Opinions on getting my Evo fixed!
Apr 24, 2008, 04:06 PM
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Opinions on getting my Evo fixed!
I have tried to keep this as short as possible leaving out a lot of the little issues, but so much has happened in the past ~6 months, this is the best I can do thank you for taking the time to read this and reply.
I had been having 5th gear synchro issues with my 2006 IX GSR for some time. It started out only doing it in high speed situations (above normal operating speeds so Mitsubishi could not reproduce it). I had the clutch replaced and then eventually it started doing it lower and lower until it would always do it going into 5th gear. At that point I still could not get it covered under warranty because of the aftermarket clutch. I decided I would send my transmission to Shepherd Transmissions to be rebuilt.
In November of 2007 I dropped my car off with Rob and Dave of Brotherz Racing so they could take out the transmission and send it off. They told me their car had broken its own tcase and needed to be sent off to Shep also so they can do it at the same time and split the shipping costs. I told him that’s fine but according to the website it will only be about 90 bucks.
After many lies and delays, my transmission finally makes it up to shep to get worked on almost a month later. After getting a call from Jamal asking how I would like to pay for the 900 dollars in shipping that it costs to send my transmission out. I tell him he is crazy and go down to the shop to look at my car, it is missing. Find out it’s been towed down to their house to be stored while they are out of town so it would not be broken into too. As the inconsistent stories I had been receiving and my own paranoia’s I ask to see my tcase,”It’s with the car”. I finally get a hold of Rob when he is back in town and ask to see my car. We meet up at his house, the car is dirty as it’s been sitting in a Florida yard of sand. While talking with Rob he tell’s me to forget the shipping charges that’s insane and not to listen to him he will handle it and they must have accidently sent my tcase out to be rebuilt and that I will get that one put in my car when it comes back.
After even more delays about paying, it gets taken care of and the Transmission and tcase come back on January 3rd. I am told numerous times that “my” tcase that was sent to Shep will go back on my car. As you can guess more delays prevent me from getting my car back. They can’t work on the car they have other customer’s, my car for some reason still hasn’t found its way back to the shop. They can’t get a hold of their tow trailer etc, etc. I’m finally able to pin them to a Saturday @ 3pm. A time they are not usually working they fail and don’t even start till after 3. I didn’t get the tcase promised but ended up getting another evo owner’s that bought the shep tcase. They tell me it’s practically new and only have 2800 miles on it later to find out 2800 hard miles.
It all clicked. How did their car still run and go out racing this whole time when it had a broken tcase? Why was there all these delays? They ended up stealing my tcase to use on their car broke mine and had to get one from someone else, all of this was later confirmed by other employee’s. Here is where the problem comes in. I take my car for a spin as posted here
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=317745
It’s making a whirling noise like a pencil on the table. That Gets louder with speed. I take it back 2 days later not driven at all except home and back total of 50 miles. The fluid got changed to see if it helps. The transmission had metal shavings along with the tcase. Transmission I expect to have this with the tight tolerances being brand new. Was it too many shavings for 50 miles, no one knew. Well at this point they wanted to take the tcase apart and take a look at it. So they took it over to their neighbor Jerry Lancerman aka 94awdcoupe or what he called himself “The 4G63 Master”. He stated the reason for the metal shavings was because of the dirt on the drive shaft (from improperly being held up during towing/storage at their house) was eating away at the seal. Other than that the tcase was fine and he would even put it on his own car. It was clean and put back on my car. The noise was still there.
I ended up bringing my car back to them numerous times with little done and them being unsure what is the issue with my car. On one of the trips I ended up leaving after 3 hours waiting for Jerry to show up to get his opinion on the noise. This time is now reaching late march. Any contact with them takes a long time to get to the appropriate person and to receive a call back.
After running out of options I sent them my final demands letter which they denied stating they are willing to do whatever it takes to get this resolved I just need to bring my car back to them so their new techs can take a look at the issue since Rob and Dave are no longer employed(they are now at Big Valley Performance). After talking to a lawyer and small claims officer they advised me to give them another chance as the court likes to see plaintiff being flexible and giving them the opportunity to resolve any issues that arise. I’m told they want me to bring my car back and have them take a look at it. If they cannot resolve the problem they will pay to have my car worked on at Crown Mitsubishi. I ask if they will pay for a rental car while my car is down. A week later I get the answer back they agree. So I take my car back to them at about 1600 miles on the new transmission and tcase. More metal shavings in the transmission. Told its normal from shep. Tcase has very little however only about 6 oz of fluid in it. It gets refilled and I drive everyone around so they can give their opinion. They think it might be the transmission, no reason given for the little amount of fluid in the tcase. Shep says he will look at the transmission if there is nothing wrong with it he will charge a fee. They seem a little hesitant with that course of action.
