Hey guys..
I?ve had one of the worst experiences I have had with any tuning shop. Cobb Tuning Plano built and tuned my car. I live in Oklahoma City and I decided to trust them with the build and take it down that far because of the good experiences I had read and heard about. The build consisted of .20 bore and forged pistons, stock rods, stock heads, cams. They removed and built the motor then installed it and off I went.
I did a turbo swap and ran a parallel fuel system and off I went to get tuned. This was on September 30th 2011.
The car made 403whp and 392wtq on 21.79 psi on E85.
If felt awesome, the drivability was outstanding. Two days later my car developed a knock. I called Cobb Tuning Plano and Neil advised me to tow the car down there so they can look at it. Before I went down I removed the intercooler pipe, fuel line, and timing cover to inspect the tensioner and see if that was the culprit, unfortunately everything checked out perfectly.
I trailed my car down that following weekend, October 8th 2011. We started my car so that Calvin and Neil could listen to it. They confirmed it wasn?t a spun bearing and sounded like a rod.
On October 18th Neil called me with the compression results. 155, 155, 145, 120. They were almost certain it was a bent rod. They tore the motor apart and Neil told me that the motor had one bent rod and it was because of detention because of the fuel leak, or my E85 blend. Keep in mind I only had the leak because I took the intercooler pipe off to check the tensioner. I didn?t drive it with a knock. They said that they weren?t going to cover it because of the fuel leak. And I was fuel that I had gone and got tuned on so that was out of the question in my head but they disagreed.
What they said to me made absolutely no sense at the time but I did not know what to say, so I asked for pictures of the plugs and I never got them. They never sent me any pictures of anything so basically I was supposed to believe everything that they were telling me.
A month or passed by and I didn?t hear anything, I called headquarters and they didn?t do much help and I still hadn?t heard. Then I called Cobb in Oregon and they had Plano call me promptly. Plano had told me on the phone about a week earlier that they would test the E85 content then call me RIGHT back. That is why I called Cobb in Oregon because that was the only Cobb besides in California that I hadn?t spoke with.
I won?t really explain further details because my email that is below proves them wrong in every aspect of what they are telling me.
The sad part is, I have so many people asking me about my experience with Cobb, STi?s, Mazdaspeed 3?s, 335i?s. If you have your 30k dollar car 200 miles away with nothing but excuses coming from the people that run this reputable shop, how would you feel?
I feel like I?m being taken advantage of because of how far away I am and I cannot see anything in person, and from customers stand point that is truly unfair and unethical. I feel like when I spend 7k dollars on a simple motor build I should get the benefit of the doubt not them. Especially since I?m not even close
Basically my car has been in Plano since the beginning of October and we have made NO progress, and NO emails have been replied too.
I resorted to publicizing this issue because I?m sick of this and I don?t want any other enthusiast to go through this same thing with their car. And I KNOW for a fact they read the emails because a friend went and got tuned the 19th which was the day after I sent the email and they told him that cylinder 2 and 4 were hurt blah blah. I HAD said that in the email as you will find out after reading it. This is the 4th time they have changed the story and not even replied to me.
I?m sure I am missing a lot but this gives you an idea of what I?ve been going through.
I need advice, what would you guys do if you were in a situation like this?
This is the email I received from Neil on October 18th 2011;
Shawn, I spoke with Chris regarding your engine repair. We measured the Ethanol content in the car to be E-82. Ethanol content percentage is unlikely the culprit. While we can't say exactly how you broke the motor it is pretty obvious it was from massive detonation. Detonation such as this is most likely caused by low fuel pressure due to fuel leaks at the fuel supply under the hood. Another possible contributing factor to this failure might be an overboost event, overboost during high load with a lean AFR may well be how the motor died.
The engine shows no signs of impropper assembly and the tune that Calvin put on the car was right in line with other tunes on similar setups, so we are confident that your failure did not arise from either the engine assembly or the ECU calibration.
The repair of your engine will take either new engine block halves, or sleeving to make right because the massive detonation has distorted the trueness of the cylinders by as much as .005". Another option would be to install a new or used (good condition!) shortblock. I appreciate that this failure has come at a bad time for you. I spoke with Chris and he has agreed to give you a 20% discount on the labor for this repair.
My response to this email;
Chris and Neil,
I appreciate you guys getting back with me.
You?re absolutely right about the E82 content. It is very hard to detonate on Ethanol as it is, and it being E85-2 like I first said that takes my fuel out of the equation. I fuel up at RS fuels in Oklahoma City. The owner is very involved in modifying cars and is a friend of mine. He mixes his E85 with E100 so it?s always E85. We also now have E100 readily available at the pump.
