G-S

Could be beneficial to have someone working in the lobby if you have a lot of people coming and going. They don't have to be a full time receptionnist, but just move a computer out there so they can do their normal work as well as greet people as people come in. The first time I was at G-S there was some guy waiting in the lobby and I didn't know where to go for help. After a few mins. I walked into the sales area and asked for help. Now that I've been there before I just know better to find a body and ask for help. Hucks idea of a bell is a good idea too if you nobody wants to be isolated by themselves in the lobby.

Jason

 

who says parts will go up when they hire someone new? that's not how a business work. if anything it would help their business.

besides it's more professional to be greeted at any business.

 

Should have gone to DPT...

 

Please don't turn this into comic relief thread please.

 

I for one want to comment on this post right here. This is EXACTLY how a business should be run. Take comments, possitive and negative in stride. Learn from what people say and make things happen to change them. Brovo.

As for the rest. Jumping in a bit late. But reading the very first post my initial response was that it sounded hokey. Usually when I hear stuff like this it turns out that the customer didn't inform the shop of something and that there were errors made on both sides. Knowing Mike and the way he works I felt it was off. Looking at the set up it sounded jumbled and slapped together....trying to make things work from what you have or trying to create new things is always more difficult and handing off work from one shop to another to another and throwing some of your own into the mix is a master plan for disaster.

To me with the set up and history and the post I figured that he told Gruppe-S one thing. Delivered a jumbled set up and got pissed when things didn't work. Turns out that is exactly what happened.

The fact that it was a mistake made by the customer and previous shop that lead to the initial delay I say that delay is off the record. The fact that the set up was odd and poorly put together I give credit to mike for figuring out what he did.

On that note I can understand how a person would be upset if they flew from LA to get a car and it wasn't ready to go. But my guess is that there was some communication errors on both side. Just a guess.

Basically it sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. A disaster happened. I honestly don't think this will hurt Gruppe-S or mike individually at all and not cause of fan boys but because of constant praise. I know that mike did jeff well with his car...very well. I know that everyone there has been helpful in my questions and when the next couple things need to happen with my car they're doing the install work. I've heard time and time again stories of mike doing WAY more than he had to...like lending his trailor to someone to get them home from a track day and spending long long hours figuring things out for people and not charging for it.

I will also say that yes the customer service needs improvement. I think recently there have been lots of changes there and they're trying to catch up with the changes and they're growing popularity. Tough job.

Secretary and some more knowledge on the phones would be great.

Lobby's are always like that....everywhere i've been anywhere that's car related. it's for waiting on getting help. you want help walk into the office or the garage and let your pressence be seen. I've sat in lobbys for HOURS before. Patience.

Sorry to here of this mess. Sorry to here your car has been a mess for pretty much 2 years.

Hope it's resolved. I hope you figure out your set up or buy a COMPLETE running swap and upgrade that. Best of luck.


(I find way to many people are trying these make shift parts from all over the place stuff and expecting things to work perfect...not gonna happen. Tuning issues, part compliance issues...every set up is different etc.) my advice. research shops. visit shops. Research parts. carefully match parts. be patient if you want to do something different. complete set ups/kits, tested kits are all gonna be more reliable and easier to tune. Crazy set ups take longer. Look at Mark's. Damn thing has been a long hall and long tune process but pays off. Same for Mike's personal car. Many others. You want to be on the top end of power you have to try new things. new things don't always work.

 

wow this is odd. gruppe-s just installed and new EJ257 block and full STi drivetrain in my wrx in 5 days with no problems at all.

-jon

 

How you liking it mang?

 

Thats exactly what happened. I saw this car firsthard (so are my comments worthy Wombatsauce?) and what a jumbled up POS it really was. I made fun of it saying that it should just be put out of its misery. I know that the OG poster did not tell Gruppe-s what a fricken mess it was and that took GS by surprise.

