Now, I'm not one to write these kind of threads but I'm a bit disturbed. I just had a clutch and flywheel installed at Gruppe-S today, I couldn't pass up the $749 installed deal for an ACT clutch and gruppe-s flywheel, but boy oh boy should I have not cheaped out.

I haven't bothered to whine to gruppe-s because there's not much they can do, and the bridge is already burned, they will never touch my car again. I may still use them when I need parts, but there is no freaking way in hell I'll be taking my car to have it worked on.

I come in to pick up my car and only had to wait 15min or so before I heard its beautiful tone from the bays. I open the front door and listen to my car drive away as I love the sound and as usual it sounded great. I hang around outside to hear it come back, and oh boy do I hear it, there's a metal to metal sound(almost like when brakes are down to the tattle tale) as its coming down the street. Of course my heart starts racing so I head back to the bay to inspect. Some pudgy white guy tells me I can't be back in the bay. WTF my car comes back making a noise and I can't ask what the problem is? Blow me. I asked the mechanic what the problem is and he instantly belts out "exhaust" without even having it up on the lift yet. ok, I think I buy it. Mike had problems with it rubbing on the drive shaft when it was installed, but after we put on the long kartboy hangars in the back it was fine. I go out to the front so I don't upset Mr "you can't be back here". The mechanic comes out front and wants to show me whats going on. I go in the back and he shows me some scraping marks on the drive shaft, and goes on to talk about the exhaust pushing on the driveshaft so hard it made the seal leak, and what he had to do to get it out of the way. I notice a pretty nasty dent in the side of my exhaust and the floorpan, I guess if it doesn't fit grab a freaking pry bar eh? Oddly enough though, the oil I see everywhere just looked like sloppy work not a leak. I go back out front and after a few minutes hear it start up and start moving but guess what the sound is still there. The motor shuts off and I hear what sounds like a hammer on the back of a plastic handled screwdriver, no it couldn't be, I go back out to see what is wrong, and what do I see but the mechanic with a hammer and a plastic handled screwdriver banging the dust shield out of the way on the front drivers wheel looking at me like a kid with his hand in the candy jar. Now the dust shield has a crease in it from being pushed out of the way by force. Whatever, I'm getting grumpier by the second and don't like to be confrontational, so I go wait back out front. I hear my car start up, then see it parked out front.

I pay and leave getting in my car noting a pretty nasty smell inside, but attributed it to being my stock clutch and FW in the back that were slipping like hell. I start it up and let the clutch out, of course I killed it. I started it back up and and remember it wasn't the stock clutch and let it out. HOLY chattering batman, ok no freaking way I want them touching it any more, lets get to the gas station to inspect if need be I'll tow it home. I've used an ACT HD, ACT 6 puck, and ACT 4 puck, so I'm aware of what a heavy clutch should feel like, but the chattering felt like a shotty flywheel not the clutch(or possibly a dirty flywheel). I stop at the gas station and check everything. Oil level looks fine, I go to reach for the tranny dipstick and notice my intercooler it has bent fins all over the place, great there's a socket extension on the IC, so it was bouncing around bending fins because someone didn't check their tools. I also note oil on the plastic windshield cowl. How did oil get here? The smell that I noted when I got in the car was SUPER strong under here and of course theres oil burning off from the DP, so much so that I can taste it right now and I haven't been in my car for over an hour.

Cliff notes. They bent my $500 exhaust that I bought from them because "it was rubbing" even though the sound that I heard was the dragging dust shield which I'll be checking to see how much a new one is from the dealer. They ruined an STi IC because the backyard mechanic couldn't remember to pick up his tools. The inside of my car freaking stinks because of burnt oil(If you think burnt motor oil stinks, you haven't smelled burning gear lube) and it is still burning off. My clutch chatters like hell, I'll give it a week it to see if it calms down(it could be dirty, which after the rest of the work I wouldn't put it past em) if not I'll call my credit card company and complain(Chase doesn't BS with customer satisfaction), and have GST do all of the work over again like I should have done to begin with. To top it off my steering wheel had oil on it as well.

I have spent thousands of dollars at this place, too much to have some shadetree mechanic screwing my car up. You guys just lost a customer, and the word of mouth I will give will surely sting a bit more than my paltry dollars.

 

Wow!

 

holy **** that sucks man. This is why they are trying to offer good deals....because there service is **** and they need a way to get customers back.

slightly off topic though, does it feel like the FW really is crap or is it just a bad installation job?

 

I can't tell yet. It feels like the time I tried to put in a new clutch without resurfacing the flywheel on one of my cars(yeah I was being cheap). Also he set engagement right in the middle of the swing which is the hardest part of the arc, so it's REAAAAALLY hard to hold it there. I'll adjust it a little tomorrow and give it a few gentle slips to see if it calms down at all. I'm just so disturbed right now its hard to be terribly deductive

 

That sucks man, unfortunately I'm not at all shocked. Unfortunately gruppe-s lets computer jockeys from the i-club room do work on the cars and has horrible business practices and even worse mechanics. They didn't clip up my brake line and then tried to make a problem about it, even going as far to prank call me etc... And when I first contacted them they were very rude and had a bad attitude (they thought they had called me but were on the phone with my pops and the guy had a real attitude problem so he offered to even pay for a lawyer for me and or even deal with the situation. They are lucky I didn't wreck on highway 88 and sue the **** out of them. They compensated me in the end but it was a huge hassle and I'm sure it was only Mike that got things under control (he had been on vacation at the time).I think they are the worst shop for installs and unfortunately the only good thing there was Mike. He is starting his own shop.....hmm I wonder why????

 

thanks for the heads up!

 

oh n03z!!11

 

wow thats terrible, gruppe-s really went down hill. And im sorry, but their new mechanic is no where near ready to be working on subies there..

 

I don't trust anyone other than Kevin (autohq) to work on my car. I suggest u take it there to fix the problems.

 

i was gonna buy a clutch from them and have them install it too...but i guess ima just PURCHASE THE CLUTCH

 

I was going to buy the exedy clutch/gruppe-s FW combo since its the same price as the clutch alone, but maybe I'll just get the clutch

 

I was gonna have gruppe-s install my ACT back in August but I decided to install it myself in my garage on jack stands using hand tools, saved 400 bux ftw!

 

Whoa.. Sorry to hear about that. Sounds a lot like my experience back in Feb of '05 cept without the body damage part. Mine was also a clutch install with lots of sloppy oil and crap left under the hood, CEL etc. Good times.

 

holy ****, that some nasty *** work practices they have. as far as word of mouth goes, this is BY FAR the best place to spread the bad news. im sorry another I-Clubber had to go through this long line of shops ****ing up cars left and right. take it to GST Motorsports, Mike, Preston and Greg wont steer you wrong.

so, thats a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, and an Official +1 for GST Motorsports, and a -1 for Poop-S. looks like their year isnt starting off right. but god forbid if it is.......

 

This is so sad, I'm sorry that you've had that experience with them. That place has changed a lot. Seems like the customer service is not there anymore. =/ Too bad.