I'm One PO'd Mopar Owner Today!!!!!

[ODZKing]

No matter how many times I hear about stuff like this, it never ceases to amaze me the different way people come up with to screw someone.
It's happened to me and you think "well I'll never lat that happen again" but something else comes along and it does.
I hope you get this worked out with out it costing you too much more than it already has.

 

[super-bee_ski]

I'm sure he used shop equipment, but I doubt the owner is in on it. He's in his 60s, he's an old gear-head racer type, and every time I go to their shop he's always out turning wrenches and never in his office. He's always got four or five cars in various states in there, and he works on all of them, so he's not one of these owner/managers who struts around the shop all day watching what's going on. He's out with his head under hoods and expecting the workers to get things done. I suspect he found out several of them were up to good and fired them, which since my problem child was fired, I doubt the owner would have fired him if they were working together.

But, we'll see.

I bet you are correct on this...
The "kid" has probably stole from the shop owner, he might not even notice....

Perhaps you can "BLUFF" the kid, say to him you have the build sheet & evidence on the 360 and if he does not cooperate, you will notify authorities..?
Nah, I watch too much NCIS...

 

[69a100]

Well, like I said when this kid pitched the barter deal to me, that was not a deal I could make with him since the shop was going to be on the hook. The only one I could make a deal with is the shop owner, so as far as I'm concerned that 360 is his problem to deal with, not mine. I just want my car wrapped up, done, right, and back home most skosh, and the owner can deal with his former employee.

I'm sure he used shop equipment, but I doubt the owner is in on it. He's in his 60s, he's an old gear-head racer type, and every time I go to their shop he's always out turning wrenches and never in his office. He's always got four or five cars in various states in there, and he works on all of them, so he's not one of these owner/managers who struts around the shop all day watching what's going on. He's out with his head under hoods and expecting the workers to get things done. I suspect he found out several of them were up to good and fired them, which since my problem child was fired, I doubt the owner would have fired him if they were working together.

But, we'll see.

There's a couple things running thru my mind on this, First. Either the owner owed the kid some money and the 2 of them thought up this idea so the kid could get paid back, or.
The owner honestly didn't know what kind of shananagan's were going on in the shop, and the kid was using the shop as a front for some kinda scam, stealing, etc. and got caught by the owner or by another customer that complained to the owner and the owner figured out what was going on and cut some people loose. :edgy::edgy:
You could "what if" this to death, It wil be interesting to see how this plot thickens?

 

[Lowhound]

While I agree with your argument I think it will be very, very hard to prove in court. Maybe if you had the numbers off of the engine & tranny things might be different. While I know that you are pissed & who would not be, I would just bite the bullet and consider it a lesson learned. You cant trust people the way that you used to, those days are long over with.

 

[furyus]

I think it would be odd for the owner of the shop to not notice his employee pulling the hood off your car, then using an engine lift to pull your setup, then putting in another setup and then putting the hood back on. All while employed at his shop. He's in on it. Also, never tell a shop to take their time. I guess you know that now......

 

[Hemi Rebel]

You could always ask the owner rather than more of an accusation and see if he has any suspicions about it... There's a chance you may get an answer like .... " Well I don't know anything about that but I do know he did this...." In which case you can always just show up to "look at the car" and tell the kid you know what happened and you have documents proving the engine is yours (idle threat but whatever) see if you can get him to fess up and get your property back

I was thinking the same thing. I would go to the police, tell them the whole story and then propose you go over there and tell him he gives back the engine and trans and you don't press charges. Otherwise you tell him you will get an injunction to have the engine and trans opened up to reveal your initials that you stamped in the pan rails on both. A practice you started years ago whenever you sent an engine to a machine shop to make sure it was your stuff you got back. I bet he cries!!

 

[brogers93]

Go confront the kid, confidently tell him you know he swiped your engine/trans, mention police, lawyers, etc and maybe he will get scared and admit to it!

 

[mr. b]

man that sucks i think we should tar and feather the little a$$hole hope it works out for you let us know what happens

 

[Budnicks]

I'm so pissed right now I can barely write, but man I figured I better share this cautionary tale with you all so you can learn from my mistakes.

For those of you who haven't seen my my Pittsbird project 74 Road Runner posts, my car was originally a 318/904 car, then someone put a 360/727 in it (or so I was told by the previous owner), and I bought the car with the intention of putting a 440/727 in it. I bought the car in 2/2012, got it back on the road in 8/2012, and got a hold of a 440 engine and tranny for it in 2/2013, which is where this story starts.