One other thing I'd like to mention. If the owner had just been HONEST about the state of the car all of this would have probably been avoided. Mike said in his post that if he had known what state this car was in he would not have accepted the job but what he didnt mention was what the alternative might have been. GS Tuning fixes many problemed cars but specializes HEAVILY in the GD's. They might have referred you to a shop that specializes in the GC's (like LIC) if the owner had told them the true state of this car. They are not these egomaniac car tuners that will take on any project to make some money without knowing their limitations. I just think that if there had been honest communication about this car Mike would have told you to send it to LIC for the work under the hood and then he would have personally driven up to Santa Rosa to install the hydra and get it drivable.

A little honesty goes a long way. And I bet Mike is still going to do whatever he can to come to a satisfactory resolution with this guy. That's just how he is, a bloody limey.

 

Sorry that you had a bad expererience Matt, I am the one who told you to go there. They are a good shop. They have served ME well in the past and I plan to continue to go there for my sube/evo (maybe get an evo in the next weeks).

 

i agree. a bell. that i can ring 15 times or more. that may help.

i think no matter how bad this situation actually is. you will never ever find a shop that is 100%.

we are humans, we **** up. that goes for network engineers like me, or tuners like mike. making a thread about this i think is a bit human+elementry school.
and yeah i get it, you dropped a good amount of money into this project. and expected better things. that is understandable. but truly.. how far have you gone before making a thread to make this problem apperrant with G-S? i see a couple light calls but have you really called to express the situation??

and again i will say out of my experiences with gruppe-s, they have been successful. although it was not obvious when walking into their lobby what to do. i as a human with common sense, figured it out pretty quickly that it was more of an entrance room than a help center. i looked to the right, saw a dark handsome man and talked to him about parts i needed and was helped quite quickly.

and again if we took a vote as to how many people had a great experience with gruppe-s and how many people had a terrible experience.. i honestly believe it would be 50 to 1, otherwise so many people would not be "fan boys"

 

**** that.. anything less than this won't get max up

 

I'm going to speak on Matt's behalf. Hopefully he doesn't mind me stepping in here and defending him, what you said bothered me. He hadn't seen the car in about a year and a half, so obviously he didn't forsee any of the problems that he was to run into. The shop that had the car before Gruppe-S was responsible for the condition of the car, which I believe Matt made clear in his first post. Do you think he would have flown up from LA thinking the car was driveable if he had expected to find what he did? Since Mike sent Matt a PM, I'm going to leave it at that. I don't know what exactly they have going on right now.

blinguskahn, seeing as how this is a car forum, insulting someone else's car is a pretty low blow. I'd like to see what your car looks like after letting crazy Honda techs ravage it, then letting it sit for a year and a half.

 

Well his car was a pretty lowly POS so I dunno what to tell ya. I know a bit more about this situation than you might think and like I tried to make him understand is that if he would have just been HONEST about what a POS his car was in then all of this could have been avoided. Too bad he was too cheap.

 

As far as the validity of your comments, sure - but only if you work for Gruppe-S or if you are the owner of the car in question. Otherwise, you are just another person talking trash in this thread. What's even worse is you are tossing around the 'I know a bit more about this situation than you might think.." quips to infer that you know what you are talking about without having to back it up with facts or....?? I see what you are saying - but the way you are saying it negates any value in your comments - in short, if you work for GS you should be talked to about the professionalism of your posts, and if you don't then your comments mean squat (like mine). I mean - we all like our cars right, so whether or not his car is a POS in your opinion doesn't really matter since this is between GS and a customer. Unless of course you are in the capacity of rating customer car quality for them or something. Just my opinion, and it's worth what you paid for it.

PS. Humboldt rocks.

 

This story has so many details missing and really sounds like the first shop is to blame in this whole ordeal. If the turbo never leaked, the Hydra guys would have been in for a real big surprise when they had no throttle control and no power steering.

I like the empty lobby myself. You can talk with other guys as loud as you want and even take a quiet nap while waiting. If someone is standing by the display case for 15 minutes and needs help they have no common sense at all. You see a person in the office to the right when you walk in. A sign was way past due but I wouldn't want a receptionist in the lobby. No one would be able to tell sick jokes as it might offend the receptionist and the owners would be held liable.