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Jeff Gooss at Total Performance Engineering (TPE) in Las Vegas (Dispute thread)

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Old 04-19-2012, 11:14 AM
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Default Jeff Gooss at Total Performance Engineering (TPE) in Las Vegas (Dispute thread)

My experience with Jeff Goos was not pleasant. I took my car to him to have a 302 Mustang engine rebuilt. Jeff convinced me that I would have more power and a better ride with a 351 cubic inch Windsor, which would be bored out to 393 cubic inches. Though I never asked for a street rocket, he and his mechanic, whom he later fired, volunteered that I would experience 400-500 horsepower. He kept the car for approximately three months, during which time I had to rent a car at considerable cost, and returned it with a very annoying noise. After letting off the gas in the higher gears, I would hear a whine. He said it was because he had to leave the smog parts on without the “guts,” stating that leaving it on was required per State Emissions regulations. After the engine was installed, Jeff indicated that the engine pressure was too high and that I would need the fuel system replaced, including catalytic converters, fuel lines and exhaust system. He also said I would need a new clutch, as the one then in my car couldn’t be expected to last very long; he recommended a McCleod hydraulic clutch. His bill for his work thus far was very high and I told him I would get a second opinion on the further work he was recommending, which I did, from a driveline specialist, who recommended against getting the hydraulic clutch, based on the experience of three of his friends who had installed the hydraulic clutch. Jeff discounted these concerns, and he convinced me that McCleod was a good company that made a good clutch, and that the work and product would be warrantied. Jeff also warned me that once I had someone else work on my car, he would not honor any warranties; of course this was an intimidation technique, and it worked, since TPE had performed so much work on my car already.

I had the work done by him. Since he had by that time fired his mechanic, he performed the work himself. What a disaster! Another 2 ˝ weeks ensued, and he returned my car. The car seemed to run okay on the way home, except for the same annoying noise. I got up the next morning and started the car; it would not engage in gear. I called Jeff, but I was unable to reach him. I had the car towed to his shop and left the keys in the heater vent. I explained all of this in emails and voice recordings. Jeff finally called me back the next day and said he would repair the clutch, but he would do it only one more time and that I would have to pay to have it done again if it didn’t operate correctly.

Several days later I got the car back from Jeff, who said he had spent an inordinate amount of time on it. It seemed like it ran okay again, but when I tried engaging the clutch the next day, it did not work. I had the car towed to another shop after 3 phone calls and an e-mail to Jeff—no response; they tried putting the hydraulic clutch back together without success. Indeed, many reviews that this shop had found on the internet stated that the McCleod clutch was not a good clutch to put in a Mustang such as mine. This shop had to revert back to the mechanical clutch I had in the car—clutch is working fine. Also, they found that the fuel lines were not put in the right place and could have caused a fire; they relocated them. They also fixed the annoying noise, which Jeff indicated were smog part concerns, by changing out the bushings on the rear axle. Additionally, the exhaust system had not been welded correctly and was dragging near the ground. I took it to a muffler shop and they welded it on. This shop indicated on their invoice that the new rear end gears that Jeff had indicated he had put in my car were not, in fact, installed; they installed the new gears. I have the gears that they removed from my car and photos of the shoddy and unsafe work that was done to my mustang.

Adding insult to financial injury, it has been discovered subsequently that the TPE installed the incorrect parts, the stock MAF from my 302 engine, no fuel pump in the tank, and the same 19-pound fuel injectors from my 302 engine instead of the appropriate 30-pound fuel injectors, all of which resulted in underperformance and engine noises. Another engine builder stated that the wrong heads were installed for the engine size accounting for the high compression that the car was experiencing and causing one of the noises I was hearing. TPE may have raised the engine pressure as a technique to disguise their shoddy work. Though TPE had volunteered to me that their work would achieve somewhere in the range of 400 – 500 horsepower, what I ended up with was a car with many strange noises that runs at approximately 230 – 235 horsepower. The car was NOT tuned or Dyno’d. Someone at his shop had painted the cast iron heads to appear to be aluminum heads. In order to have the appropriate parts installed in my engine, it will cost another $2,000. And in order to have the car run correctly with a guarantee, I will need the engine rebuilt again—short block included, because Jeff assembled the shortblock, not the machinist. No end to this nonsense— so the nightmare continues. Enclosed in this post will be documentation supporting what I have written, inclusive the e-mails that Jeff and I exchanged. I am not sure how to attach the documentation; in contact with the moderator and hopefully he/she will be able to help me.