I tell them lets just take the car to Crown and see what they say. They agree and tell me they will setup an appointment. They don’t so I do. Then they want me to bring the car back to them for another test to check wheel bearings(side to side) Told him I’ve already checked that on my own I’m not going bring it back. I drop the car off at crown, and crown contacts them to authorize work and get approval that they will be paying for it. Crown gets the approval and goes to work determining that the tcase is bad and it’s leaking fluid from the tcase. They again try to change the agreement and have me bring my car back to Brotherz Racing. They finally buy a “brand new” tcase from Jerry Lancerman and then waits a week to take it down to Crown. I get a call from crown saying the tcase has been replaced but there is another noise and it’s coming from the transmission.
This brings me to today, my car sits at Crown. Brotherz Racing is blackmailing me forcing me to sign a release form relieving them of any other damages or they will not pay Crown. I don’t want to sign it because the whole reason I brought my car to them in the first place 6 months ago was to get a 100% working transmission. I still don’t have that. Let alone minor issues like a damaged front lip, and missing body panels they never put back on and lost. Did crown miss diagnose the noise? Probably, but if the tcase was leaking it needed to be done anyways.
I guess I need to go to court now, Any other suggestions?
Thanks for your time!
I had been having 5th gear synchro issues with my 2006 IX GSR for some time. It started out only doing it in high speed situations (above normal operating speeds so Mitsubishi could not reproduce it). I had the clutch replaced and then eventually it started doing it lower and lower until it would always do it going into 5th gear. At that point I still could not get it covered under warranty because of the aftermarket clutch. I decided I would send my transmission to Shepherd Transmissions to be rebuilt.
In November of 2007 I dropped my car off with Rob and Dave of Brotherz Racing so they could take out the transmission and send it off. They told me their car had broken its own tcase and needed to be sent off to Shep also so they can do it at the same time and split the shipping costs. I told him that’s fine but according to the website it will only be about 90 bucks.
After many lies and delays, my transmission finally makes it up to shep to get worked on almost a month later. After getting a call from Jamal asking how I would like to pay for the 900 dollars in shipping that it costs to send my transmission out. I tell him he is crazy and go down to the shop to look at my car, it is missing. Find out it’s been towed down to their house to be stored while they are out of town so it would not be broken into too. As the inconsistent stories I had been receiving and my own paranoia’s I ask to see my tcase,”It’s with the car”. I finally get a hold of Rob when he is back in town and ask to see my car. We meet up at his house, the car is dirty as it’s been sitting in a Florida yard of sand. While talking with Rob he tell’s me to forget the shipping charges that’s insane and not to listen to him he will handle it and they must have accidently sent my tcase out to be rebuilt and that I will get that one put in my car when it comes back.
After even more delays about paying, it gets taken care of and the Transmission and tcase come back on January 3rd. I am told numerous times that “my” tcase that was sent to Shep will go back on my car. As you can guess more delays prevent me from getting my car back. They can’t work on the car they have other customer’s, my car for some reason still hasn’t found its way back to the shop. They can’t get a hold of their tow trailer etc, etc. I’m finally able to pin them to a Saturday @ 3pm. A time they are not usually working they fail and don’t even start till after 3. I didn’t get the tcase promised but ended up getting another evo owner’s that bought the shep tcase. They tell me it’s practically new and only have 2800 miles on it later to find out 2800 hard miles.
It all clicked. How did their car still run and go out racing this whole time when it had a broken tcase? Why was there all these delays? They ended up stealing my tcase to use on their car broke mine and had to get one from someone else, all of this was later confirmed by other employee’s. Here is where the problem comes in. I take my car for a spin as posted here
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=317745
It’s making a whirling noise like a pencil on the table. That Gets louder with speed. I take it back 2 days later not driven at all except home and back total of 50 miles. The fluid got changed to see if it helps. The transmission had metal shavings along with the tcase. Transmission I expect to have this with the tight tolerances being brand new. Was it too many shavings for 50 miles, no one knew. Well at this point they wanted to take the tcase apart and take a look at it. So they took it over to their neighbor Jerry Lancerman aka 94awdcoupe or what he called himself “The 4G63 Master”. He stated the reason for the metal shavings was because of the dirt on the drive shaft (from improperly being held up during towing/storage at their house) was eating away at the seal. Other than that the tcase was fine and he would even put it on his own car. It was clean and put back on my car. The noise was still there.
I ended up bringing my car back to them numerous times with little done and them being unsure what is the issue with my car. On one of the trips I ended up leaving after 3 hours waiting for Jerry to show up to get his opinion on the noise. This time is now reaching late march. Any contact with them takes a long time to get to the appropriate person and to receive a call back.
