watch out for SR Motor Cars in gardena
#1
07-15-2010, 09:36 PM
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watch out for SR Motor Cars in gardena
Its been 3 years and 3 months since i started the G35 project and only thing i have is a 55,000 dollar brick. I'm writing this so other people can avoid what has happened to me and stay away from SR motorcars.
Long story short, I started a project w Steven Rodger who runs a shop called SR motorcars, back in April 2007. The car was suppose to be done by November 2009. I gave him all the money by Aug 2008, which was about 50,000, but the car didn't come out until last month, May 2010. After 3 years the car was still not completed. None of my gauges worked, and the car wasn't running right. When i took it to another shop for inspection, I quickly found out the car was in a mess. I'm talking to a lawyer, and filing a fraud case against SR motorcars.
Now in details..... Back in 2007 around mid April, I had a chance to start a project car with one of my friend who owned a shop. It was going to be a wide body G35(since i had one) with a RB26 motor swap, but he had another customer who wanted to do the same thing so it got canceled. This is when I told Steven Rodgers about the project(we were friends back then) and how much i wanted to do it. About a week later he came up to me and asked if I was still interested in the project. When i asked him why, he said he also wanted to do a project like that but didn't have the money for it. so he asked if i was willing to pay for the parts and he would do all the labor and once the car was done he would take it to shows/magazines and promote his shop and afterwords I would get the car back. So i asked him how much this would coast and he told me it should be around 50,000 dollars.
Originally he told me that he would finish the car for the SEMA show, which is in Nov. quickly SEMA came along but the car was nowhere near completion. back then I couldn't say much because i only forked out 30,000 dollars. his next plan was to finish the car by 2008 SEMA show. Also around this time he moved in and we became roommates. By Aug 2008, i paid him $40,000 and this is when things started getting really messed up. Around this time steven rodgers came up to me and asked if i could give him the rest of the 50,000. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable giving him all the money without a contract agreement and any sort of invoice (yeah... bad idea) and also i didn't have the money. (i was going to sell my wrx when the car was done and give him the remaining money) after hearing this SR told me that he knew a friend that worked at a loan company and I could pull out the loan and pay it off with the wrx money. I asked him why couldn't he pull out a load instead, his answer? bad credit. so this is when we signed a contract agreement(stating that if the car is not done by end of Nov 2008, he would give me back the money) and he wrote me an invoice w parts that he was going to buy and have modified.
So SR took all the money by now.. was the car done by the SEMA show? nope. when Nov came and i asked him if the car was done, the answer was no. He also told me that he was going to move out of the apartment cause he didn't have any money to pay rent. (funny thing is while he was living w me for 14months he only paid rent twice, the rest? he would tell me to take it out of the project money and later he will put it back in) any how... when i asked him that i wanted my money back, he told me that he had no money and there was nothing he could do and telling me that either i could sue him and waste more money and time or just trust him one more time and give him more time to finish the car.
Who would've thought that little bit more time would become another year and a half. In order to speed up the process i even had to buy more parts for things that he already charged me for. (for example he charged me 1000 for gauges.... i bought my own tv screen and hks camp 2, he charged me 4000 for rims and tires, i ended up buying my friends used rims. he charged me 1500 for custom intake... at the end he just put a metal screen in front of the turbo...) I also gave him a set of defi gauges and he 'lost' the gauges. He said it wasn't his fault and he wasn't going to replace it or pay me back. He lost them back in feb 2008, when he went to jail for four months and one of his worker stole the gauges(defi 60mm boost, oil temp, oil pressure) from his office. (or at least that's what he says) why did he go to jail? well that's another story so ill skip it for now.
