vijay

Thanks BigC. I'm looking at having mine leathered and the trimmer reckons not to stitch across the top part or it will lift in the sun. Personally I think it has more chance of not lifting if stitched like yours............ Have you fitted it in the car?

Hi, Has anyone here had their dash covered? Cheers Vijay

Funnily enough a mate was moaning about using them the other day as they've messed up on the same collection 3 times and he's completely fed up with them. They wouldn't even offer a refund, just said they will give him credit

Really sorry to read this and for your loss. You did the right thing though, as difficult as it is for us, we have to make the right decisions by them. Vijay

I know it's a fair distance from you (Harlow in Essex), but I can't recommend the guys from Custom Exotics highly enough. They do excatly what they say and have high expectations from themselves ;) Vijay

Ryan, Full resprays are a VERY sore subject! lol Have a search for posts I've made over the last 5 years and the stories are even longer than this post ;) Sadly I have gone from a nice UK example of a Z with no rust to one that was bare metaled to be resprayed and then was completely bodged by 2 bodyshops that should never be in the business!! A forum member suggested speaking to a guy he went to college with and knew, which is Scott as Custom Exotics. When I say they go above and beyond to paint your car, that is an understatement! They are interested in 2 things - 1. Giving you back a painted car that you are over the moon with and 2. A paint job they can be proud of! They may not be the cheapest, but I formly believe you get what you pay for. Their workshop is like no other bodyshop I've ever visited and they don't try and B.S you about the paint on your car or work you may have already had done. They tell you what they can do for you/your car and I promise you, that is what you will get! I wouldn't take my cars anywhere else and I have and would recommend them to absolutely anyone. When you are ready for the paintjob, why not go down and meet them and make up your mind ;) Vijay

Ryan, you may know the law but I think you kind of forget was is morally right too. The garage damaged the bracket by drilling thought it and yes have replaced it, but if I couldn't drill and tap it myself, I would have to pay someone to do that job and there is also a hole left in the bodywork it fixes to which obviously has to be rust proofed now. Sadly the rusted sills were completely missed on the inspection. That makes the inspection absolutely useless and there would be no point in offereing to do it again as I have found the problem sills. As Big Jim said earlier, what would have happened if my car was painted, I took it for an MOT and it failed (which would have happened!)? I would have had to have the bodykit cut off and the whole sides repainted at my cost. The point of the inspection was to pick up obvious problems. I think the outcome is the right one but I am glad that I can fix the bracket myself and more importantly, that I checked the sills. This has saved what could have been a nightmare outcome. As I said earlier, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion as is everyone else. I hope you have the same opinion if someone ever did that to your car/posessions and would just let things go. Vijay

Thanks to everyone who has posted their opinions, both good and bad. This thread was never intended as any sort of which hunt which is why I made every effort to keep names out of it. I simply wanted peoples opinions on what should be expected from someone/anyone working on their Z's. I have to say that I was shocked at what some people wrote but obviously everyone's opinion and expectations are different. I think one day if someone did something you didn't like on something you cared about, you would still feel the same way and be so forgiving. Jeff has emailed me first thing this morning in an attempt to resolve this. I fully accept I could have handled things differently but everyone has to understand that I have had 5 years of hell with people working on my Z (apart from Custom Exotics who have gone above and beyond every time!) and this felt like the final nail and I was ready to give up and throw in the towel. It was out of pure dissappointment that my first (and very short) email was sent. Anyway, Jeff has now offered a refund of the inspection fee and has offered to look at the scraping noise and missfire if I get my Z up to him. I could not ask for anything else. It is a shame that we couldn't work this out at the very beginning and I hope we have both learnt from this as I don't like making posts like this and I'm sure Jeff doesn't like seeing these posts. Thanks to everyone for reading this and maybe one day soon I'll be posting abut my Z actually being back where it belongs - on the road!!!! lol Vijay

I honeslty think the picture of the radiator bracket hanging by a screw was self explanatory and they would obviously know what I meant as they did it :( OK I can accept that a loose connection can happen even though the car has just been put on and off a trailer but the sills I still cannot accept and why I want the refund. That's why I rang Jeff for an explanation after the initial email obviously went wrong. He took offense to me saying I question what would happen to a bolt that was inaccessible and then hung up. Jeff, I would just like you to explain a few things as you obviously know about this post. 1. Why the radiator bracket was repaired in such a way. 2. Why will you not refund the inspection fee as quite obviously, a major fault with the rusted sills was missed. I feel that is not much to ask at all. Vijay

I think they were only on U.S models

I'm glad someone understands why I'm annoyed at whats happened to my Z. It cost me a lot of money and I've owned it for 15 years and still love them. All I asked for is a proper job to get it back on the road - nothing else!

