blade7 said:
Years ago I repaired a rubber intake bellow on my BMW 328 with a rubber adhesive. I thought it was going to be a temporary fix until I could get a new one, but it worked so well I never had to replace it. I don't know what's happened at JMG, Jon was always a top guy. Issues in the past seemed to stem from when he wasn't there.
well I won’t go into every little thing but let’s just say I really enjoyed talking to Jon and admired his knowledge but very very unfortunately for me, I took my car there for a stutter in the Revs on idle which i never had before. i had just bought around £3-£4000 pounds worth of mods from him online ( 55lb injectors, chipset, larger intercooler, dualport wastegat, motorsports fuel pump , manual boost controller ect ect , which I was very happy with and installed it all on my standard 944 turbo over space of 9months hard work. On start up the cars idle was iratic once the ecu was switched over to what John instructed with his 55lb injectors. They insisted to get my car trailered there and it would take around 4 days To get back, so I paid for it to be trailered.
Well took me around 3 months of hell on the phone lies being told to me every single day, no body but no body ever knew anything about my pride and joy,where it was what had been done to it so far..... nothing just nothing! All I got was Ill leave a note and someone would get back to you ( nobody ever ever did) which drove me absolutely insane!!!!!! They were extremely rude on the phone especially the manger, they couldn’t be bothered to talk to me , always fobbed me off on the phone, alsways said there short staffed today they’ll leave a note, well these notes they were leaving must have killed a few trees becuase there was a bloody load of them which no one there could obviously read! I could never get to speak with John ever other than one time near the end where I threatened to go up there (Dorset is 3 hours away from me)
everytime I called my Car was maracukously on a test drive ???? ( at least someone was getting to drive it!
There was apparently a dry bridge in the solder on my ecu mother bourd so instead of the quoted £850 to repair I bought another the same year which was tested and worked perfect.
i went to pick Car up and john said how fast it was for my mods so he wanted me to turn the boost down from 18psi which I paid all that money to be on safely which I couldn’t understand as the cars never been modified just had a very light head skim relaped valves, front seals, new leads , dizzied cap, fuel reg, resurculating valve, ect ,new valve seals ect but bottom end all standard ......so when I got there to pick my car up it was filthy dirty (it went in polished and gleaming!) jon wanted me to go out with the test driver which was what looked like a 17 year old boy and he said he’ll put the boost on 18psi, go out then on 16psi and see what I thought about it? So I went out with him on 18 which I paid in mods to be on then as I was in the car I asked the boy if he had been test driving my car which he said yes, so I asked him what he thought I should do regarding turning the boost down from 18 to 16 and he said " nah don’t worry what Jon said, we’ve had it up to 26psi” ......you can imagine what I felt like at that point ..... i kept calm and played dumb and asked why would you put so much boost through an engine you know nothing about, and he replied " we like to make sure the engine can take the power” I went with it not to get angry and upset and went straight to Jon once we had stopped and mensioned it to him and he denied that they did that and said no he wouldn’t have said that.
i wasn’t happy and I also had a bit Of water leaking on my pipes which john seemed to fob off as he said it could be my water bottle seaping through the seams. I Also trailered the car there with brand new continental sport 2 tyres that had never been driven on all round and noticed that the rears had and still are gauged to hell on the rears where what I’d guess is 26psi worth of boost and torque pushing the rear end down and the arches cutting into my expensive tyres! I told Jon there and then and wasn’t happy as I hadn’t even drove the car and his answer was ”oh don’t worry tyres are very strong on the corner in that area” ????