The gauges alone was worth 800, but he thinks its not his problem since it wasn't him who stole them (wow really...) anyway, after picking up the car i went to another shop right away(about 5mils away) just to make sure it was safe to drive it on the street. this turned out to be a very good idea since i found out that the car was not safe to drive at all. For examples, the drive shaft was too short, transmission mount was hitting the case, transmission and the engine was held by only the top three bolts together, 4 bolts on the bottom was missing, gasket between the tranny and the engine was missing, fan in the engine bay stopped working after few days(he made it in a way where the fan would stay on all the time if the engine was running) even tho the only time the car moved was to move it within the shop. straight pipe was hitting the body, he couldn't make the down pipe fit so he made a dent on it so it would fit. i also found a piece of hose holding the radiator in place (instead of making sure everything fits he just did some half *** job). also most of electric stuff doesn't work. In the beginning stage of the project, one of his worker decided to cut all the bcu wires (there was no reason to cut these wires) so what does SR do? instead of buying the right harness for the car, he buys a used one that doesn't even fit the car. result? the key-less is useless(doesn't work.. door lock/unlock, trunk release), the side mirrors doesn't move, the trunk will open only when the key is in the ignition, the radio doesn't work, and windows stopped working. (probably a bad connection) there are a lot more problems w the car but i think you get the idea now.
I also found out that his shop is not even registered shop. yep thats right.. this is the site you can go to and see it for your self, http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Repor...orts-100030581 the registered shop is called S&R motor sports(it has the same adres and phone no) and its owned by his land lord. I don't know what the deal was between him and his land lord but i think this is very shady way of running a business. I even talked to BAR and they said they are looking in to this situation. (they said hes not suppose to be working on street cars at all, since he doesn't have the license for it. even for the dyno (if anything happens to your car while its in his shop...well good luck.) Also never give him money for parts.. he will charge you for a new one but will put in a used part.(lot of the components in my car is used) There were more crazy **** during the project but I will stop here.(It seems like its getting really long.... ) So people watch out for this shop (and the owner)!!! If hes willing to scam people around him, I am sure he has no problem scamming others. Another thing that pisses me off the most is that hes been going and telling ppl (his friends and other customers) that when he gave me the car it was running perfect and nothing was wrong with it and I'm really happy about the car.....
PICS : http://www.flickr.com/photos/5163706...57624507515918
P.S : if you know some one or have been scammed by SR motor cars, please let me know, my lawyer says the more people I can find, the stronger I can build this case.
update : found out hes going to jail at the end of this month (end of July 2010) He did a settlement with the two girls that filed the lawsuit. Hes going in for couple years (not sure on exact time). Some might ask what were the charges.... well im not going to say it, but ill give you a hint. It rhymes with grape.
update 2 : this info has been deleted due to privacy.
these are some pics, for more goto the link on the top
Long story short, I started a project w Steven Rodger who runs a shop called SR motorcars, back in April 2007. The car was suppose to be done by November 2009. I gave him all the money by Aug 2008, which was about 50,000, but the car didn't come out until last month, May 2010. After 3 years the car was still not completed. None of my gauges worked, and the car wasn't running right. When i took it to another shop for inspection, I quickly found out the car was in a mess. I'm talking to a lawyer, and filing a fraud case against SR motorcars.
Now in details..... Back in 2007 around mid April, I had a chance to start a project car with one of my friend who owned a shop. It was going to be a wide body G35(since i had one) with a RB26 motor swap, but he had another customer who wanted to do the same thing so it got canceled. This is when I told Steven Rodgers about the project(we were friends back then) and how much i wanted to do it. About a week later he came up to me and asked if I was still interested in the project. When i asked him why, he said he also wanted to do a project like that but didn't have the money for it. so he asked if i was willing to pay for the parts and he would do all the labor and once the car was done he would take it to shows/magazines and promote his shop and afterwords I would get the car back. So i asked him how much this would coast and he told me it should be around 50,000 dollars.
Originally he told me that he would finish the car for the SEMA show, which is in Nov. quickly SEMA came along but the car was nowhere near completion. back then I couldn't say much because i only forked out 30,000 dollars. his next plan was to finish the car by 2008 SEMA show. Also around this time he moved in and we became roommates. By Aug 2008, i paid him $40,000 and this is when things started getting really messed up. Around this time steven rodgers came up to me and asked if i could give him the rest of the 50,000. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable giving him all the money without a contract agreement and any sort of invoice (yeah... bad idea) and also i didn't have the money. (i was going to sell my wrx when the car was done and give him the remaining money) after hearing this SR told me that he knew a friend that worked at a loan company and I could pull out the loan and pay it off with the wrx money. I asked him why couldn't he pull out a load instead, his answer? bad credit. so this is when we signed a contract agreement(stating that if the car is not done by end of Nov 2008, he would give me back the money) and he wrote me an invoice w parts that he was going to buy and have modified.
