What would YOU do?

[251am]

  A Performance shop does some suspension work for you. GMD, sprockets, revalve/respring forks, straighten a twisted frame, hang a Penske you purchased, and set it up. $2200. You get the bike back but really don't have much time to look it over, but when you do you realize you've been duped. Work that was said to be done, two items, are not done. Fork tube caps are ready to fall off forks, they're so loose. Fork pinch bolts and a shock mount nut are loose enough to nearly fail NESBA tech at R. America last week.

One of the shop owner's response to this is..." Geez, I can't believe those guys forgot to do that stuff. Must have been my notes. I'll make it up to you when you need some other work done on your bike."   

  There's a pretty good chance the fork internals weren't taken care of either.


   What would you do? What have you done?


 

[spyderchick]

Ask for a partial refund of the work done, They may or may not take care of you. If you don't get satisfaction and you paid w/ a credit card, have the charges reversed.

Kudos for not starting flame war here on the board by mentioning them by name. Give a them chance to make good monetarily, if not, make sure you friends know what's what. Word of mouth can kill a biz fast. 

[Jeff]

Ask for the before and after measurements from the GMD work.

Take the bike to another suspension expert and see if they can peek at the forks for a comment.

[kylbie]

get a second opinion and then grill those bastards... i hate lazy workers.... i would get a refund for labor, they prolly wont refund ur parts unless you return them.

[Jeff]

I don't want to jump ahead without knowing ANY details, but once you've done your work, do not rule out small claims court to get some of your $$ back if need be.

[Super Dave]

I think you need to go back to the shop to have the work checked.

I'd think that they would do that for you.  Even open up the internals to check for themselves and show you.  Certainly embarassing.

Having someone else open it up could placing the other guy in a difficult position.  And you'd need to think about the fact that the other guy's time is worth money.  More money that you might need to provide.  An IF something accidently happens during the disassembly, that would probably place the second guy in a bad position of replacing parts that were broken...or you pay more money.

[CCSRacer114]

1. Take it back to the shop and explain your concerns.  I know that my guy here in Florida is very concerned about getting things right every time.  If there's a problem, let them know and let them fix it.  You paid for it and as my guy here says: "When I do your work you own a piece of me".

2.  Don't be afraid to look things over before you take the bike back.... like Leonid Brezshnev said to Richard Nixon: "Trust, but verify".

My $1.30.

[OmniGLH]

  A Performance shop does some suspension work for you. GMD, sprockets, revalve/respring forks, straighten a twisted frame, hang a Penske you purchased, and set it up. $2200. You get the bike back but really don't have much time to look it over, but when you do you realize you've been duped. Work that was said to be done, two items, are not done. Fork tube caps are ready to fall off forks, they're so loose. Fork pinch bolts and a shock mount nut are loose enough to nearly fail NESBA tech at R. America last week.

One of the shop owner's response to this is..." Geez, I can't believe those guys forgot to do that stuff. Must have been my notes. I'll make it up to you when you need some other work done on your bike."  

  There's a pretty good chance the fork internals weren't taken care of either.


   What would you do? What have you done?


 

Stand over their shoulder while they verify what was (or wasn't) done.  Then make them fix it.  Then never go there again.

I had a similar (but not as extensive) negative experience with a certain performance shop a few years ago.  Got raped on a GMD job, had some other work done, get the bike to the track and parts were literally falling off.  I wound up crashing as I was exiting the track to the pits after a practice session because the steering damper fell off and bound itself up in the forks.  Good times... NOT.

Later I heard more stories about that same shop screwing over other prominent racers (claiming to have done GMD work when they didn't, etc.)

[251am]

I don't want to jump ahead without knowing ANY details, but once you've done your work, do not rule out small claims court to get some of your $$ back if need be.

I'm not ruling out small claims. To go back to this shop and risk more half ass work is NEARLY out of the question. Drop off and pick up would be round trip of about 14 hours drive time. For what? To risk more BS? Waste 20 or 30 more gallons of diesel? (Funny how $3 a gallon puts driving into a much sharper perspective.)

Thanks for all the perspectives so far. I'd rather handle this in a constructive manner.

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

I'd bet my back protector you didn't take it to Lithium Motorsports or Valley Racing.  Those two shops do outstanding work that you can trust, and would bend over backwards to make a problem right.
I've been in the same position myself, having been screwed by two different shops.  Though they will remain nameless here, I'm not shy about relating my horror stories in person every time the name of either shylock shop comes up in conversation.  To this day, I can't figure out how one particular shop manages to piss off so many racers each year and still stay in business.... ???

[cardzilla]

Holy SHIT!  I'm a mechanic (I mostly work on track bikes) and I can tell you that certain mistakes just can't be made.  It's not a car where you may have an accident, it's a freaking motorcycle... and a track bike at that!  There's simply no excuse for what you describe regardless of whether the work was done or not.  God forbid you didn't notice the fork caps and the managed to come off, or if the shock came off it's mount mid-corner... complete negligence.

My suggestion, honestly, is to learn every minute detail about your bike.  Try to be able to fix things yourself if at all possible.  The other option is to stick with someone who is highly recommended.  You can tell how good a mechanic is by watching him also.  Patient, attention to detail... possibly anal retentive... those are all good things.  I'm not sure where you're at but Thermosman & Eric Gray are both excellent at suspension tuning.  The former I only know from legend, but it's a BIG legend.

On your current situation : Unfortunately your legal avenues are probably nil.  That's one thing about our system that sucks, if you don't get hurt and there's no damage, then there's really no negligence.  I think due to the severity of what happened you should at least talk to a lawyer.  Hopefully you took pictures.

[251am]

Holy SHIT!  I'm a mechanic (I mostly work on track bikes) and I can tell you that certain mistakes just can't be made.  It's not a car where you may have an accident, it's a freaking motorcycle... and a track bike at that!  There's simply no excuse for what you describe regardless of whether the work was done or not.  God forbid you didn't notice the fork caps and the managed to come off, or if the shock came off it's mount mid-corner... complete negligence.

My suggestion, honestly, is to learn every minute detail about your bike.  Try to be able to fix things yourself if at all possible.  The other option is to stick with someone who is highly recommended.  You can tell how good a mechanic is by watching him also.  Patient, attention to detail... possibly anal retentive... those are all good things.  I'm not sure where you're at but Thermosman & Eric Gray are both excellent at suspension tuning.  The former I only know from legend, but it's a BIG legend.

On your current situation : Unfortunately your legal avenues are probably nil.  That's one thing about our system that sucks, if you don't get hurt and there's no damage, then there's really no negligence.  I think due to the severity of what happened you should at least talk to a lawyer.  Hopefully you took pictures.

  Funny you should mention the pics! When the first tube cap popped off I just about shit a brick as the internals came shooting out with it. I took pics of that to compare with a suspension site I've seen out there, just to make sure it at least looked comparable to proper assembly.

  K3 gets to keep his back protector!!! I know how they stay in business-someone keeps referring fresh pigeons, er, I mean racers.

  Shop owner is out of town 'til Tuesday...Oh well.