first and most important to understand is im NO Mechanic. so when i looked up this guy about anadd for his truck i figured i knew enough. wrong. i met up with him and it was a nice truck!, black 02 ram 2wd srt10 body kit hood and rims, keyfob start button, dumped exhaust button9click it and it dumos the exhuast click it and it closes) a crappy intake which i figured id replace, told me the engine was rebuilt and had the bill of it on hand, had the rear window replaced and it now has the sliding back window. the only issues my non mechanical brain found wrong was the dash was cracked, and the AC was out. i got the AC fixed but the guys at the place told me the front end was BAD. they told me i should park it until i get it fixed along with the list of what was needing replaced. went home took off the front tires and all the ball joints were close to non existant, the control arms were bad the brakes were bad the hubs needed to be replaced the whole 9 yards. so i bought them all and was going to fix them myself till the ENGINE BLEW. i bought a lemon... so i found a Custom shop because i figured they would be able to handle this job, i went in and talked to him about how i got the truck and come to find out a week after it was in the shop he called and told me the front end absolutely needs to be replaced and aligned, do i want to go 5.7 or stay 4.7....he sold me on the 4.7 because all the issues you would run into with putting a 5.7 into a 2002 and how much more expensive it would be. well the original tab was 5000.00$ then they went through and they had to replace my brakes both hubs and front end, got the engine in, put the heads and cam, and intake and tuning....here are my main questions amonth and three weeks in..

1. it seems like he is lying to get more money out of me. first it was 5000.00$. then things came up and it was 7000.00 so i gave him the 5000.00 and told him id give him the rest when he finishes and i drive away with it. then it went up to 10,500.00$ and i payed him because he showed me the truck with it running.

2. heres where two comes in. i think he is stalling on me because he keeps saying he cant find where the Mass Airflow Sensor is suppose to go because he thinks the guy removed the place it plugs into? that sound to me like total BS. and that it keeps "idling high" should he just have to manually restart the computers because the computer is use to running high because of the old engine?

i need help and if you can id really appreciate the help email me if you have an info or post on here thanks guys

 

hahahahahahahahahaha there is no MASS AIRFLOW SENSOR! hahahaha

These Engines run on MAP Sensors... why would you give the guy $10,000 without seeing an ITEMIZED BILL?

Not good bro.

Get some of your $$$$ back if you can...

The idle is controlled by the TPS, IAT and MAP sensors....

 

You should be having them stop working on the truck at this point to assess the situation.

Make the shop break the jobs pricing down into parts. One bill for front end parts, one for front end labour, one for the engine/parts, and one for engine replacement labour. Also find out how many hours they set aside for changing the engine.

The goal is to get enough detail to fight him on the hours one way or the other. Either they will be way higher than planned for no reason or because of unexpected work. If it is unexpected work get him to break that down even further.

At that point you should be able to show that he's put in more hours on various tasks than is reasonable and start slashing the bill.

I also think you should be prepared to have a tow truck move your rig elsewhere to wrap things up.

Steve

 

Mass Air Flow Sensor huh?

How much did you pay for the truck to begin with?

How much work has this "custom shop" done so far...money wise?

 

thanks guys i really really appreciat the help!

IZERO: first it was 5K and i gave hime 2500 to start. then it went to seven so i paid to 5. and so on. he did actually give me a bill when i paid the original 5k. and when i paid the remainder of the 10k i saw the truck finished (minus my high flow cats due to my original O2 sensors not being plugged it so im going to drive it a bit to make sure their working before the cats are put on so i dont burn my cats up bc the O2 sensors didnt work make sense?) it was just still high idiling. so i figured why not this is a small problem ill have it in a day or so.

SteveR: that was my original plan if i paid 10k then ill be damned if i wont have them break it down and show me where my moneys going!!! basically if they ran into unexpected problems and what not i dont feel like i should have to pay those man hours kind of ya know?

TNtech: they have replaced my front end replaced the engine with a new engine after it was built with performance parts kit, chromed headers, K&N intake, Replaced part of my throttle body, mid cam, magna exhaust, tuning. i payed 7000 originally so basically its a 17k truck and its just a beefed up 4.7

 

also i called them yesterday ready to go in today and basically take it from them after i got some of my money back and if there was any issue i was going to bring up the word fraud and the better business bureau. but the guy was like "hey man i just got done with your truck were going to have you come in after we drive and make sure its all good for you and youll leave with it tomorrow!!!which is today!!!

But im still going to go in and get a good break down and make sure im still getting my 3 year 30,000 warrenty.

 

That parts list is going to be a million miles long.

The labor is what I would be curious about.

Sometimes shops scam the crap out of people by blocking labor on jobs together as a "job" so an oil change accounts for x amount of labor.

Which is where the problem is.

If you don't see HOURS of labor in separate blocks that should raise some concern, which is where you should really start looking VERY VERY close at every single part.

If you see MASS AIR FLOW SENSOR or anything related to MAF, they should take that off of your Bill ASAP! b/c there isn't a MAF..... If you put performance Cams on this and a "CUSTOM" tune then I am going to assume they increased the baseline idle to account for the cams.

What kind of "Custom" Tune did they give you? A Road Tune? Dyno?

You should get yourself all of the information you can so you know what is done... they should even have provided the PCM MAPs they put on there so you can check them over.

They SHOULD and by should I mean that if they are a real performance shop they will have their "Tuner" sit in on the test drive with you and make sure there aren't any knocks in the load cells and that all of the throttle mapping and CL/OL transitions are spot on.

Just my thought though... If you're paying that much then you better be getting the bells and whistles as far as service goes.

 

so basically the parts list should basically look like

"CAI
X number of man hours

Headers
X number of man hours?"

and they said they were diablo tune it.

and also the tuner is the one doing the test drive, when i get it to drive it i will be leaving the place lol
also what are the PCM MAPS your talking about? im new to mechanics lol sorry

 

The Maps he is putting on there are the tune.... your tuner should be riding along with you while you do a few pulls on the highway to make sure everything is okay... b/c tune on the dyno never really replicates what happens on the street.

And yes spot on with the info on the bill... sometimes they will just say Cold Air Intake - Price $xxx

and that will include labor, but you want to see labor and parts "ITEMIZED" so you'll want to ask them to do an Itemized Invoice for you. if they can't do it then idk what to tell you, but you might have paid more than it was all worth....

 

ya i told him originally i wanted a 5.7 with all the bells and whistles and he said the 5.7 would be at over 10k stock is that legit bc i think i could have gotten a 5.7 tweaked for the money im paying now