Panther Performance Auto Group

As can be surmised from [redacted] description of our dispute, this was a lengthy saga with a bitterly disappointing conclusionThe fa [redacted] reported by [redacted] are largely accurate, but there are many remarks that are intended to smear us and make us appear negligent, incompetent, and unreasonableI could not disagree more strongly with these remarks and take exception to the general tone used when describing my business.Panther Performance Auto was formed in August with the intent of providing me with a place to be productive and add value to the community in an environment where things make senseHaving spent years in aerospace raw materials distribution, I understand that this type of environment is difficult to come by, and we work very hard to maintain this environment for our employees, customers, and vendors.In this case, there were complicating factors which were in some cases in our control and in some cases were notIn short, errors were made in the process of repairing this vehicle which were complicated by the extraordinary length of time that it took [redacted] s to correct a workmanship issue and a misdiagnosis of the engine's condition by me after timing belt failureOf all the events outlined in [redacted] account, these seem to have caused this situation to shift from a manageable work statement to a crisis.There were some errors that were made on our part and I have made reasonable efforts in an attempt to remedy issues caused by these errors: 12/incident occurred due to the loosening of the harmonic balancer from the crankshaftThis was my errorThe timing set came with instructions pertaining to the installation procedure of the componentsThe harmonic balancer is affixed to the crankshaft with a single bolt and the torque specification was printed on the instruction sheetIt called for foot pounds of torque, but the next step called for another degrees of rotationThat next step fell onto the next page of the instructions and I missed it.When I received the call as to the incident described, I pulled the procedure on Alldata, which gave a more straightforward torque value for this one than the two-step process outlined by the timing set instructionsI purchased a new harmonic balancer, and installed it with new drive belts to ensure that anything was better than originalThe transmission was rebuilt out of house, which is common for shops like oursWe had worked with Jeff at [redacted] on about six transmissions previously and our only complaint was on turnaround, so we tried to generally buffer our communications accordinglyIn this case, the rebuild was extensive and included the replacement of the valve body, which is about 1/the overall mass of the transmission in this carThe trans was installed and shifted/drove okay, but ultimately leaked because some of the bolts were undertightenedJeff's warranty to us included pulling the transmission, which is why I drove the car to the transmission shopUnfortunately, it took a very long time for Jeff's company to perform the needed repairsI went to Commerce City in person three times in the process of expediting / checking on what I'd been toldBy the time we got the car back, someone had damaged the door handle breaking into the car, my relationship with Jeff was destroyed, and my relationship with [redacted] & [redacted] was highly strained.I guess our mistake was doing business with [redacted] and should have known better based on the research that came laterThis is a grey area and I still don't know whether [redacted] is a good company and was honest about all the personal challenges that they were enduring at the time of this incident, or whether they're horrible people who deserve whatever they have coming to themI misdiagnosed the ultimate cause of engine failureI recall not being 100% certain at the time, and the one question I kept asking of the situation (and anyone who would listen) was, “if the engine failed due to lack of compression, why did it run good right up until it stopped running?”Ironically, I had two outside resources in the shop at the time; Jeff from ***, the supplier of the timing set and JR, a mobile diagnostician who my shop hires from time to timeI had stripped away the upper section of the timing belt, revealing a belt with no visible damage which appeared to be tensioned properlyI agree with the other shop's assessment that I needed to do the job again in order to have 100% certainty that timing had slipped, but it's still very difficult to understand how that happened, since the components were installed properly and the car ran fine after installation.I failed to grasp the enormity of this diagnosis at the timeI should have carried out the completion of the timing belt job to get to the place of 100%, because this is when we lost overall control of the situation In a general manner of speaking, if the cost to repair the damage from a faulty timing belt tensioner is $in-house, the warranty claim my shop would make to the parts supplier would be in the $range and my shop would be wholeIn a case like this, my overall liability goes up to what it would cost to have another shop perform the repairsThis would be in the $range for a job like thisI would