After running out of options I sent them my final demands letter which they denied stating they are willing to do whatever it takes to get this resolved I just need to bring my car back to them so their new techs can take a look at the issue since Rob and Dave are no longer employed(they are now at Big Valley Performance). After talking to a lawyer and small claims officer they advised me to give them another chance as the court likes to see plaintiff being flexible and giving them the opportunity to resolve any issues that arise. I’m told they want me to bring my car back and have them take a look at it. If they cannot resolve the problem they will pay to have my car worked on at Crown Mitsubishi. I ask if they will pay for a rental car while my car is down. A week later I get the answer back they agree. So I take my car back to them at about 1600 miles on the new transmission and tcase. More metal shavings in the transmission. Told its normal from shep. Tcase has very little however only about 6 oz of fluid in it. It gets refilled and I drive everyone around so they can give their opinion. They think it might be the transmission, no reason given for the little amount of fluid in the tcase. Shep says he will look at the transmission if there is nothing wrong with it he will charge a fee. They seem a little hesitant with that course of action.
I tell them lets just take the car to Crown and see what they say. They agree and tell me they will setup an appointment. They don’t so I do. Then they want me to bring the car back to them for another test to check wheel bearings(side to side) Told him I’ve already checked that on my own I’m not going bring it back. I drop the car off at crown, and crown contacts them to authorize work and get approval that they will be paying for it. Crown gets the approval and goes to work determining that the tcase is bad and it’s leaking fluid from the tcase. They again try to change the agreement and have me bring my car back to Brotherz Racing. They finally buy a “brand new” tcase from Jerry Lancerman and then waits a week to take it down to Crown. I get a call from crown saying the tcase has been replaced but there is another noise and it’s coming from the transmission.
This brings me to today, my car sits at Crown. Brotherz Racing is blackmailing me forcing me to sign a release form relieving them of any other damages or they will not pay Crown. I don’t want to sign it because the whole reason I brought my car to them in the first place 6 months ago was to get a 100% working transmission. I still don’t have that. Let alone minor issues like a damaged front lip, and missing body panels they never put back on and lost. Did crown miss diagnose the noise? Probably, but if the tcase was leaking it needed to be done anyways.
I guess I need to go to court now, Any other suggestions?
Thanks for your time!
Last edited by Second Chance; Apr 24, 2008 at 04:07 PM. Reason: spaced it out
Apr 25, 2008, 05:17 AM
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I've seen/heard of bad shop experiences before, but this is one of the top ones. I'd sue their a$$. If they think they can steal peoples t-case's and get away with it, they've got some serious issues. Hopefully something good comes out of this...
Apr 28, 2008, 03:48 PM
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Man i know how you feel bro...on my 03 i had the same problem with the syncros...but i took it to my friendly performance shop by the name of racing results...some of you guys might of heard of it...but anyways...after the guys change my fluids it actually went away...but still told me that i will need to rebuild the tranny...but since i've had the worst year in the evos...guess that's life...but damn....good luck bro!!! keep us updated on the Sheps work 
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Hopefully you get it resolved soon. talk to your lawyer!
Apr 30, 2008, 07:10 AM
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First of all, that is a very well articulated story. Secondly, I would definitely seek legal counsel. I know alot of people like to pull the lawyer card, but in this instance it is definitely needed. I would not only sue them for stealing your t-case, but also for pain and suffering along with all the other incidental costs that you occurred. If a small company is served with a legal writ they will more likely than not try to take care of it before it goes to court. I also wouldn't sign any paperwork unless your lawyer has reviewed it first.
Apr 30, 2008, 07:42 AM
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First of all, that is a very well articulated story. Secondly, I would definitely seek legal counsel. I know alot of people like to pull the lawyer card, but in this instance it is definitely needed. I would not only sue them for stealing your t-case, but also for pain and suffering along with all the other incidental costs that you occurred. If a small company is served with a legal writ they will more likely than not try to take care of it before it goes to court. I also wouldn't sign any paperwork unless your lawyer has reviewed it first.
Apr 30, 2008, 08:30 AM
#11
I'd say go with the lawyer route, at this point it is worth the money and time. Get a settlement for money to fix your car, make sure those "Brotherz" don't touch your car again, I wouldn't accept any services they offer as payment, cash is king.
Regardless of the route you take, good luck! Hope you get it all back together and on the streets.
Regardless of the route you take, good luck! Hope you get it all back together and on the streets.
May 6, 2008, 07:18 AM
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Thanks for the responses. I guess my biggest frustration is no one can really give me a definite answer as to what the problem is. After talking with Shep he puts so much doubt in my mind that it is the transmission.
