MM, worse then i thought

[Facey]

Hello all,

5 years and 3 engines ago i had an engine 'rebuilt' by motor miester.
it looked shiny, i hadn't found this forum yet, and the price was right for a 15yr old working part time.

anyways, it never ran well, and eventually i pulled it and built the 3.5L i have presently... big differance etc...

anyways, the MM rebuild took 7 months longer then they said, and the bill was higher. However it was supposed to be a 2.7 -->3L, with large port heads (79sc), a cis s-cam, with JE pistons, flowed fuel head, SSI's, and a performance muffler. This is on top of the basic rebuild, all new bearings, balanced, etc...

the engine has now been opened.
The muffler defiently was not a sport muffler.It was a magnaflow hack job, with normal steel (rust) piping.

it did have SSI's.

opening it reveals that the main bearing has walked significantly (this engine has less then 10 000km's on it). It has not been bored out. It does not have JE pistons in it, in fact the pistons in there are not even matching to "aligne bored" cyclinders, which were machine improperly (no pinch).

does not have large(r) port heads, defiently doesn't have new valve guides or springs.

The biggest surprise, it doesn't even appear to have new bearings. oil pump, though functional, is far from 'rebuilt'.

the cams are not cis s-cams, they are the base cis cam, and they are not even matching.

so to wrap up: throw away pistons, throw away case, crank and rods...cyclinder heads are fine, though the rocker arm shaftshave seen better days.

i'm wondering if I have any options to pursue them... its been 5 years, but i defiently didn't get the parts i paid for. not only was the rebuild mis-represented, but all of the 'new' parts aren't even in there....

i've long ago written this engine off, emotion is gone. But this does not seem legal AT ALL.

i advise extreme caution to dealing with them at all!!!!!!! the owner deserves an meeting with a baseball bat, i know its buyer beware, but there needs to be some ethics, i was a kid who spent every dime he had on the thing...

will be sending a letter to panorama, letting them know my subcription will be canceled if they continued to advertise, as this is were i had first come in contact with MM......

truly amazed that this is allowed to go....

note: i ahve the build bill, which includes a list of all items supposed to be on it.... like the je pistons and 'racing big bore kit'.....

[rw7810]

From what i've read on other MM posts, etc. , unless you're a lawyer or know one who works for little $$, you're probably SOL.....chock it up to whatever. At least it has been 5 years so it shouldn't sting too much

[efhughes3]

If you want to pursue this legally, you'll need money up front for the lawyer. You can always try to go to the BBB, or snoop around afor the proper agency nd claim fraud with the state of Calif.

[Steve@Rennsport]

I've seen the innards of 2 MM engines in here for rebuild and they were both filled with totally worn out and mismatched parts that any responsible shop would throw away, without question.

In both of these cases, the engines were complete and total junk with no reuseable components.

Literally, un-fricken-believable.

[Laneco]

We experienced similiar crapsmanship from Motor Meister. The JE pistons we were supposed to get turned out to be Ross, piston/barrel mismatch, mis-machining on the "refurbished" rocker arms, etc.... We, like you, wound up throwing away nearly all of the engine. Six heads, two camshafts that needed regrind and six used pistons that I sold for $5 each was all that could be saved from that engine.

I swear that meth-addicted monkeys could hurl excrement from a cage into a pile of parts in a machine shop and the end result would be a better engine than Motor Meister could build.

It would smell better too.

Warn everyone you can.
angela

[911pcars]

I think your idea of canceling your Pano subscription and/or quitting PCA is a valid solution to their continuing to run MM ads. It's as if PCA recognizes this company's business practices but they continue to accept MM's ill-gotten ad dollars.

I'd have this same opinion with any company with a history of reported shaky/fraudulent business dealings.

Sherwood

[ChrisBennet]

What's sad is that many people will think "MM doesn X,XXX motors, of course they'll have a bad one once in a while."
-Chris

[Bobboloo]

The statute of limitations is 7 years.

Forget about a lawyer. There's not enough money to make it worth while. You could however pursue this in small claims court. Being that you live in Canada I'm not sure where you would pursue jurisdiction from. If from Canada, which is convenient to you, you run into the problem of collecting on a judgement in your favor since they are in another country. Sueing in California however is a real pain for you but doable.

If you pursue this you'll need written expert testimony in the form of a professional builder that can verify that the parts you got are not what you paid for. You need written documentation to verify everything to present your case.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advise.

[gigem75]

I thank my lucky stars I took the time and found out before I dove in. It truly is amazing they can get away with what they do. Being new my first inclination was that maybe there was an undercurrent I wasn't aware of but after hearing/reading time after time from people they had burned it doen't take a rocket scientist to figure out that many people can't be wrong. It does however take a rocket scientist to figure out how they can stay in business. Hell who knows maybe they are some kind of money laundering front. They do however come up near the top on a google search and I do know that is no accident.