then go to my parts supplier and try to support a case for a claim, though in this case [redacted] refused to speak with Jeff and a [redacted] as though we are breaking from our role in facilitating his reaching out.So, we offered $anyway because we want to see [redacted] and [redacted] made wholeIt was frustrating all around and I don't want to nitpick the entire narrative but we were trying and are trying stillI offered $and received payment instructions (the type of check/where to send the check) inferring that my offer was accepted, but I asked for a confirmation as to what this settlement buys us, which is apparently nothingThe terms given to me at that juncture were: pay $and we report you to the Revdex.com and say bad things about you online, pay $and we don't report you to the Revdex.com and we say bad things about you online, pay $and we don't report you or say bad things about you.So, here we areI acknowledge my part in this debacle and still even offer to pay $despite the things that have now been saidIf we can work together to produce a favorable claim with the part supplier, I will increase the offer to $2000. Alternatively, we can fix the car by sending the head out to [redacted] for valves & machining work AND We will pay the $to [redacted] for the diagnostic work performed by another shop.I am working really hard here and have never stopped caring about the ultimate satisfaction of the work statementIn exchange for the acceptance of one of these proposed solutions, I would need [redacted] and [redacted] to abstain from reviewing Panther Performance Auto online. Regards, Sam

Complaint: *** While we appreciate that Sam also wishes our engagement had turned out differently and that PPAG was not malicious in intent, we do feel they were unprofessional in their communications and negligent in their workThe numerous errors resulted in - at best - annoyance and - at worst - risk to our lives (for instance, had the 12/24/incident in which steering locked and the crankshaft dislodged occurred moments later on the highway, rather than on the approach to the highway). We would like to reiterate that at no time were we informed in advance that work on our car was being outsourced to a third partyIn fact, Sam had described rebuilding the transmission on his own car in detail, and we do not believe it was unrealistic to assume he was carrying out the work when he did not indicate otherwiseCertainly had we had an opportunity to research *** in advance, we would not have elected to move forward. In addition, the relationship with the parts supplier is not ours - it is PPAG’sPPAG is the customer of the parts supplier, as we are the customer of PPAGTherefore PPAG should be responsible for managing a claim on the partIt was also inappropriate to have the supplier - with which we had no prior relationship - call us unannounced when we had requested all communications be carried out in writingIf we can provide additional information to support Sam in his claim, we will do so, but he has not enumerated what is needed. $1,does not make us whole, nor does $2,We paid over $4,in total to PPAGThe itemized financial justification for our request which we originally sent to Sam indicated that we would not seek a refund for the transmission or suspension work, though neither is useful on a dead carWe believe our request is extremely reasonable, considering the experiences and outcomes we have detailed, but we wish to be clear: a refund of 50% of the amount we paid hardly makes us whole - it only helps us to recover. We await further information from Sam about what is needed for him to complete a claim with his parts supplier, and we request that these communications continue to be carried out through the Revdex.com
Sincerely,
Customers

As can be surmised from *** description of our dispute, this was a lengthy saga with a bitterly disappointing conclusionThe f* reported by *** are largely accurate, but there are many remarks that are intended to smear us and make us appear negligent, incompetent, and unreasonableI
could not disagree more strongly with these remarks and take exception to the general tone used when describing my business.Panther Performance Auto was formed in August with the intent of providing me with a place to be productive and add value to the community in an environment where things make senseHaving spent years in aerospace raw materials distribution, I understand that this type of environment is difficult to come by, and we work very hard to maintain this environment for our employees, customers, and vendors.In this case, there were complicating factors which were in some cases in our control and in some cases were notIn short, errors were made in the process of repairing this vehicle which were complicated by the extraordinary length of time that it took *** ***s to correct a workmanship issue and a misdiagnosis of the engine's condition by me after timing belt failureOf all the events outlined in *** account, these seem to have caused this situation to shift from a manageable work statement to a crisis.There were some errors that were made on our part and I have made reasonable efforts in an attempt to remedy issues caused by these errors: 12/incident occurred