Now comes October, and I get a call from the guy in Orlando and he tells me his mechanic started working on the engine and found out the engine is a 318 and not a 360! Crap! Once again, I had assumed the previous owner was telling me the truth, and since I had never intended to keep the small block engine or tranny in there, I never looked at them that closely, and that was my bad. I called the previous owner, and he and his dad, who's an ASE certified mechanic, both swore up and down that engine was a 360, so I had a friend of mine in Orlando go by the shop there and do a visual check to confirm the engine was a 318, and he said there was no doubt about it... it was a 318. So I called the Orlando guy back, got his mailing information, sent him his money back, and now I have to decide to plan a trip to go down to pick up a 318 and 904, or just say screw it and let the shop guy down there keep them because they aren't worth making the trip for.

So now I'm in the hole money wise, still owe the shop up here money because they had my tranny rebuilt and the new heads. The shop owner has the initial money I got from the guy in Orlando, plus additional money I've paid to start covering the tranny/heads; and the money I was going to use to pay off the balance all went to reimburse the guy in Orlando because I sold him a 318 instead of a 360. And, it's Christmas time so I don't have a lot of spare cash lying around.

Now comes a new twist. Last night I'm on Craigslist like I am every day, and when I search for Plymouth, what pops up but an ad for a 1966 Plymouth Valiant project car with a... you guessed it... 360! I thought how many 1966 Valiants with 360s could there possibly be around here, so I opened up the ad. And guess what the ad states? The car originally had a /6 but the owner has a 360 "from a road runner" that is ready to drop in. And guess who the owner is? The kid from the shop where my car is at! So now I'm about 99% sure that little POS got a 318 engine someplace, and the 904 tranny that was in his Valiant, and swapped them for the 360/727 that had been in my car. And now I know why the exhaust manifolds disappeared. There was no way that kid could use 71-74 B-body headers in a 66 A-body, but he sure could use those manifolds, so he took them when he took the engine and tranny. I emailed the kid under a different name and asked lots of questions like a buyer would, with one interlaced among them about what year road runner the engine had come from. If he tells me a 74, he's going to be f&#king toast!

So, it turns out the previous owners were both stand-up guys and telling the truth all along, but even so I was an idiot for not taking a few minutes to verify what was actually on the car. Since this kid was apparently fired this summer, I'm guessing he got caught doing something, so I don't think the shop owner is the problem. He seems like a stand-up guy who's got so many irons in the fire that he can't watch what's going on as closely as he should. So once I hear back from the kid, and verify he's got my engine and tranny, I'm going back for a meeting with the owner and say as far as I'm concerned he still owes me a $1,500 credit because I made that deal with him, not the kid, and he can take whatever action he wants to take against his former employee. Barring that, I'll have to take both he and the kid to court, spend a lot of their money to pay court costs, and then have criminal charges pressed against the kid. So I'm hoping the shop owner and I can just come to terms, get my car done, and get it the Hell out of there.

Damn Bruzilla that royally sucks, so much for the saving money deal, you were trying to accomplish... I know "penny pinching" price shopping & side deals, always bites me in the a$$, every damn time, it seems it do you, now too... Sorry to hear about the mess-up, way too much time went by, before you acted, I remember the thread about you taking your car to that shop & doing the swap & buying/shopping Craigslist constantly, for cheap BB stuff deals & a tight budget build &/or how it can be done on a shoestring budget... Unfortunately, You got played it seems, no shoestring budget storming deal now... Sorry I'm not trying to be a prick, I feel for you & that's just how I see it from the outside, looking in... I rarely trust anyone to do that type stuff, never have & now you probably see why... Anyway I'd go after that damn thief kid, with the full force of the law, bar none... And if you can't get the crook kid, then the shop owner, has second party liability, that would apply, he worked for the guy & your car was in his shop, I would think anyway... Not a lawyer, but dealt with allot of mechanics liens thou... Not sure about Florida laws either... Good luck & I honestly hope you can get that proverbial, blood out of a turnip.... That's why I always do all my own work, that's how I save a buck, then I know, I can trust the work being done & the parts being used, not walking off or different parts swapped out... My Lessons learned the hard way... Unfortunately

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I think it would be odd for the owner of the shop to not notice his employee pulling the hood off your car, then using an engine lift to pull your setup, then putting in another setup and then putting the hood back on. All while employed at his shop. He's in on it. Also, never tell a shop to take their time. I guess you know that now......

exactly

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While I agree with your argument I think it will be very, very hard to prove in court. Maybe if you had the numbers off of the engine & tranny things might be different. While I know that you are pissed & who would not be, I would just bite the bullet and consider it a lesson learned. You cant trust people the way that you used to, those days are long over with.

exactly it's going to be the burden of proof by Bruzilla to prove it was his engine & trans, to begin with, maybe the old owners had the casting/ID #'s written down or some other way of proving it was with &/or swapped into his RR...