i just could not wait to get away from there and forget all about this as I really could t be bothered to get money back for the damages at that point I just wanted my pride and joy home! I also had the pleasure of another bill before I left of around £1500 as I had them replace bottom fuel lines, brake lines all round disc and pads which I supplied repair turbo water pump which was still leaking in front of both of us, recalibration of my AFM which I just found that they didn’t reseal and left the lid flapping open ?? ( I recently found this on installing the engine after this rebuild and I repaired and resaeled it )
on the plus side my car drove amazing with the new mods and I was happy not to want to dwell on this all so was enjoying my car. On the 8th drive ( possibly 2 months later? My engine burst into steam , I was distraught as I thought they had blown my freshly top end rebuilt head which was my worry when I found out they had boosted my engine to 26psi withought my consent and which I told John I was worried about , on inspection there was nothing wrong with my head and my head was not warped iether but number 4 cylinder had split right through! ?? now I can only put this down to the amount of boost that was put through my car on multiple hard test runs as that JMG test driver told me they did.
I was angry and wanted some some sort of compensation from John but he denied that it could have been anything they did , and said if I brought all the engine to him that he would anylise it, well it could have only been the head had been skimmed a bit too much but on 18 psi I would think it wouldn’t split a cylinder on one of our engines as it was in great shape also, but start putting 26psi through a standard bottom end and I bet money on something going tits up very quickly. Needless to say I turnt down the offer to bring the engine there for analysis after all I had witnessed and wanted nothing further to do with the company.
I was told by a very reputable speacialist who Im sure we have all used that is well respected and no longer is running, just to pull out of trying to get compensation and do myself a favour and forget it as he knew of another two owners a 911 and a 968 owner that was already trying to sue him for damages to there vehicles, so I pulled out much to my discust as I just lost a whole load of money that I saved years for to enjoy these upgrades. And the stress it caused me and my wife whilst it was there you have no idea! I Cussed me to feel stressed and low everytime I spoke with them!!
fast forward to today which is the reason behind my full rebuild which has taken me a further 2-3 years to save the money for the materials as I needed major work on my now damaged short block as I wanted to keep my engine numbers original. My pistons were also wrecked with burnt holes and crators in the tops through most deffinately high boost detonation as my chips doesn’t support that. And my pistons were in perfect condition before it went there ( I have all the photographic evidence before and after)
On doung this work i inderstand more and more porsche owners are telling me all there bad Experienced and I can first hand see and believe all of them.
I have since doing my rebuild found loads of dangerous and bodgey things which JMG carried out on my car which is a discrace to calling a company speacialist and they should be discusted with thereselfs! In my opinion they are cowboys and if Jon is not present enough which seemed the case here and that’s why this is all being run by people that don’t know what there doing or can’t be trusted on our cars then he needs to shut shop and stick to writing in books and magazines as it’s ruined 5 hard years of me grafting and saving money which has mostly been lost due to the ridiculous amount that it’s now cost me to put it right again! Let alone all the family time that I have had to loose repairing there damadge which if you add up before and now it adds up to a year and a half which I could have enjoyed with my growing family which you cant get back.
They fitted new brake lines at the front of my car looks like they forgot to thread it through the gromit that was there before! I found them cable tied to the metal bracket on my front suspension and was left so that the brake pipe would rub against the sharp edge of the flat housing of the metal that the gromit was in! Every time the steering was turnt left or right ( descracefull!) if that’s not shoddy cowboy work then I really don’t know what is, I also found a handful of other crappy discrasefull worksmanship that they carried out which I can’t be bothered to go into I photographed all of these and actually had an indipendant Report at the time on my engine once it was in bits but I had My wife begging me not to go through with court as we really couldn’t afford him not turning up ect.
The sad sad thing is I actually liked Jon and it’s just a huge shame that his company has left me not trusting anyone else ever again and I will alsways do everything from now on unless I really can’t do something electrical such as tunning The ecu (which I can’t) it’s left a very depressive memory that should have been a possative one, as I paid what they asked me to and even gave John personally my x4 standard injectors to say thanks.
I would never treat anyone like this so don’t see why others think it’s alright to.
Everyone can make mistakes but everyone also has a opertunity to make it right! In this case it seemed that nothing was there fault! I think I’ve said enough and I’ll leave it there.