Yes it is a UK car. The rust that I knew about is under the radiator and is a known problem where Nissan for some reason put a peice of sponge which holds water and causes rust. This has absolutely nothing to do with the state of sills. The bodykit cover the sides but the bottom of the sills is completely open and visible - so in my mind there is no excuse why this should be missed on an inspection. I have absolutely no idea why the garage thought the bodywork had just been done as he knew it had sat on my drive for 2 years. I don't believe it was childish but that is obviously your opinion. It was not rude and in my opinion, any professional would have replied in a civil way and asked what the issue was. Are you honestly saying that while working on your car, any garage should not fix a broken bolt that was damaged while they were attempting to remove it? I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that but again, it is your opinion. You could not be more wrong about me trying to blame the garage. I paid what they asked for a job and in my opinion, something has not been repaired properly and and inspection has not been fully carried out. How on earth is that blaming the garage for the state of my car??? I completely agree mistakes are made, I keep saying that! It's how people resolve them that I care about! I don't expect him to resolve the cambelt scraping, I have no asked the garage to. I stated I have to sort that out as I'm sure the garage would rather never see me or my car again.

Thanks Gary. I hope so too. I just would like an explantion from the garage and the inspection fee refunded. I still don't think that's much to ask at all considering I have to fix the bracket, the misfire and also resolve the scraping behind the cambelt cover.

Sorry Smithy, but we obviously see a different view on customer/business relationships. You have absolutely no idea how gutted I was to find the skirt damage and then the radiator bracket. When I email the garage, it was pure disappointment that they had repaired my car like that. I had nothing more to say than ask for an explanation. I've had 5 years of seeing my car off the road because of various experts and this garage knew that. I can honeslty say if it wasn't for the guys at Custom Exotics, my car would be broken and being sold for bits by now. Enjoy your dinner :)

not exactly proffesional though is it. If I knew I did that to somones car, I certainly wouldn't be trying to take the p**s out of them when they noticed it

Hi Smithy, That was all that was in the email, headed "very disappointed" and the message was "Hi, can you please explain this?" and I included pictures of the bracket fix

Sorry Ryan, but I just expected more from this garage. The bracket was only sent when I asked for it, it was never offered. How can a mechanic not remember snapping a bolt, going to get a drill, drill through someones cars bodywork and then put a self tapping screw. That to me suggests it's normal practice to do "repairs" in this manner.

I thought I was careful removing all names and for the life of me still can't see it in the post. If any moderator can see the name, would you mind removing it for me. I'm just really disappointed in the manner of the garage in no attempt to offer an apology and I still believe the inspection fee should be refunded as it was not fully carried out! The point of me paying out over £600 for a proper service was to get the car back on the road. I still have problems with a misfire and the scaping noise behind the cam belt covers - what am I supposed to do about that, pay another mechanic??

Harby300, I completely agree, mistakes are made in every single business, we're all human and I said that to Jeff. The thing that seperates good businesses are how they put things right. In my eyes, they have done next to nothing to resolve this, not even once apologizing.

All I asked for was a replacement bracket so I can repair it properly - which was been received. I asked for a refund on the inspection fee as I believe unless the inspection is 100%, it's not worth a single penny. I have not asked Jeff for anything else apart from an explanation which I believe I am still due!

I did email him asking him to explain the snapped bolt, the reply was about rust and what causes it. That really annoyed me because who ever worked on my car broke it and is not taking responsibility for it. I completely agree, bolts snap especially on aged cars but surely the decent and right thing to do is tap it.

I really wasn't trying to be offensive, more very disappointed in finding things that were in my opinion bodged. Would anyone be happy with a self tapping screw put through bodywork instead of it being fixed properly? If I didn't care about attention to detail, there are plenty of backstreet garages I could bring a car to. I do welcome any opinions, good or bad as to wether I am asking too much.

Jeff, as I have said to you over and over, I have no doubt you can do work on a Z and that is the reason I brought my car to you. But please please explain what you have done on my car? If you stand by your committment, then why have you offered absolutely no resolution or even an apology?

