Bling vs Bang

[OTB]

Originally Posted by itgirl

OTB, did you explain all this to him before starting the work? i understand it is up to the individual to do research, but if i am bringing my bike to a mechanic i expect them to be able to explain things to me. after all, if i was the expert i would be doing it myself, not paying someone to do it for me. you may have done exactly what he asked, but to do it without complete explanation is slightly negligent on your part. we are simple people, you must make us understand. then if we insist on forging ahead it will be our own stupid fault if it doesn't work out.

Negligent? I guess by stretching the bounds of negligence to the absurd. Guy has been using race gas all summer; all he asked us to do was dyno it to find the best one and map his system for it.

I didn't sell him the gas...I didn't even recommend that he use it. He brought the gas, told me he had been using it, asked us to do the work. Told me the only thing that mattered was he wanted the most power. Period.

I guess that's why we have so many lawyers. A guy buys a five gallon can of stuff that has so many warning stickers on it you can barely find the name of it; IT COMES with an MSDS sheet stickied to it. IT SAYS IN BOLD LETTERS THAT THE STUFF IS HIGHLY CAUSTIC TO FUEL SYSTEMS: DO NOT STORE VEHICLE WITH FUEL IN SYSTEM! It gives specific directions on removing the fuel after use and flushing with regular pump gas.

I know I'm just a silly-billy, but if I just paid $26.00 a gallon (YES! MR12 is $130 for 5 gallon can) for super-duper racing pooper I'd wanna know a little bit about it....wouldn't you?


My whole initial reason for the thread was based on making assumptions and how a lot of deciding on the "best" course of action needs to be based on asking questions, and based on the answer to those questions, recommending a reasonable course of action to achieve results.

If somebody tells you, "I only care about achieving "A". This is what I have, this is what I want you to do". ; then, when the results are in, he says; "Ya, but what about "B"?, I don't want "B"." What do you do?

Another example:

A fellow came to us with his VTX1800; he brought with him a high-compression kit, pipes, a high-lift cam and a competition clutch kit (extra friction plate, a stiffer basket and stiffer springs)... asked us to install them. We did so, gave him back the bike.

He brought it back a week later, said the bike "wasn't fast enough, I expected it to be a lot faster, and the clutch was too stiff. Fix the bike to make it faster and fix the clutch or give me a refund".

I explained to him that

A. A competition clutch is stiff for a reason; it's to keep the clutch from slipping under full throttle loads, it never was meant for street cruising.

B. We have no way of knowing what the baseline hp/torque of the bike was; we offered the initial baseline dyno run before the work began, but his response was that it was "Too expensive" ($35!...he had $3000 tied up in parts!). We had dynoed it after to properly map it, but it wouldn't tell us if it had gone up or down. The bike was running properly (no hesitation, no flat spots no running issues). Ass-dyno numbers don't count.

C. As we hadn't sold him the parts, we couldn't warrant either the performance of the parts not their suitability for his application.

After doing a lot of research and calls to the companies that built the parts, we found out that in order to make the kind of power he was expecting with the mods he made, he would need to get a high-flow intake (no longer made, co. went out of business), bigger throttle bodies, decked heads and oversize valves, plus some crank work to keep the thing from coming apart. A LOT more money.

On top of that, after doing another teardown and checking part numbers, the cam company had sent the guy the wrong cam. We ended up machining a cam gear and re-degreeing it to work better.

So who is at fault... the clowns that sold the guy the go-fast pieces without telling the guy the whole story, the cam company for screwing up, or the owner, for not doing the research before he dropped $6k on a bike that was barely worth that at the time he did the work.

I gotta tell you, in the eyes of the customer, WE were at fault, even though the bike was assembled and tuned properly.

We helped the guy out, I did the research this guy should have done before he spent the money, we cut him a deal on the second teardown and rebuild; done right with flowed heads and a new intake system it made another 30 rw HP.

A week after he got the bike back, it was stolen.

The insurance company paid him off, he bought a new bike (a Warrior) and now we're modding THAT one for him.........with better expectations.....







So, after all that, who is responsible for making an informed decision?













The guy with the wallet, IMHO.