Be mindful that Jeff is very hard to reach, he rarely answers his phone or emails. At one point he indicated that he would be hiring a secretary, as his wife—who had been his office help—took a job in a law office. I had called him three times and left an email with him indicating my dissatisfaction before taking my car to another shop. I felt like I gave him every opportunity to make it right. No answer--this, among other distasteful events, inclusive the $16000 plus I spent on this mustang, gave me reason to take my car to another shop to make it drivable.



Thank You
Gerald

Conversation1.pdf

conversation2.pdf

driveablebill.pdf

dyno393.pdf

manualclutchbill.pdf

mufflerbill.pdf





attachments added by Moderator pewter99 on behalf of the OP

Last edited by pewter99; 04-20-2012 at 06:59 AM. Reason: adding attachments for OP
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Old 04-19-2012, 06:49 PM
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Hi. Are you able to see the documentation? The moderator said he would insert them, since I cann't. It could be locked, but I am hoping that won't. At the bottom of my post one can see a statement the "attachments added by Moderator".

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Old 04-20-2012, 02:58 AM
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Unfortunately, this is about as much of a lie as it can get.

In August of 2011 Mr. Jellema brought his Mustang in for some work. We originally discussed rebuilding his 302. When we booked the appointment, we were still going to build the 302. After speaking with my lead tech, Mr. Jellema decided to go with a complete custom motor transplant and have a stroked 351 windsor installed. We informed Mr. Jellema that it would take quite a bit more time because we now not only had to track down the components, but also to perform this transplant. Obviously, a 351 windsor out of a ford truck is significantly larger than the 5.0L 302. This means that everything from the intake to the oil pain needs to either be custom made or sourced.

During this process, Mr. Jellema insisted on three things: 1) he did not want the car to have any lope to the motor; 2) he wanted excellent fuel economy; and 3) he did not want a loud exhaust. He complained heavily that his original car was "too jerky." We checked the rear end and found that it had 4:10 gears in it. We informed Mr. Jellema that this was one of the main culprates for the "jerkiness." At this time, Mr. Jellema was heavily concerned about budget due to switching to the custom windsor motor.

This is off the subject but relevant at a later time...This car is a 1994 mustang that has been hacked ten times over. It is also an east coast car that is riddled with rust.

Back to the story. Over a period of two, not three months, we kept Mr. Jellema in the loop no less than 2-3 days per week. We informed him of virtually every step we made. He saw the raw engine bay after it was stripped and painted. He saw the torn down motor, and he saw the built motor before it went in the car. At this point, every time we had to add an additional part, Mr. Jellema cringed even though on our invoice we specified that this was a custom build and we could not nail down exactly what we were going to need.

Keeping in line with Mr. Jellema's insistence of a non-jerky, good gas milage, and quiet car, we opted to stay with the stock valve train. The block was machined and balanced by HBR Competition Engines. We assembled the motor in house, and gave a 2-year no questions asked on the motor. Had we gone with upgraded valvetrain, as we all know in the Corvette Industry, it would have run him an additional $1k.

Due to the conversion and being forced to keep the factory smogger-style case iron heads, this required us to modify the factory fords smog pump. Mr. Jellema did not want to spend the money on aftermarket heads and he did not want to spend the money to make the smog system work properly. We had to remove the internal viens of the smog pump.

At the completion of the car, we tuned and dyno'd the car. The car made 371 rwhp, 412 rwtq. Obviously had he chosed to go with aftermarket heads or even a moderate cam (as we advised) we would have made much more horsepower. But we are talking about a guy who called me up and insisted that because CARS, LLC (his new so-called tuner) told him that if they installed a turbo charger it would give him better gas mileage. As we all know, this is not the case.

