Originally Posted by Evolution MotorSports

Since this was brought up again over three years since it was originally posted and resolved, I must address this thread as I believe it continues to cast an unfair light over a company that is almost completely different now than it was when Justin (and UTPorsche) had his experience with us and created this.

As an enthusiast, automotive consumer, and EVOMS employee who joined the company about four months after this thread was originally created, Justin's description of his experience is pretty bad. He got poor customer service, a poor product that took time and money to resolve at a third part, and to top it off he paid a premium that was well beyond what he quoted or approved. There are two sides to every story (I, frankly, don't know much of ours since it was before my time), but ultimately this thread exists because Justin wanted to make his experience known to the community for one reason or another which I can respect. For our part, EVOMS refunded over $6500 which had been paid towards parts and labor to fix the oil and coolant leaks and for the misquotation of transportation costs. Per posts from Ian and Justin, that should have been the end of it, but since it's been bumped once per year for the last three years feelings must be lingering and Justin feels the need to make sure this experience continues to be a part of the reputation of Evolution Motorsports.

Over the past three years, virtually the entire organization that did Justin's car and worked with him over his project has been replaced. Everyone from the technicians, to the service/sales staff, to management that had a hand, for better or worse, in his experience are no longer with the company with the exception of Todd Zuccone. Todd still owns the company and is responsible for our tuning as he has been for 20+ years now, but the day-to-day operations are run by an entirely different crew than it was back in 2013. We even just completed to a move to a new location in Phoenix from our former shop in Tempe. Our name, our books, and our products are about the only things that carry forward through today.

Throughout all of those changes, there has been a massive cultural shift in how our customer service works with people and projects, and how those projects are executed. As the Sales and Service Manager here at EVOMS for the past year and a half, I am now responsible for any project large or small that comes through us, and so while I cannot turn back the clock to know exactly the external and internal interactions that took place that resulted in Justin's project coming out how it did, I can say that I have a much different working style than my predecessors and together with my current technicians, have given a different type of experience and results than were sometimes given in the couple of years prior to when I joined the company.

As someone who is not from wealth and has a background in technical support, engineering, and tuning rather than sales, I can say that the first difference is that I take a much more pragmatic approach to new builds and repair/update projects like this as I hate wasting money that isn't mine on things that don't get results. In an open-ended situation like Justin's or UTPorsche's where a car comes to you with an unknown problem that has to be diagnosed and repaired, that involves using my experience up front to set a reasonable expectation of cost and time to initially diagnose the problem, and lay out a road map up front for what directions we could go after that diagnosis (a repair, more diagnosis, or another direction). That process repeats until things are done, and I always seek customer approval and input before proceeding. We've gotten this far, this is the next step, it will cost this much and make your total that much. A bill should never be a mystery if work is being done. If we have a problem that we have to take a guess at to try and fix and guess wrong, I tell the customer that fact and what my thought process is, and if we're totally off base I will give them their money back or make it right.

The other end of that equation is the work being done by the shop, because the best service in the world doesn't make a difference if the product sucks. My current primary tech came to us with a background in competitive road and rally racing, fields where mechanical shortcuts and mistakes result in complete failure and details are extremely important. On modified street and track cars like most members here are using, that means i's are dotted and t's are crossed during diagnosis and assembly (for example, he religiously torques and paint marks EVERYTHING he touches, which sounds simple but by itself prevents many problems and is not as common as it could be in this industry), and he has a very low comeback rate I think as a result. If a problem does happen, either because of a labor issue or a part issue, are taken care of fairly and as quickly as we can whatever the expense.

Over the past two years, we've had an excellent diagnostic track record on solving recurring issues including those on some problem child EVT775 cars with air leak and post-cat fuel trim codes like UTPorsche went through. That car actually got purchased by someone who lives in the Phoenix area and we have a standing invitation to have him bring it by and check it for the problems we found and fixed on the other cars, but he is a restaurateur and has not had the time to take us up on it. For posterity, the problems have ended up being very odd hardware issues--y-pipe and intake plenum couplers that move slightly and cause tiny air leaks hundreds of miles after installation/repair, and exhaust leaks that only present themselves when the exhaust is at full operating temperature. One car has been good for almost a year, and the other is going on four or five months without issue.

So as I said before, I can understand why this thread was originally made, and maybe the thoughts behind why it has made an appearance every year since. But in an industry where success or failure is very closely tied to the people involved on either end of a transaction, I think that this thread has outlived its relevance due to the sweeping changes at EVOMS since its creation.

If ANYONE has any new or old concerns or issues with an EVOMS product or experience, I ask them to reach out to us to discuss it and make it right. I can be found via email at sstone@evoms.com, or at my direct line at 480-568-8736. We welcome your conversations and are here to help.

Sam Stone

Originally Posted by triblk6spd

Just thought I'd spend a moment reminiscing over my good old Porsche days.

Originally Posted by triblk6spd

A beautiful nightmare....

Originally Posted by triblk6spd

Just a quick update. This car (my old car) had to be completely stripped by the new owner of all Evolution parts and rebuilt from the ground up with competent components and tuning. So sad. The motor was also torn down (just because) and there was a fair amount of bearing damage..I wonder if pull after pull after pull by a bunch of monkeys playing on the dyno had anything to do with it. Probably not.

Originally Posted by 08957

At the end of the day it is situations like this that make every rational person think twice about car modifications and ponder if it is best to just keep it stock

I thank you for taking the time to share your story although it does give me nightmares

Originally Posted by The Bogg

So true. I have friends that have kits from other "big names" in the industry and the behind the scenes info about some problems that occurred can curl your nosehairs. It's not even enough to perform due diligence on a company before handing over the keys, sometimes it takes faith or voodoo or something...