I thought I would take the opportunity to review a shop where I had a turbo install done on my 2006 G35 Coupe. I don’t usually go out of my way to bad mouth a company based on one experience but considering the expense ($8000.00) I felt compelled to maybe save the next guy from the same.

This past January I was working in San Luis Obispo, CA. I had been planning to get a turbo installed on my G35 but since I live in Michigan it was easier to have the work done while being in the west. I decided to take my car to Gruppe-S in Lake Forrest, CA. I had heard that they have been in the game for many years so it felt like a safe bet.
I delivered the car around the 3rd week in January and told them that I would be in the state until the end of March. I was told that once they received the kit it would only be a one-week turn around. Great!

After about 4 weeks I decided that I needed to call and get an update on the progress. The car was still sitting in the parking lot and had not been touched. Turbonetics had not shipped the kit due to a piece being on back order. Ok, I can live with that. They assured me that it would be there by the end of the week and they would get right on it the following Monday. So far, this is not a Gruppe-S problem, it is a Turbonetics problem.

The following week I call and they only have a partial kit with the mysterious piece still on back order. At least the majority of the kit has arrived and they can finally get to work, I am feeling better at this point. I remind them that I am only in town until the end of March again, they assure me that it will not be a problem.

Fast forward to the week of March 17th…I only have about a week ½ left in California before I need to be at my next work location of Brownsville, Nebraska 1700 miles from CA. I call the shop and let them know that I am not pleased with how long this has taken but understand that Turbonetics has not shipped the part. They again say that the part should be on the way. I let them know that the drop dead pick-up date is the 27th of March. They let me know that they already have a dyno day set up at Technosquare for the custom ECU re-flash and that it will be ready with time to spare for that date.

Morning of March 27th. I get home from night shift and go to sleep for a few hours before making the 4 hour trip to pick up the car. I awake at 11 AM to a phone call…by the way, the first and only Gruppe-S phone call that was not initiated by me! “Brett, we have some bad news. Turbonetics has still not shipped the part. It will be another week”.
I am really pissed at this point. I have been to that shop and seen that they could fabricate damn near anything they want so I ask…What is this part? Can it be fabricated?
Yes, that’s no problem. We didn’t mention it because it might cost a couple hundred dollars to get done.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHI@#TING ME!!!! After explaining how important my deadline was on several occasions and spending $8000 do you think I give a rats *** about $200 to make sure that I get my car back?!!!! Get someone in there now and get this done!

The rest I will snap shot. They get someone to fabricate a section of tubing for me, loose the appointment for the ECU re-flash so now I have to take an early exit from my job to make time to pick up the car (cost of lost day of work: $1500 and potential damaged relations with employer). I go to pick up the car on the 2nd of April and it is still on the hoist with an exhaust leak. They pull the car around after waiting for quite a while and it is way dirtier than when I dropped it off. There is a big scratch in the front bumper, there is grease on the driver seat and greasy hand prints on the felt interior roof.

Under the hood…
Unfinished! Clearances cut for some of the tubing look as if they were done with a jack knife. There is no air cleaner! The clearance is tight with the front of the car where the turbo sits and something needs to be fabricated to accommodate an air cleaner so they thought I would be ok with just not having one! Gauges? What gauges? I ordered a boost gauge that was never installed or even ordered.

How does it run?
It dyno’d at only something like 319 whp. That is ok because it has stock exhaust and now I have an important part of the foundation installed for what I hope to end up with.
I tailored the car to Nebraska. Once I had a chance to drive it, it would pull hard until 3rd gear where it began to sputter and really wouldn’t go any faster than 80 mph. The check engine light came on also. I later found that some of the hose clamps were not tightened letting air escape. It now feels better but the engine light is still on. The car is considerably quicker than stock but not the beast I had hoped for. I drove it home from Nebraska (800 Miles) with a make-shift air cleaner and it ran good the whole way.

Throughout the bad experience with Gruppe-S right up till the end when I picked up the car they told me that it was not their fault. They said that I should realize that they had worked hard on the car and had to overcome some challenges of fabrication to get the kit to fit. Fine…but isn’t that what I paid you to do? Never an apology, never a phone call to talk about optional approaches to make sure the deadline was hit. No Customer focus what so ever from this company. I will not be back for the motor build next year or any other modifications.