When Mr. Jellema took the car from our shop, he was absolutely elated. He said the jerkiness was gone and the car had a ton more power. The only problem was that at higher RPMs you could hear the howling sounds of the smog pump. On 7 separate occasions, Mr. Jellema called me and asked what to do about the noise. On ALL 7 occasions I told him the same thing: we can either modify the system and make the smog pump work, remove the smog pump and render his car emissions illegal, or he had to live with the sound.

In December of 2011, Mr. Jellema contacted our shop about doing another round of work. Over two months after he had taken the car. If memory serves me right, he had between 2000-3000 miles on the vehicle. Mr. Jellema informed us that he wanted to bring his car into the shop on January 4th for this second round of modifications. He requested that we replace his factory rusted fuel lines with new teflon stainless braided line, convert his cable operated clutch to a hydraulic clutch, replace his factory clutch with a new upgraded ford racing clutch, replace the rusted catalytic converters, replace thee original rusted fuel tank and fuel pump seals, and replace some exhaust tips.

Over the next few days, we proceeded to do this work. We removed the rusted factory fuel lines and routed the new lines in the exact location of the factory lines using the factory fuel line mounts. We removed the factory fuel tank and replaced it with the new fuel tank and removed the 150k + mile clutch assembly. And finally installed the new catalytic converters and tips. Mr. Jellema test drove the car and liked it.

Unfortunitely, the McLeod hydraulic slave cylinder does not provide good pedal feel. It grabs too low to the floor. I informed Mr. Jellema of the way to adjust the cylinder with the small adjuster **** in the engine bay. I also informed Mr. Jellema that I spend more than 3 hours doing nothing but welding holes in the rusted exhaust system. 3 hours I did not charge him for. Mr. Jellema took the car home that night a very happy customer.

The following day, I received a call stating that the clutch was not engaging. Mr. Jellema had the car towed to my shop. I tested the car and found that the master cylinder was not engaging the clutch properly. Mr. Jellema also complained of an exhaust noise under the car. I advised Mr. Jellema of two things: 1) that we should just replace the exhaust, with an entirely new exhaust system from the headers back and 2) in my opinion we should go back to the cable operated clutch assembly. I felt based off of Mr. Jellema's pedal feel requirements and the shotty design of the McLeod system that it was not a smart idea to reinstall that system. I told Mr. Jellema that if he wanted to go back to an aftermarket clutch cable assembly that I would do it at no charge. All he would have to do was spend $180 for the clutch assembly. We would them work on trying to get a refund from McLeod. He insisted that we stay with the McLeod because it was better. I informed him that while I would fix it for free this time, I would not do it another time.

But as I stated earlier, he decided to stay with the McLeod so I removed the transmission, installed a new slave cylinder spacer, bench bled the master, and reinstalled the entire drivetrain at no charge to him. I then quoted Mr. Jellema approximately $800 for a complete exhaust system (everthing from the headers back). He complained questioning if exhaust systems really cost that much. I informed him that in the GM world, we see exhaust systems in upwards up $1700. He gave he okay to do the work. I overnighted the entire exhaust system and if memory serves me right charged him less than $100 in total for shipping.

The following day Mr. Jellema picked up his car and was extremely happy. Approximately 1 1/2 weeks later, I received an email stating the clutch was acting up again. I immediately replied and told him to bring the car in. This was the first week of February. It was not until a few days ago that I was informed about an issues. This is because Mr. Jellema did not bring his car in. Instead he sent it to another shop across town. Out of the blue I get a $4k charge back request through our credit card company. I then got an email from Mr. Jellema stating that some shop across town is making accusations that we lied about work that we performed. They went as far as saying that we never installed the 3.55:1 rear gears and that the car had the original 4:10 gears. I was floored when I saw that Mr. Jellema actually believed them because he was standing there when the gears were being installed at our shop!!! We put the gears into a box and offered them to him!!! He asked if we could sell them for him. To date, we still have those gears.