His reply: "We are going around in circles here, the work booking was for an assessment and cambelt service, we did the assessment in accordance with the car we had in front of us. Having previously been at a body shop for body kit and paint work, whilst we did a mechanical assessment we did note that the front member was corroded and informed you of this and as it turned out you already knew about it. The side skirts form part of the body kit and are blended along their length as well as the rear quarter and front wings, complete removal would have been extensive and would have required full restoration after of the side skirts and a major section of the car to be re blended and repainted, any question of us to remove these to just "look"was a non starter. The question though I ask myself is if the sills are so bad why did the body shop fit the side skirts over them? Questioning of bad or loose connections is ludicrous, you know only too well that any loom on cars of this age have issues, any owner of a 300zx will at some time experienced this phenomena, any service work that is done can potentially disturb connections by virtue of loom movement, however with the car running correct when the belt was changed and when you collected it what can I be realistically expected to do other than the advise I gave you to just check and very likely sort the issue out easily? The reply you got to the original email was intended to demonstrate your written attitude that was pouring out of the email in bucket fulls, a few words I know but was easy to see your intention and so you had a calm and informative reply which answered the actual question about the rad bracket fixing corrossion and its cause. Whilst two of us work on the zeds we have a very active workshop with a larger than to be expected movement of cars we are repairing, servicing or upgrading, I personally did the cambelt service on your zed and as I said cannot remember if in fact the fixing was already in need of re drilling or not but did concede if you felt it was in good order I could not argue that, the fact of the matter is you left you car for nearly a month after the job was completed and with collection time and email time it more like 6 weeks ago this was done and in that time I have done a 6 weeks of other work including cambelts, engine swaps ,gearbox swaps service work, electrical work....the list goes on so sorry but the rad bracket issue is no longer stored in my memory! Although I am not eager to dwell on the phone call from you that you mention you were not rude in, then I can only assume someone else made the call? to refresh the call started pleasant enough even with mentioned to the rad bracket and the subsequent email, but with that the less pleasant comments were said, calling the whole cambelt job in to question with the suggestion that the cambelt job could not be trusted due to the aledged easy rad bracket "bodge" ( your words) I cannot see how that could be any less insulting to me personally, the call was ended badly I agree but it did in fact end it rather than any more bad exchanges carrying on. As far as the assessment fee been refunded, well this is not going to be possible as reviewing your job sheet you incurred 4 weeks of dry storage with any prior arrangement for this, normally a cambelt service is a single day job and often whilst owners wait. You zed was in the way for this period with requiring moved on an almost daily basis, even running out of petrol as so little was in the tank when left with us, so at a very conservative £12+ vat per day your current outstanding bill stands at £336 + vat, this is a standard practice within the garage trade and many places would charge closer to £20+ vat per day. So in conclusion we have frankly come to an impasse, which in all my years is a situation I have not come across, I note though from forum posts this does seem to be a trend your more familiar with from past experiences body shops etc. and wonder what exactly is the common factor here, but I know its not me." And my final email: "The sideskirts and bodykit were fitted years ago, probably around 10 years ago. So your question of why the previous bodyshop fitted them over the sills is invalid as they didn't fit them. I told you, I found the rusted sills with the car raised up on axle stands and me on the floor, so no need to remove any bodykit at all to see. With the car up on a ramp, one look and you SHOULD have been able to see the lack of sills! Your reply with an explanation of rust was sarcastic and rude and I expected a reply with an apology. I would question any quality of work if the person doing the work could not be bothered to fix a bolt with easy access! Is that the best you have to justify yourself, my car was with you for longer! I told you there was no rush. I told you my friend was away for at least 2 weeks when I dropped the car off. You told me you would take your time over it. I called you to ask how it was going, you told me it was complete and I told you I could not collect it straight away to which you told me no problem as long as I paid the bill straight away - which I did. When I told you I was having problems hiring a trailer, at no point did you mention charges for my car being there for longer than expected and you didn't even raise any issues. It says a lot about the sort of person you are that you now want to throw that in my face! Why didn't you say it to me at the time? Once again, you show the person you are! You have looked at my old posts and are justifying your inadequate work by saying that I have posted on the forum where I have not been happy with work. Why the hell wouldn't I when people are happy to take my money and not do a quality job. I have never not paid anyone the full amount, so when I find they have bodged jobs or simply not done things, of course I am not happy. I have nothing else to say to you as I think you live in your own defensive world. I will post on the forum and ask for opinions on what people should expect from any garage. I will certainly tell anyone if asked what my experience with you has been including your after service customer services which doesn't amount to much at all!" I'm sorry for the long post but I really value opinions on this. What would you expect from a garage who works on your Z? What would you do next, legal advice? There is also a scraping noise coming from behind the cambelt covers which I have not told this "specialist" as unless I take this matter further legally, there is no point. The "mechanic" is a member on here and I am happy for him to post a reply if he so wishes. I have absolutely nothing to hide on this matter. Thanks for reading this long and quite sad post. Vijay