So SR took all the money by now.. was the car done by the SEMA show? nope. when Nov came and i asked him if the car was done, the answer was no. He also told me that he was going to move out of the apartment cause he didn't have any money to pay rent. (funny thing is while he was living w me for 14months he only paid rent twice, the rest? he would tell me to take it out of the project money and later he will put it back in) any how... when i asked him that i wanted my money back, he told me that he had no money and there was nothing he could do and telling me that either i could sue him and waste more money and time or just trust him one more time and give him more time to finish the car.
Who would've thought that little bit more time would become another year and a half. In order to speed up the process i even had to buy more parts for things that he already charged me for. (for example he charged me 1000 for gauges.... i bought my own tv screen and hks camp 2, he charged me 4000 for rims and tires, i ended up buying my friends used rims. he charged me 1500 for custom intake... at the end he just put a metal screen in front of the turbo...) I also gave him a set of defi gauges and he 'lost' the gauges. He said it wasn't his fault and he wasn't going to replace it or pay me back. He lost them back in feb 2008, when he went to jail for four months and one of his worker stole the gauges(defi 60mm boost, oil temp, oil pressure) from his office. (or at least that's what he says) why did he go to jail? well that's another story so ill skip it for now.
The gauges alone was worth 800, but he thinks its not his problem since it wasn't him who stole them (wow really...) anyway, after picking up the car i went to another shop right away(about 5mils away) just to make sure it was safe to drive it on the street. this turned out to be a very good idea since i found out that the car was not safe to drive at all. For examples, the drive shaft was too short, transmission mount was hitting the case, transmission and the engine was held by only the top three bolts together, 4 bolts on the bottom was missing, gasket between the tranny and the engine was missing, fan in the engine bay stopped working after few days(he made it in a way where the fan would stay on all the time if the engine was running) even tho the only time the car moved was to move it within the shop. straight pipe was hitting the body, he couldn't make the down pipe fit so he made a dent on it so it would fit. i also found a piece of hose holding the radiator in place (instead of making sure everything fits he just did some half *** job). also most of electric stuff doesn't work. In the beginning stage of the project, one of his worker decided to cut all the bcu wires (there was no reason to cut these wires) so what does SR do? instead of buying the right harness for the car, he buys a used one that doesn't even fit the car. result? the key-less is useless(doesn't work.. door lock/unlock, trunk release), the side mirrors doesn't move, the trunk will open only when the key is in the ignition, the radio doesn't work, and windows stopped working. (probably a bad connection) there are a lot more problems w the car but i think you get the idea now.
I also found out that his shop is not even registered shop. yep thats right.. this is the site you can go to and see it for your self, http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Repor...orts-100030581 the registered shop is called S&R motor sports(it has the same adres and phone no) and its owned by his land lord. I don't know what the deal was between him and his land lord but i think this is very shady way of running a business. I even talked to BAR and they said they are looking in to this situation. (they said hes not suppose to be working on street cars at all, since he doesn't have the license for it. even for the dyno (if anything happens to your car while its in his shop...well good luck.) Also never give him money for parts.. he will charge you for a new one but will put in a used part.(lot of the components in my car is used) There were more crazy **** during the project but I will stop here.(It seems like its getting really long.... ) So people watch out for this shop (and the owner)!!! If hes willing to scam people around him, I am sure he has no problem scamming others. Another thing that pisses me off the most is that hes been going and telling ppl (his friends and other customers) that when he gave me the car it was running perfect and nothing was wrong with it and I'm really happy about the car.....