He also went on a rant claiming that this same shop insisted that we lied about building the motor. This shop told him that we should have installed a new MAF sensor, 32lb injectors and a new valve train. As we all know, you can add parts to your car to the cow comes home. The reason we did not install these components was because 1) the budget did not permit it and 2) Mr. Jellema was insistent that his gas mileage be equivalent to or better. He also claimed that we did not tune the car. This is physically impossible. You cannot go to a 302 to a 393 (stroked from a 351) without tuning. Even more laughable the shop told him that we never reinstalled his fuel pump. We are still trying to figure out how he was able to drive his car without this pump...

He then ranted about the fact that we painted the cylinder heads silver. He claims that we did so in order to pass them off as aluminum even though he never paid for and we never quoted aluminum heads. The real reason why we painted the heads silver was because not only are the heads cast iron and will rust, but his car is maroon and silver.

To wrap this up, one of the final straws was that the shop claimed that they had to reroute the fuel system because it was too close to a heat source. Oddly enough, the reason he had a heat problem was because the day prior to this hack shop looking at his car, he went to performance muffler our here in Vegas and had them chop up the exhaust system and raise it further into the frame. He had them eliminate the factory hangers that we had the exhaust on and add shorter hangers. This caused the fuel lines to be too close, not any work that we did.

Ironically this self-proclaimed good samaritan shop, who is blaming us for this work, double charged Mr. Jellema and he didn't even know it. On the invoice that Mr. Jellema showed us, this shop charged him $500 to repair and bleed the hydraulic system. They then charged him $700 in new clutch cable assemblies and another $500 to install the clutch cable assembly. I am still trying to figure out how his car is able to drive with both a cable driven and a hydraulic system at the same time.

Yesterday we faxed 22 pages of invoices and photographic proof of the work we performed. To date, we stand behind our motor 100%. Obviously if we see that this hack shop tampered with the motor, his warranty is void. I appreciate the members on this forum reserving judgment until all parties were able to state their case. All invoices will be provided to any moderator or admin who requests them. We have never and will never be deceitful to another customer. I have had it done to me in the past and I will never allow it in my shop. I fired my lead tech because he refused to follow my moral code of conduct.

Mr. Jellema - as we told you today via email. We have begun the lawsuit process against Cars, LLC. We fully intend to prosecute anyone who continues to make such slanderous comments that cause financial harm to our company. Had you come to us, this would have been resolved. I would have gladly allowed you to inspect any component you chose. Instead you decided to believe the first con-man that sold you a bill of goods.

Respectfully,

TPE
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Old 04-20-2012, 05:48 AM
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Originally Posted by 94mustang393
Hi. Are you able to see the documentation? The moderator said he would insert them, since I cann't. It could be locked, but I am hoping that won't. At the bottom of my post one can see a statement the "attachments added by Moderator".

Gerald
added this date after technical issues were resolved

Last edited by pewter99; 04-20-2012 at 06:59 AM.
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Old 04-21-2012, 01:52 PM
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Each side in the dispute has posted its version of the facts and now the thread will be closed as per site rules on unresolved disputes:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/foru...-disputes.html

If there are any updates from the vendor or the customer, they can send them to us to be added to this thread.
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Old 05-03-2012, 02:22 PM
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adding this at the request of Jeff@TPE

Quote:
***UPDATE*** 5/3/2012

This morning we were informed that upon our case being reviewed by the proper authorities, including proof of purchase, signed documents, photographs, and independent review, the case was ruled unanimously on our behalf. It was determined that we were 100% correct, and that the customer not only lied, but the shop, CARS, LLC lied about their findings.


We will be continuing our civil suit to clear our name, but I still felt it was necessary to inform the internet community of this win. We will be more than happy to provide written proof from our lawyers in the event the admin still has any concerns.


I would kindly ask that this thread be locked, and deleted. This is due to the slanderous comments made against me personally, as well as my name being listed in the thread title. It give the false impression of any misdoings.


Regards,


Jeff TPE
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