and that he wasn't prepared to pay for it. He was happy to remove and re-fit the radiator for free, but expected me to pay for the repair cost of modifying and strengthening the radiator by the original radiator guys. He then said but he is busy for 4-5 weeks, and so he can't really fit and re-install it for me anyway, so feel free to do it myself. As if this wasn't disrespectful enough (I have spent approx $10,000 at Jake's, I've brought 5 or so cars there for a dyno day, I've given him a good write up on this web site (now to be removed - stupid idiot)), I was helpful and offered to remove and re-fit the radiator myself. I offered that and then argued that its not for me to pay more for repairs to my brand new radiator which still doesn't work. I also explained that the car has only been completed for 11 months, not 14! I got the car finished back from Jake in September last year, so he had the dates extremely mixed up. This web page even shows it (29 Sep 2004): http://www.micra.com.au/monster-rebuild.php

Before I was about to explain to Jake that as part of this whole turbo conversation fixup that I paid lots of money for, the radiator was included and it still clearly leaks repeatedly and the radiator shop advised that its not a sufficient design, well Jake spat the dummy and told me in a big breath of words something like "ok
I'll bloody pay for the thing, I don't care" and hung up on me.

Crazy I thought to myself. Here I am, having offered to remove and re-fit a faulty part which was part of the work they should have done properly the first time, so I've already been nice and offered to help them out while they were busy - "imagine your average soccer mum offering to remove and re-fit her broken Toyota Tarago's radiator because the mechanic said he was too busy.. yeah right as if that's acceptable.". And I'm being as calm and polite as I could possibly be, then he still can't handle it and spits the dummy.

Its just ridiculous. I wish I never spent a cent in that place. He suffers from a problem of not finishing off the original work he takes on properly, and is all about getting the next 10 cars through the doors. As an existing customer, my original job isn't even completed properly.

I won't be going back, not even for tuning, Jake and the whole way he manages his shop angers me, and the number of stuff-arounds that he puts me through isn't worth the stress and anger.

So effectively, I still don't have a completed tidy turbo conversion after spending $10k and him having the car for 12 months.

Cisco, if Jake's performance doesn't fix the problem with in the warrenty period then you have legal recourse with the department of fair trading. You have paid for a turbo conversion with a raditor CUSTOM MADE TO SUIT the application, they failed to make to radiator do this, therefore it is his problem to fix it up. If he give you any problems, ring up fair trading, they with investigate (read kick him in the butt & tell him to do his job properly). Btw when the jobs done, get it checked by an inderpent shop to make sure they did the job properly. Goodluck!

Agree with Snoopy and go to Dept. of Fair Trading or whatever it is called in Canberra. Type out all the facts and give it to them.
Enough is enough and try not to get mad , get even.
He may be a wizard in some ways but well having seen his workshop and the mess it was in is a sign of someone who has no time management/ organisational skills.
My guy well you could eat your dinner off the floor and everything in its place and a place for everything plus a whiteboard with the jobs written up everyday etc.
Sorry to hear this Cisco but well 3 strikes and you are out.

what is your radiator spec cisco? it mensure exactly as OEM one? or it's made from alloy, copper or so on? did cooling system / pipes remain same pressure as OEM?

or you could let it leak, have your engine blow up and sue the bastard for inferior work and emotional damage. makes me very angry, if you can spend that amount of money with a garage and not even get what they promised. its ridiculous.

Yeah just shits me.

I know I have full rights to get him to pay or to take it further etc, just always shits me that you have to. You know, you eventually get sick of all the slack customer service and sick of putting up with crappy service and having to argue and yell just to get what you deserve.

The work apart from this is all great and done to full completion, this is just the icing on the cake that should have been done properly. So yeah effectively the work I paid for is not finished.

Hey Aaron...

Shit to hear mate... All I can say is Ben is so much better.. Book in and he will have it in and out in no time (my whole conversion only took 4-5 days)

Not only that but tell him I sent you and he'll probably see you right too

Seano

Yeah Ben is awesome, he already looked after me when I bought the fuel rail off him (which is now in your car heh).

My throttle body has stiction and I need someone to fix it, was going to call Ben. Do you have his number again mate?

Re:radiator, I'm going to pull it out and fix it myself. Cannot be stuffed dealing with Jake any more, its one bum steer after another. Waste of time even if he is going to pay. The strengthening costs won't be much anyway.

Thanks

Oh yay I still have his number in my mobile. Thanks anyway mate. I'll give him a call soon.

Hehe I know his number off by heart now mate, its 0423400007

Ask him about the radiator too, he probably knows someone that can fix you up with that too...

Seano

Cheers, will give him a ring.

Speaking of which...

Some random old guy (40+) came up to me as I parked my car and started talking about how Micra's rule!! He said he'd seen mine at Ben's while he was getting some work done on his EVO7 and was considering buying one for his wife!!!

Had a yarn for about 20 mins and told him about the site etc... He seemed very keen

Ok, I'll get back in my box

Seano

yeah i know where your coming from. it depends on whether you can be arsed/have the time, kickin up a fuss and naggin him until he does it. ive read previous posts about this guy and he sounds a bit dodgy to say the least. personally i would nagg him as he cant expect to get away with things like that. its all time and energy though

gee that really is a pain, i'd say its best to get it out of him > soo next time he goes to rip a returning customer hill think twice. But as you say its been dragging on for ages and do you want to waste more time chasing him. That really is bad business practise, where i used to work any return jobs were put on priority and to be done or at least looked at as soon as humanly possible. Returning customers that tell friends of thier experience is what gets you places,

Alex

Seano that "old" guy over 40 was my brother,Darth junior.
Gald to see you wre nice to him.

try some quicksteel, works wonders on radiators :)

Mate that is a real downer.considering the amount of money you've handed over to that jerk you'd expect him to go out of his way to be helpfull.
It's no consolation to you I know but everywhere you go these days you just cannot get quality work anymore.
You cannot supervise them every minute and no matter how much you stress the importance of a good job some of them still cock it up.
And the bottom line is iot doesn't matter what you say, a place that does good work will do it without pressure and a crap place will turn out crap no matter what you say or do or pay them.
The trouble is that even if you force Jake to do the repair you will not be able to trust it anyway, people like him get you one way or another.

Mychael

Totally agree mipcar, that's why I've decided to stay clear from there right now and never go back for anything. I can't be arsed dealing with them. Its a hassle and an annoying struggle. He'll just stuff me around further with some other run around excuse or come back later caper.

Could you get the rad repaired on your own back and send jake the bill?

If he refuses to pay take the case to trading standards?

Cisco, that totally sux about Jake's but I must admit I wasn't very impressed with the look of the place when we had that dyno day. It looked like he had several unfinished projects all crammed into that garage, there was just sh*t everywhere.

Plus I nearly did the splits several times after slipping in some oil puddle at the back, nice!

Forget Jakes and move on my friend, sod em.

Well whatever you decide Cisco Jake has lost any support he had on this site.
Maybe it will not bother him but the best sort of advertising is word of mouth.
Compare him to say Errol and you can see the gap in how to treat customers.
I am sad for you that after all the money spent with him you should be getting star service.

That's really bad......lets hope he was in a very bad mood because of something really bad happened to him the days you went there,and he was out of his mind so said something stupid.....i hope he will call you back in a few days and explain nicely.

If not that optimistic,and if in fact he mean it........go to fair trading.