 

[747mopar]

"Wow" what a total screwing. That is almost unbelievable to have that bad of an experience "what else could have gone wrong". I'm not so sure I agree not to tell a shop to take they're time, I always take my stuff in way before I need it and they always treat me good in the end because of my patience (my upholstery and motor work). All I can say is the last person that pulled something like that on me never enjoyed his car ever again "what comes around goes around". But then again I'm grown up now and can't be pulling those stunts anymore. Like you I always have to scrounge around and look for deals to even be able to afford my car so I totally understand "hope something turns around for you". Good luck

 

[67Satty]

It's always depressing when you find out someone you thought was a fellow car nut turns out to be just another low-life.

The machinest who did my 440 used to have an old-time speed shop in the front and his machine shop in the back. Now the speed shop part is gone because he found out his long time counterman had been stealing from him and working scams on him for years. Once, the owner found out he said screw it and closed down the speed shop part of his business. So....once less cool, old-time speed shop in the world.

The machine shop owner is the nicest old dude in the world, he's forgotten more than most people know and he's been building motors for people since the '60s and knows locals like Don Prudhomme and the like, if you live in north county San Diego area, you know who I'm talking about. I can't imagine who would want to steal from a cool old dude like him.

 

[daredevil]

Wow. A little research on casting numbers would do you a world of good. I would find and record all serial numbers even on your 440 so in case they are stolen you can claim them. It would have easily saved you a trip or two.

 

[rsd859]

Wow thats a crazy story, sorry to hear about that Bruz. I live in a small town and most of them are honest, straight shooter, good ol' boy type kinda guys. I would be out for blood, that is just messed up, sounds like it would make for a good scene in a movie.

 

[tallhair]

Send a buddy over to take down the numbers and maybe some pictures and take him to the cleaners and then the clink! I would be so pissed I couldn't stand it. Of course I would have definitely taken pictures and numbers before I ever turned it over to the body shop but that's just me. Hopefully the pics you sent the guy will have some identifiable info but to a judge all old engines probably look the same so unless you caught pics of the serial numbers it probably won't help but won't hurt once you have the numbers from your subtrafuge

 

[craigsmopars]

Sadly, I don't have any numbers. Again, my bad. But on the plus side, I spent a lot of 2012 helping a fellow forum member in Georgia rebuild a 73 Road Runner, and he was always asking me to take pictures of my engine so he could see how things were wired, installed, etc., so I do have lots of pics of the engine that I can use to compare to what this kid has. Also, I installed headlight relays, and when I did I found the wiring to the alternator was about shot and I had to splice in some new wire, so hopefully this joker didn't change the wiring and those splices will still be there.

As for winning in court, that's the least of my worries. My grandfather was a lawyer, I have two uncles who are lawyers, and I have a brother-in-law who's one of the leading corporate attorneys here in FL and just got nominated to be a judge, so I'm never at a loss for legal assistance. I was able to track down the last guy who made the error of stealing from me, and even though it was a used item worth about $300 I ended up having him arrested, convicted, and sent to jail for six months, and as part of his probation he had to pay me back replacement value for the item, which was $750, so I'm never shy about getting justice.[/QUOTE






Just post the kids name on this site, along with the shops, so no other members have to deal with these type of people!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[conv67bdere]

So sorry Bruzilla . . . NOBODY deserves to be treated that way = sucks that there are people like that in this World that we run into.

Hoping that KARMA will take care of things - I really believe that it eventually takes care of people like that ! ! !

Best of luck getting everything resolved to YOUR satisfaction !

 

[Runner 68]

Just goes to show you how many dirt bags there are out there.
Keep us posted. I have a feeling this will get better for you before it gets worse Bruz.

 

[fla 66 cuda]

This story sucks it's no wonder you're pissed and I wish the best for you. However at the risk of being an *** this is my opinion of how this entire bad situation is your fault. First you trusted an employee of a shop you never used [I'm guessing] even tho the owner was present, secondly you never went back to check on you car on a regular basis [I would have been there so much they would claim me as a dependent on taxes] you may not be able to do this work your self [but you stated you were helping with another build] but if you could you should have done it yourself. I have been in this hobby for over 35 years and have heard horror stories of parts being sold off, shops going under and the owners of the cars going thru hell getting their property back, all because they don't go and check on their cars. I have sent cars out for paint and was at the shop daily to check on it and I never told them to take your time cause I don't need it that just invites these types of issues!!! I'm truly sorry and appalled at your story and I truly hope it wakes people up!!!

 

[Bubber]

Crap! Man it is hard to know whose jaw to break!

 

[Budnicks]

Just goes to show you how many dirt bags there are out there.
Keep us posted. I have a feeling this will get better for you before it gets worse Bruz.

Hopefully