The car is also puffing out smoke and has an obvious misfire.To say I was getting really annoyed with this so called "specialist" is an understatement!!!! I emailed them about this on 3rd May telling them about the sills and misfire and asking how it was missed. I also asked for a refund of the asessment charge: "I would like the cost of the assessment refunded as if I didn't noticed this, the rear of the car would have been sprayed and the car would have then failed the MOT, meaning it would have had to go back to the bodyshop to be repainted at my cost. If that is a problem, can you please explain why the assessment is worth £54 when it missed such a major fault?" He replied on the 9th after I emailed him again asking for a reply: "Apologies for slow reply to your email's have not been in the workshop for a few days and xxxxxxxhas left the message for me today to reply. Ok in order to re-establish a level civility to the current issues I need to explain that we ( us) must of some how got completely side tracked when: 1) Assessing your zed 2) Explaining the assement determination level 3) Finalising the mechanical work To be completely honest I have no idea why we should have missed the sill corrosion, no idea other than due to the side skirts we (incorrectly ) decided to not check behind them. The assessment cost covers the whole period of two of use checking various mechanical arms and bushes etc. that need to be flexed by levers whilst checking for movement, the cost of two guys spending 20 min's doing this is barely covered by the amount charged but missing the sill corrosion was simply not acceptable and I am puzzled by this. The mechanical work ie the cambelt is a job we have extensive experience of with more than 1000, belts changed by myself and do actually take pride in that, the rad bracket redrill I simply cannot comment on as I cannot remember either way and if your confident it was ok previously I cannot argue against the redrilling was poorly done. incidentally I did a cambelt the other day and took a picture if the left hand rad bracket that had been previously drilled and a self taper fitted, and when releasing the self taper that even broke!! you would not credit it! ( see attached pics) this does demonstrate that they do fail when been undone sometimes although I understand that is not the point of your complaint but the redrill quality. The current misfire and smoking will be connected no doubt and will be the usual culprit of a connection issue that is the bain of zed owners everywhere and can occur at amytime. For a suggestion I would take a look at the temp sensor connection, the PTU connections and even the injector connections all of which can cause the misfire and the smoking your experiencing now due to incomplete combustion." My reply: "Thank you for replying, however I do still feel you're completely missing the point. 1. To say you may have decided to not check the sills because of the side skirts, knowing that it is such a common problem area on these cars - especially UK models is crazy. This is a major point and my car would have failed the MOT instantly and I would have had to pay the bodyshop twice for work. 2. It doesn't matter how much work is involved in the inspection if it's not actually fully inspected. I'm afraid the inspection reports means nothing unless it's 100% true. 3. To say you cannot comment on the radiator bracket as you cannot remember either way - am I right in saying that there are only two of you working on cars in your garage? So which ever one of you worked on my car, were happy to just drill a hole in the bodywork and bodge a repair? I'm surprised that it was just done then without thought of the customers car and the correct way to repair it. I am 100% certain this was not like this before coming to your workshop, absolutely no doubt! 4. Yes I understand the these cars are known for a loose connection or plug causing a misfire, but surely not when it's just come out of a major service and not even been driven. 5. How you replied to my first email about rust and how you spoke to me on the phone, then hung up. I was in no way rude to you and tried to talk to you about things. You have never once apologized for anything that's happened! I have absolutely not doubt you are capable of doing cambelts and working on 300zx's. I would have never gone through the hassle of bringing my car on a trailer to you if I didn't believe that. I do however question your judgment on the above points. As I previously said to you, things go wrong with every business, it all depends on the steps you take to put them right. I would still like the inspection fee refunded as I do not believe the inspection is worth much when a major issue was simply missed!"