PICS : http://www.flickr.com/photos/5163706...57624507515918
P.S : if you know some one or have been scammed by SR motor cars, please let me know, my lawyer says the more people I can find, the stronger I can build this case.
update : found out hes going to jail at the end of this month (end of July 2010) He did a settlement with the two girls that filed the lawsuit. Hes going in for couple years (not sure on exact time). Some might ask what were the charges.... well im not going to say it, but ill give you a hint. It rhymes with grape.
update 2 : this info has been deleted due to privacy.
these are some pics, for more goto the link on the top
Last edited by gochurush; 07-17-2010 at 05:26 PM.
#3
07-15-2010, 11:13 PM
Sounds like the @ssholes I dealt with years ago.
The Speed Shop in Loves Park, IL
Bunch of fu(king hacks!!! Ending up giving them over $8k and they refused to finish my car and had me come pick it up and trailer it home after they had financial issues and my car was held for court purposes for 3 months.
http://www.bbb.org/chicago/business-...ark-il-1005437
Definitely hire a lawyer and take legal action! GOOD LUCK!
The Speed Shop in Loves Park, IL
Bunch of fu(king hacks!!! Ending up giving them over $8k and they refused to finish my car and had me come pick it up and trailer it home after they had financial issues and my car was held for court purposes for 3 months.
http://www.bbb.org/chicago/business-...ark-il-1005437
Definitely hire a lawyer and take legal action! GOOD LUCK!
#5
07-16-2010, 05:19 AM
#6
07-16-2010, 06:12 AM
I was living with both the op and shop owner in the end of 07. Op is a trusting guy who had no reason to doubt the op because he was considered a good friend. i witnessed firsthand all of the headache and issues op had to go through and there was a lot of bull****. gluck with everything, hope it all works out for you
#7
07-16-2010, 10:40 AM
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#8
07-16-2010, 11:43 AM
Damn, sorry to hear about that. I don't think you will ever see you 50k back. And he fked up your car too.
Most performance shops are hella slow though.
I sent my car to Jojo Callos (Cure Automotive) and my car came up half assed too. He was too busy working on "real" track cars. Car took longer than expected and some of the time, I would have to go to the shop and work on my car myself. - I'm talking about the little things, like missing nuts and bolts, aligning the bumper, installing the brackets etc etc. Little shlt like that that was overlooked because he was too busy.
He did warn me not to install the "blockguard".. I should have listened as fked up my cylinder and coolant was slowly leaking.
Long story short, I end up selling the car because of all the problems.
---
Been hearing nothing but horror stories. That's why I leave my car bone stock now. Why waste money just to get more problems. Plus I'm done with modding anyways.
Most performance shops are hella slow though.
I sent my car to Jojo Callos (Cure Automotive) and my car came up half assed too. He was too busy working on "real" track cars. Car took longer than expected and some of the time, I would have to go to the shop and work on my car myself. - I'm talking about the little things, like missing nuts and bolts, aligning the bumper, installing the brackets etc etc. Little shlt like that that was overlooked because he was too busy.
He did warn me not to install the "blockguard".. I should have listened as fked up my cylinder and coolant was slowly leaking.
Long story short, I end up selling the car because of all the problems.
---
Been hearing nothing but horror stories. That's why I leave my car bone stock now. Why waste money just to get more problems. Plus I'm done with modding anyways.
#9
07-16-2010, 12:30 PM
....comment posted.
#10
07-16-2010, 12:36 PM
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Thanks for the support, guys. Also yes I know it was my fault to trust him w all that money. He always acts like u r his best buddy. He does that to everyone he meets. Just wanted to let u guys a heads up. And if he was busy building "real" race cars I could understand the car being delayed but that's not the case. He was always busy going on vacations. He would tell me he has no money to buy parts but has money to go on trips. Whenever I go over to his shop he would be either watching YouTube or playing games. The best part is when I call him out he would say "don't tell me how to run my business". Or " **** like this, don't make me want to work on ur car". Yeah basically saying I already got ur money and this is a unregistered shop so u can't do **** attitude.
#14
07-16-2010, 12:50 PM
#15
07-16-2010, 01:43 PM
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I was living with both the op and shop owner in the end of 07. Op is a trusting guy who had no reason to doubt the op because he was considered a good friend. i witnessed firsthand all of the headache and issues op had to go through and there was a lot of bull****. gluck with everything, hope it all works out for you