[john walker's workshop]

[QUOTE They do however come up near the top on a google search and I do know that is no accident.[/QUOTE]

they pay for that. so do i.

[WigglyWorm]

Originally Posted by gigem75

It truly is amazing they can get away with what they do.

That's the part I don't understand.

My first engine rebuild was done using a haynes manual with no special tools, and it lasted at least 5 years of hard driving before I sold the car. How can I do it with limited knowledge and no special tools, and a shop that supposedly specializes in this can't with all the tools and knowledge? Inquiring minds would like to know.

[Steve@Rennsport]

Originally Posted by WigglyWorm

That's the part I don't understand.

MM exists due to the large number of Porsche owners that do not read forums such as this one and Rennlist to become informed.

They have an endless supply of customers who are attracted by the offer of cheap engine services and do not understand the true costs of ownership.

Its all part of the "Human Condition".

[efhughes3]

Originally Posted by WigglyWorm

That's the part I don't understand.

My first engine rebuild was done using a haynes manual with no special tools, and it lasted at least 5 years of hard driving before I sold the car. How can I do it with limited knowledge and no special tools, and a shop that supposedly specializes in this can't with all the tools and knowledge? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Actually, they are probably somewhat talented in building engines. It is just that with the high cost of machining and parts for these motors, there is money to be made by cutting corners and providing inferior or used parts when the owners expect otherwise. That arguably takes a little skill to build running engines with subpar components.

[Facey]

efhughes, that is basically what my mech said, something like, being really amazed this engine ever actually ran. with the amount of bearing wear, mis-fit components, and parts obviously well past their reliable limit he was surprised that it turned on, and could go to redline w/o dismantling itself in the process.

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by efhughes3

Actually, they are probably somewhat talented in building engines. It is just that with the high cost of machining and parts for these motors, there is money to be made by cutting corners and providing inferior or used parts when the owners expect otherwise. That arguably takes a little skill to build running engines with subpar components.

A few years ago I had a customer with an MM engine that blew up with less than 1.5 hr. on it.
At that time, my company was building transmissions for MM.
When I dissembled the engine I noticed some building techniques that were inconsistent with proper building techniques so I went to MM with some advise on how they might change there procedure with the goal of increased success.
Roy wouldn't listen and in fact threw (figuratively, I weigh 260 lb.) me out of their shop as a response to my gesture.
Some people won't learn and will continue down the wrong path out of belligerence alone.

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by john walker's workshop

they pay for that. so do i.

I have a web guy that has us near the top of quite a few searches without paying a dime. The search engines look for content and an experienced web guy can provide the necessary content ratio to make it easy for the search engines to find a site.

If any of you with small businesses would like to use his services, please contact me and I'll connect you to my guy.

[sammyg2]

MM exists due to the large number of Porsche owners that do not read forums such as this one and Rennlist to become informed.

Rennlist is no help, MM is a paid advertiser on rennlist and if you say anything bad about MM over there, you get flamed from every direction. It happened to me.
dunkle is sacred over there, as is anyone who gives him money (MM). I stopped visiting rennlist and stopped sending them subscription money. Maybe if they get rid of the full page MM advertisement I might go back.

[Steve@Rennsport]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Rennlist is no help, MM is a paid advertiser on rennlist and if you say anything bad about MM over there, you get flamed from every direction. It happened to me.
dunkle is sacred over there, as is anyone who gives him money (MM). I stopped visiting rennlist and stopped sending them subscription money. Maybe if they get rid of the full page MM advertisement I might go back.

Sammy:

That might be true, however I've posted my opinion of MM many many times over the past 11 years over there without censorship. Further, I've referred many inquirers about MM's standards & practices to read PP and evensofar as to call me directly.

[efhughes3]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Rennlist is no help, MM is a paid advertiser on rennlist and if you say anything bad about MM over there, you get flamed from every direction. It happened to me.
dunkle is sacred over there, as is anyone who gives him money (MM). I stopped visiting rennlist and stopped sending them subscription money. Maybe if they get rid of the full page MM advertisement I might go back.

MM gets slammed regularly on Renn. John D is sacred, it's his site.

[sammyg2]

About a year ago or so I posted a question asking why MM was listed as a sponsor in good standing concidering all the bad press they get and linked a thread here about someone who had been royally raped by MM.
One after another, the replies came in saying that MM built their race motors and they work perfectly, MM built their motor and it doesn't even leak oil, MM does good work but people on PP just like to bag on them and create that bad reputation and so on.

IIRC Not one person agreed that MM did bad work but at least 10 jumped on and said I was wrong. A couple said that it was none of my business who dunkle had as a sponsor. BAH!

EDIT, I just stuck my head in the door at renn to see if MM still was a sponsor and didn't see their add on the homepage. Maybe they aren't sponsoring anymore. Maybe it's deeper and I didn't see it.