When Neil initially called me, he told me that the compression of the motor was 155, 155, 145, and 120. In the email you?re stating that more one cylinder was hurt, and with those numbers it is very obvious damage was only done to one cylinder. With me not being there, it?s very difficult to make oneself trust something they hear without seeing it, and being told a couple of different things makes me wonder if everyone is being honest in this situation. If it was a fueling issue it would have been apparent in more than one cylinder. I ran a parallel fuel system to keep constant pressure throughout all four injectors. If this was an event of massive detention it would have been apparent in more than just one cylinder. You stated that the second cylinder was hurt, which means in turn if the second cylinder was starved from fuel that means that the 4th cylinder would be in the exact same condition. The compression test proves otherwise. That is just basic physics.
You guys stated that the cylinder wall had been pushed out. This is because of the bent connecting rod. If the connecting rod is bent it is making the cylinder put pressure on the side of the cylinder walls because it is going up and down, well side to side in an abnormal cycle.
I trusted you guys with the motor build and tune and you guys knew exactly what was in the motor and what the safe limits should be. The most likely causes for the bent rod are either too much ignition timing or over boost. Which both of these should have been accounted for in the tune. Why wasn?t the over boost protection, or boost cut setup when Calvin was tuning it? Some people are completely oblivious to cars and how they act under certain circumstances. This means this tune should have been safe for my mother to drive it and get on the highway flooring it in 6th gear at 3k RPMS. You guys knew the temperature was dropping and colder air is denser which means more air and that should have definitely been taken into consideration before I left your shop. When one brings their car to Cobb Tuning a well known reputable shop they expect it to perform to the max, and most importantly safely. Not everyone can scarf up over seven thousand dollars and spend it on an engine just that it can fail just shortly after.
Everyone that asks about your reputation I always give Cobb Tuning awesome feedback in their awesome, honest and trustworthy work. With me constantly talking about my solid experience it has brought down and will bring down more people to Cobb Tuning. I hope to keep this experience a solid one.
Shawn A.
Email I sent to Chris as to why they haven?t responded to my email which you just read above, sent November 27, 2011;
I sent this on November 18th, 2011. I have not received a response so I figured I would email you directly.
I'm confused as to why no one has put forth the effort into getting back with me. I tried to deal with mainly one person so I would get one straight forward answer, but I feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Every person I speak with is either using my words against me and saying that's what happened to the motor, or I get completely different answers from the people that I talk to. I have NO pictures and nothing to go off of besides the compression test. Every time I speak with you guys you come up with different interpretations as to what happened. I just want a response to the previous email that is below. We cannot move forward with this situation if you guys are not willing to communicate with me.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and i will greatly appreciate and help and advise that can be given.
I?ve had one of the worst experiences I have had with any tuning shop. Cobb Tuning Plano built and tuned my car. I live in Oklahoma City and I decided to trust them with the build and take it down that far because of the good experiences I had read and heard about. The build consisted of .20 bore and forged pistons, stock rods, stock heads, cams. They removed and built the motor then installed it and off I went.
I did a turbo swap and ran a parallel fuel system and off I went to get tuned. This was on September 30th 2011.
The car made 403whp and 392wtq on 21.79 psi on E85.
If felt awesome, the drivability was outstanding. Two days later my car developed a knock. I called Cobb Tuning Plano and Neil advised me to tow the car down there so they can look at it. Before I went down I removed the intercooler pipe, fuel line, and timing cover to inspect the tensioner and see if that was the culprit, unfortunately everything checked out perfectly.
I trailed my car down that following weekend, October 8th 2011. We started my car so that Calvin and Neil could listen to it. They confirmed it wasn?t a spun bearing and sounded like a rod.
On October 18th Neil called me with the compression results. 155, 155, 145, 120. They were almost certain it was a bent rod. They tore the motor apart and Neil told me that the motor had one bent rod and it was because of detention because of the fuel leak, or my E85 blend. Keep in mind I only had the leak because I took the intercooler pipe off to check the tensioner. I didn?t drive it with a knock. They said that they weren?t going to cover it because of the fuel leak. And I was fuel that I had gone and got tuned on so that was out of the question in my head but they disagreed.
What they said to me made absolutely no sense at the time but I did not know what to say, so I asked for pictures of the plugs and I never got them. They never sent me any pictures of anything so basically I was supposed to believe everything that they were telling me.
A month or passed by and I didn?t hear anything, I called headquarters and they didn?t do much help and I still hadn?t heard. Then I called Cobb in Oregon and they had Plano call me promptly. Plano had told me on the phone about a week earlier that they would test the E85 content then call me RIGHT back. That is why I called Cobb in Oregon because that was the only Cobb besides in California that I hadn?t spoke with.
I won?t really explain further details because my email that is below proves them wrong in every aspect of what they are telling me.
The sad part is, I have so many people asking me about my experience with Cobb, STi?s, Mazdaspeed 3?s, 335i?s. If you have your 30k dollar car 200 miles away with nothing but excuses coming from the people that run this reputable shop, how would you feel?
