This is the original text that was filed with the BAR, Better Business Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, etc. Regarding a small business that rips people off on machine shop repairs and on a frequent basis "The owner told me this". According to the Bureua of Automotive Repair (CA) this company is operating without a proper business license and they have had many complaints regarding this individual over the years, actually for decades. There is a link at the bottom that puts the whole episode in perspective.
"This complaint is regarding a rebuilt engine that was not rebuilt properly. One would expect that the engine surfaces would be re-machined where applicable, in this case they were not. The crankshaft of an 84 Corvette will be the focus of this message.
My engine developed a rod knock last October and I searched the phone book for a rebuilder. The only one available at that time was Conemac Precision Machining. Although this business is a Volkswagen shop he assured me he was competent enough in working on domestic engines.
My brother gave me a hand to take the engine to his shop, as he had a vehicle to transport it. When we arrived Mr. Conemac was throwing a customer out of his shop and we both witnessed it. Being in this field as an automotive machinist for many years, I stood right next to this customer viewing the work and listened to what he had to say. The customer was correct in his concerns, and did not deserve to be tossed out into the parking lot. Mr. Conemac assured me that this individual was, sorry, he used 4 letter words. But this is not the subject of this letter.
This customer left and my brother looked at me and said "are you sure you want to let this guy rebuild your engine." I explained to my brother that I had no choice, as everyone else was booked, I have no car right now. We left my engine, and Mr. Conemac said it would take a week. Frustratingly it ended up taking 3 weeks and I will avoid the details of this right now as it was the same scenario as the customer listed above.
During the rebuild Mr. Conemac informed me that he could not get my crankshaft repaired as his supplier grinds crankshaft out of round (this he could have told me before I delivered my engine to him).
I worked for F and R Crankshaft in Burbank many years ago, and my gut feeling was he should have found another supplier or had it fixed by his supplier regardless. What I received was far worse. He told me he had a standard crank to replace the crank kit that I paid for. He would install this in my engine and assured me that this crankshaft was perfect. This deviation was fine with me and I agreed to it. We picked up the engine took it home and put it on an engine stand to remove the pan and check the work before installation. This I felt prudent, as the installation charges on this vehicle are around 2,000 dollars.
Upon examination of the crankshaft, I found that it was a used crank with probably 100 to 120k miles on it and in bad need of a regrind. During Mr. Conema's assembly process, it had torn up the bearings. The flash coat had been scored through and had scraped the babbit quite severely. The journals, both rod and main had deep grooves, pits and chips. I immediately telephoned him and explained what I had seen and asked him to fix the concern I had. He was surprised that I had checked his work, so I had to explain to him that since he became intimidated with me during the 3 week rebuild and told me not to call him anymore, I certainly owed it to myself to examine his work.
We argued for about a half and hour and he was not willing to fix the damage to the engine, or have me return it, or even come out and look at it. I insisted he should. He explained to me that it was covered under warranty. I said OK then, you are responsible and I had it installed in the vehicle. It ran fine for about 30 minutes and then started having difficulties. The engine made quite a bit of noise at an idle and the oil pressure dropped to 10 lb. I drove the car for about 400 miles and each time I drove it I noted the oil pressure dropped little by little. This was just as I explained to Mr. Conemac that it would do before I had it installed.
When it reached 6 pounds of pressure at an idle, I phoned him again and told him of the events. He did quite a bit of tap dancing and explained to me that I was using the wrong oil (Valvoline) the wrong weight oil (10-30), the water temp was too hot (225 degrees) for a stock 84 Corvette, the oil temp was to high (235 degrees for a stock Corvette), I was using the wrong oil filter (Fram). It wasn't a problem with his rebuild at all, but rather what I did. Then again this engine only ran fine for a half an hour.
I told him I would do some more checking and call him back. I changed the oil and found it was full of metal and 2 days later the oil pressure dropped to 0. I called him back and told him. He said "Oh you better take it out and get it over here so I could take a look before it blows." I said not a problem, send me a check and I will get it over to you. I explained that this was his responsibility since I told him of the problem before I gave the go ahead on the installation. Mr. Conemac is a cash and carry business and he used the same verbiage on me 3 times (3 checks) during the rebuild. This he would not do, even though it was his mistake and he was informed beforehand.
I am not in the habit of throwing away money because someone says "oh give it a try, I will take care of it".
I told him that I would like to go to arbitration. We did and I lost the case last week, but not because of the job he did or my testimony, but a result of how he manipulated the court system. I will certainly be happy to provide the details of this, but it would take a very long time. Actually I won the first round, but due to a fault on the court system a default judgement was filed:
The summation is this, he explained that he has won dozens of faulty work cases such as this one and his attorney told him how to do it. I don't know who the attorney is but my hat is off to him it worked, it was very well done. The commissioner presiding the day of the trail was not focusing on the case at all, but on Mr. Conemac's attack of the court system. I would still like this engine rebuild incident filed as fraud and I will talk to you anytime. You can certainly examine the new engine I had to purchase for this vehicle, as well as the 400 mile engine he "allegedly" rebuilt for me."
Here is the link to view all the detail regarding this case:
Http://www.geocities.com/court07022002
Now if you have read this far, I will bet you are wondering how a company can do business without the proper license? This is actually very easy, and something which I did not know. The State of California does not require it. When a complaint is filed on a business, all the the government can do is cite the individual for the infraction. The deceiving business can not be forced to obtain a license to conduct this activity/function/service in this state. Anyone in California is allowed the luxury to rip someone off. Thanks for your time.
0 comments