Before you read this, understand that months into my ordeal, "Please, I don't want to write a negative review of your shop online" came out of my mouth. Months later, my warning was not taken seriously.
My car underwent a mechanical restoration just before I purchased it, 3years / 7,000 miles ago. So, when I took it to Larry at Elkins Park Autoworks with a surging / dipping idle, I thought that a couple weeks out of commission was going to be more than acceptable. I travel pretty relentlessly for work and with Family for weeks at a time, so the first couple of times he told me "Next week" wasn't a big deal. His shop was highly recommended by a local Porsche owner and there are always quirky European cars parked in the lot.
After 3 months and some furious phone calls, he told me that it was fixed and to come pick it up. He "undid" the "Hot rod stuff" the previous owner did to the car and replaced the cap (NON BOSCH WTF). I picked it up at the end of the day, paid, apologized for the angry phone calls and drove it home 2 miles away). About a mile from home, I gave it some juice and it backfired and sputtered. The next morning it was back and he told me that it now needed a new Airbox after putting 2 miles on it AND having a pop off valve. "I've seen these go even with those pop off valves", he said. Now, I watched him leaning on all parts of that engine over the weeks I hassled him at his shop, asking why it was not done as he spraying starting fluid searching for a vacuum leak that he never found. I suspect that crawling / leaning all over the engine cracked the box, but could be off base there. At that point, I should have taken it somewhere else.. 2 months later, he had the airbox in, but not fully assembled.
After 6 months of pleading, yelling, I finally decided to cut my losses and flatbed it out of his shop, to J&J Motors in Bryn Mawr, Pa. in basket case condition. I was livid at the state of my car. Larry sat on it all Summer, saying "I just need a few more days" or "You have to be patient" or "It's been hot out!" or "My guys called in sick all last week!", as dozens of other vehicles were tended to, instead of mine. My car was filthy. The windows were left down as it sat in his shop, where his employees smoked. See pics below. After the guys at J&J got it back together, the trouble shooting started. It ran like a$$. He found torn intake boot after a while. The peculiar thing about that, it had black silicone that had been smeared on the tears in an attempted and failed repair. I suspect this damage was done during the airbox fiasco. Also, the vacuum lines going into the distributor were both plugged with golf tees and the one metal nipple going in, was bent.
I am happy to go into detail about how poor of an experience this was for me, but I am sure this is enough. I hate... HATE crapping on small business owners and try to keep it local whenever possible. A "I am in too deep, I don't know what is wrong with your car and can't figure it out, stop in so we can settle up and get you in touch with someone I trust" would have been fine by me. Sometimes things are hard. In the end, I paid cost of the airbox and he refunded me the $400 labor that was charged on the initial bill that I paid.
Here is how my car sat in disrepair for 6 months. The negligence really got me. I angrily explained how hard I worked to be able to buy the car of my dreams and that to see it shrouded in dirt, stinking like fluids, tires and smoke...
Not sure why he disassembled the fan.
I had enough.
Here is how my very expensive parts were given back to me from Elkins Park Autoworks-
Here's the torn boot with silicone repair that was INSTALLED after the airbox was replaced.