…Oh ya, Turbonetics never did ship the tube needed. If I had not demanded that they fabricate the piece I would have left CA with a non-running car and left to deal with it my self.

End of rant. Sorry for the length. Beware of this company for your hot rod projects.

 

wow that sucks.. did you give Turbonetics a piece of your mind as well?

 

Gruppe S does turbo installs??? Wow bro, there are definitely better options for a turbo install in SoCal. Sucks that you had to go through this.

 

Wooooooow! I have heard Horror stories from that place, bunch of slackers that are there just to hustle money. I went to a shop similar to them and actually are friends with them, and they fvcked up my car too! I know how exactly you feel! To the bottom of it, i know!!! I feel greatly sorry for you and I highly suggest you to go take your car to get it looked at. Even after my car was running and going, I took it to a shop and found out that I had to spend an extra 2k in fixing the other shops issues, and it was clearly legit issues that I had to take care of that the shop did wrong, that pissed me off! The shop that did it busted a VRT on me, but except VRT did their bad work on purpose!

Haha if this was GTM they probably say screw that tube and fabricated it themselves from the beginning. I went through 2-3 shops that I called home before I threw in the towel and went a little distance to GTM and no regrets since, money well spent now!

I can understand your anger and thank you very much for telling us this info, we shall keep this in mind and every person that takes their car to gruppe will think twice, I actually got a quote from them also to do a install a while back, but I backed out of it, and went to another shop, they screwed me too so fvck them both, infact fvck them all! Nothing but a bunch of hustlers that want to make money, if you're going to hustle me, atleast make me happy and do it right haha.

Damn this thread makes me want to start one of my own against the shop that fvcked me up, but I don't know...it's not the owners fought, it's his employees hrrrm

 

Your first mistake was choosing a TN setup... what a pile of garbage...

Second mistake is not searching the boards and going with a more known and reputable shop. I personally have never heard of gruppe S doing installs. That said, a TN setup isn't all that hard to install

 

y u would travel to SoCal and pay 8k for a TN install at Gruppe-S is beyond me, when there are much better shops to do the install. I thought Gruppe-S was mainly a vendor w/ mostly online orders? I mean, they don't even do tuning do they? Shouldv'e chose GTM, MRC, Forged, PF, etc.

nyways, sorry to hear.

 

I traveled to SoCal...actually MidCal for work, not for an install. The install was convenient as I did not need the car while I was there and there were more shops available there than Michigan.

Gruppe-S actually has a 30K SqFt building with a pretty impressive shop. There were plenty of bad azz cars being worked on and the tour is what put me at ease. They are actually a certified installer for Turbonetics, someone mentioned them on one of these forums and I inturn found them on the Turbonetics web site.

The car actually runs very well and a single turbo is what I was looking to do so I am not displeased with the set up right now. Nothing they did could not be fixed and already has been, it was the point of having to clean up after them that makes me angry.

The total bill of $7800 and change included the cost of the kit, the install, dyno time and $600 bucks for the ECU re-flash at Technosquare (Turbonetics does not have one for the 2006 model yet). I don't think the final bill was bad if the work had been performed with more pride. I really could give a Sh#t about the money, I just wanted it done right.

Anyway, it is a bygone. On to the engine build, racing seats, carbon fiber...I am already feeling better.

 

i would take my car to gruppe s before i took my car to some of those shops you named!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

GTM, MRC, Forged and Performance Factory are all some of the top shops in the country. You would take your car to Gruppe S before any of those??? Wow.

 

I posted this at My350Z also

If you are in Brownsville Nebraska now . Which I think is south of Omaha . Bring the car up to Omaha . SubLime Speed Tech on 132 & Industrial Road [ L st. ] They can fix you up . They have done a couple TN kit install's

http://www.sstracing.com/sublimeweb/index.htm

here is there web site

My G35 is there now

 

dude, you have NOOOOOOOOO IDEA.

i can tell you, and so can homieg35

 

Tell me. PM me if you prefer not to post it up.

 

ill hit u up tomorrow..

 

Okay, hit me up tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the info. I actually was reffered there by a guy working at the local parts shop in Nebraska City where I was living. I am home in Michigan now and the car runs very well. Maybe it wasn't that it was running poorly in Nebraska, I was probably just fighting against the relentless wind!!!!! Wow, does it ever stop blowing in that part of the country??!!! Sure had a good time though.