I feel like I?m being taken advantage of because of how far away I am and I cannot see anything in person, and from customers stand point that is truly unfair and unethical. I feel like when I spend 7k dollars on a simple motor build I should get the benefit of the doubt not them. Especially since I?m not even close
Basically my car has been in Plano since the beginning of October and we have made NO progress, and NO emails have been replied too.
I resorted to publicizing this issue because I?m sick of this and I don?t want any other enthusiast to go through this same thing with their car. And I KNOW for a fact they read the emails because a friend went and got tuned the 19th which was the day after I sent the email and they told him that cylinder 2 and 4 were hurt blah blah. I HAD said that in the email as you will find out after reading it. This is the 4th time they have changed the story and not even replied to me.
I?m sure I am missing a lot but this gives you an idea of what I?ve been going through.
I need advice, what would you guys do if you were in a situation like this?
This is the email I received from Neil on October 18th 2011;
Shawn, I spoke with Chris regarding your engine repair. We measured the Ethanol content in the car to be E-82. Ethanol content percentage is unlikely the culprit. While we can't say exactly how you broke the motor it is pretty obvious it was from massive detonation. Detonation such as this is most likely caused by low fuel pressure due to fuel leaks at the fuel supply under the hood. Another possible contributing factor to this failure might be an overboost event, overboost during high load with a lean AFR may well be how the motor died.
The engine shows no signs of impropper assembly and the tune that Calvin put on the car was right in line with other tunes on similar setups, so we are confident that your failure did not arise from either the engine assembly or the ECU calibration.
The repair of your engine will take either new engine block halves, or sleeving to make right because the massive detonation has distorted the trueness of the cylinders by as much as .005". Another option would be to install a new or used (good condition!) shortblock. I appreciate that this failure has come at a bad time for you. I spoke with Chris and he has agreed to give you a 20% discount on the labor for this repair.
My response to this email;
Chris and Neil,
I appreciate you guys getting back with me.
You?re absolutely right about the E82 content. It is very hard to detonate on Ethanol as it is, and it being E85-2 like I first said that takes my fuel out of the equation. I fuel up at RS fuels in Oklahoma City. The owner is very involved in modifying cars and is a friend of mine. He mixes his E85 with E100 so it?s always E85. We also now have E100 readily available at the pump.
When Neil initially called me, he told me that the compression of the motor was 155, 155, 145, and 120. In the email you?re stating that more one cylinder was hurt, and with those numbers it is very obvious damage was only done to one cylinder. With me not being there, it?s very difficult to make oneself trust something they hear without seeing it, and being told a couple of different things makes me wonder if everyone is being honest in this situation. If it was a fueling issue it would have been apparent in more than one cylinder. I ran a parallel fuel system to keep constant pressure throughout all four injectors. If this was an event of massive detention it would have been apparent in more than just one cylinder. You stated that the second cylinder was hurt, which means in turn if the second cylinder was starved from fuel that means that the 4th cylinder would be in the exact same condition. The compression test proves otherwise. That is just basic physics.
You guys stated that the cylinder wall had been pushed out. This is because of the bent connecting rod. If the connecting rod is bent it is making the cylinder put pressure on the side of the cylinder walls because it is going up and down, well side to side in an abnormal cycle.
I trusted you guys with the motor build and tune and you guys knew exactly what was in the motor and what the safe limits should be. The most likely causes for the bent rod are either too much ignition timing or over boost. Which both of these should have been accounted for in the tune. Why wasn?t the over boost protection, or boost cut setup when Calvin was tuning it? Some people are completely oblivious to cars and how they act under certain circumstances. This means this tune should have been safe for my mother to drive it and get on the highway flooring it in 6th gear at 3k RPMS. You guys knew the temperature was dropping and colder air is denser which means more air and that should have definitely been taken into consideration before I left your shop. When one brings their car to Cobb Tuning a well known reputable shop they expect it to perform to the max, and most importantly safely. Not everyone can scarf up over seven thousand dollars and spend it on an engine just that it can fail just shortly after.
Everyone that asks about your reputation I always give Cobb Tuning awesome feedback in their awesome, honest and trustworthy work. With me constantly talking about my solid experience it has brought down and will bring down more people to Cobb Tuning. I hope to keep this experience a solid one.
Shawn A.
Email I sent to Chris as to why they haven?t responded to my email which you just read above, sent November 27, 2011;
I sent this on November 18th, 2011. I have not received a response so I figured I would email you directly.
I'm confused as to why no one has put forth the effort into getting back with me. I tried to deal with mainly one person so I would get one straight forward answer, but I feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Every person I speak with is either using my words against me and saying that's what happened to the motor, or I get completely different answers from the people that I talk to. I have NO pictures and nothing to go off of besides the compression test. Every time I speak with you guys you come up with different interpretations as to what happened. I just want a response to the previous email that is below. We cannot move forward with this situation if you guys are not willing to communicate with me.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and i will greatly appreciate and help and advise that can be given.
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