due to the loosening of the harmonic balancer from the crankshaftThis was my errorThe timing set came with instructions pertaining to the installation procedure of the componentsThe harmonic balancer is affixed to the crankshaft with a single bolt and the torque specification was printed on the instruction sheetIt called for foot pounds of torque, but the next step called for another degrees of rotationThat next step fell onto the next page of the instructions and I missed it.When I received the call as to the incident described, I pulled the procedure on Alldata, which gave a more straightforward torque value for this one than the two-step process outlined by the timing set instructionsI purchased a new harmonic balancer, and installed it with new drive belts to ensure that anything was better than originalThe transmission was rebuilt out of house, which is common for shops like oursWe had worked with Jeff at *** on about six transmissions previously and our only complaint was on turnaround, so we tried to generally buffer our communications accordinglyIn this case, the rebuild was extensive and included the replacement of the valve body, which is about 1/the overall mass of the transmission in this carThe trans was installed and shifted/drove okay, but ultimately leaked because some of the bolts were undertightenedJeff's warranty to us included pulling the transmission, which is why I drove the car to the transmission shopUnfortunately, it took a very long time for Jeff's company to perform the needed repairsI went to Commerce City in person three times in the process of expediting / checking on what I'd been toldBy the time we got the car back, someone had damaged the door handle breaking into the car, my relationship with Jeff was destroyed, and my relationship with *** & *** was highly strained.I guess our mistake was doing business with *** and should have known better based on the research that came laterThis is a grey area and I still don't know whether *** is a good company and was honest about all the personal challenges that they were enduring at the time of this incident, or whether they're horrible people who deserve whatever they have coming to themI misdiagnosed the ultimate cause of engine failureI recall not being 100% certain at the time, and the one question I kept asking of the situation (and anyone who would listen) was, “if the engine failed due to lack of compression, why did it run good right up until it stopped running?”Ironically, I had two outside resources in the shop at the time; Jeff from ***, the supplier of the timing set and JR, a mobile diagnostician who my shop hires from time to timeI had stripped away the upper section of the timing belt, revealing a belt with no visible damage which appeared to be tensioned properlyI agree with the other shop's assessment that I needed to do the job again in order to have 100% certainty that timing had slipped, but it's still very difficult to understand how that happened, since the components were installed properly and the car ran fine after installation.I failed to grasp the enormity of this diagnosis at the timeI should have carried out the completion of the timing belt job to get to the place of 100%, because this is when we lost overall control of the situation ? In a general manner of speaking, if the cost to repair the damage from a faulty timing belt tensioner is $in-house, the warranty claim my shop would make to the parts supplier would be in the $range and my shop would be wholeIn a case like this, my overall liability goes up to what it would cost to have another shop perform the repairsThis would be in the $range for a job like thisI would then go to my parts supplier and try to support a case for a claim, though in this case *** refused to speak with Jeff and a*** as though we are breaking from our role in facilitating his reaching out.So, we offered $anyway because we want to see *** and *** made wholeIt was frustrating all around and I don't want to nitpick the entire narrative but we were trying and are trying stillI offered $and received payment instructions (the type of check/where to send the check) inferring that my offer was accepted, but I asked for a confirmation as to what this settlement buys us, which is apparently nothingThe terms given to me at that juncture were: pay $and we report you to the Revdex.com and say bad things about you online, pay $and we don't report you to the Revdex.com and we say bad things about you online, pay $and we don't report you or say bad things about you.So, here we areI acknowledge my part in this debacle and still even offer to pay $despite the things that have now been saidIf we can work together to produce a favorable claim with the part supplier, I will increase the offer to $2000.? Alternatively, we can fix the car by sending the head out to *** *** *** for valves & machining work AND We will pay the $to *** for the diagnostic work performed by another shop.I am working really hard here and have never stopped caring about the ultimate satisfaction of the work statementIn exchange for the acceptance of one of these proposed solutions, I would need *** and *** to abstain from reviewing Panther Performance Auto online.? Regards, Sam?