Originally Posted by Craig

It has been interesting to watch the evolution of this thread. I never intended for it to become tuner or customer specific. In retrospect, I was naive to hope otherwise.

My point was NOT that any particular tuner provides good or poor service, or that any particular customer was victimized thereby. Rather, my point was that many of us have experienced profound lapses in service, or worse, by prominent tuners and, yet, we remain silent about it for one of several different reasons. This silence inhibits and/or precludes a free flow of information for the benefit of others trying to decide who to work with. Ironically, some of the biggest proponents of certain tuners have experienced some of the greatest lapses in service (often because they have high HP cars which require greater work, and more down time). You would not know any of this simply by reading this forum because, with few exceptions, most people here unabashedly trumpet their chosen tuner, while concealing the negative experiences. The bad experiences are often relegated to back channel discussions outside the public domain. The resulting database of information on this forum is considerably less than complete.

A few posters have accurately observed that certain customers are overly/unreasonably demanding, too sensitive, and/or have unreasonable expectations, and that some people should never have gone done the modding path to begin with. I admittedly have some of these characteristics, and I was anything but an easy customer to deal with. In my profession, customer service is everything, and even slight lapses in service can result in the loss of millions of dollars in business. In my profession, promptly returning a client call is of paramount importance. Likewise, providing anything less than completely accurate information to a client is wholly unacceptable (and potentially actionable). In many instances, I held my tuners to a similar standard – this was probably not reasonable, and certainly not realistic.

On the other hand, the lapses in service I was referring to in my original post transcended even my elevated demands/expectations. I was not simply referring to delays, unreturned calls, or failures to meet performance goals. The conduct I endured, and others here have endured, far exceed these common pitfalls. The following are a merely few examples of my experiences – the proverbial tip of the iceberg. I will NOT identify the offending tuners, so please do not ask or guess (I will not respond to inquiries or guesses ).

My very first mod was an ECU flash. Before purchasing the program (for over $3,000), I spoke with the tuner’s US representative and he made several express statements to me regarding the program – statements that induced me t purchase the program. When the program wholly failed to live up to expectations, I orchestrated a conference call with the owner of the company in Germany and the US representative. During this call, the owner of the company told me that several of the representations made by his US representative were absolutely false (after the US representative admitted making the representations). In other words, I was outright lied to by the US representative – lies about material facts concerning the program I purchased. The owner offered me a set of turbos for my trouble. However, the turbos he sent me were defective. I orchestrated a second conference call, this time from the office of the tuner who had installed the defective turbos – of note, the tuner was an authorized distributed of the German company. Unaware that I was on speaker phone in the office of the local authorized dealer, the owner of the company blamed the failure on the local tuner and described the tuner as incompetent (his own authorized dealer). A week later, the German company threatened to sue me for damaging their turbos – turbos they gave me for free because they had lied to me about their programming (I never touched the turbos). I switched turbos and programming, and the problem was solved. After extensive back and forth, I ultimately got a full refund.

Lies and half-truths were so common place that I became numb to it. I continued to work with tuners that regularly lied to me simply because the majority of them lied to me, and I repeatedly caught them in lies.

My next tuner sold certain of my OEM parts (e.g., exhaust and suspension that I had upgraded) out the back door without my knowledge or permission (even though I expressly told them I wanted to retain my OEM parts). They ended up giving me OEM parts from a different car (the owner of that car almost certainly did not know he had been cheated).

My first engine build was predicated on a new set of experimental turbos that were custom built for me by an outside vendor. The turbos did not perform as promised. My tuner told me that the vendor who made the turbos refused to refund my money. My tuner went so far as to cast himself as the “good guy” by offering me a “discount” on new turbos because the outside vendor was wrongfully retaining my money. A year later, I posted a negative comment about the turbo manufacturer and he contacted me by e-mail to ask why. I discovered that the turbo manufacturer had promptly provided my tuner with a complete refund for the non-performing turbos, and my tuner kept the money. I confronted my tuner and, after an incoherent attempt to explain its outright fraud and theft of my money (my opinion), they offered me free service in an amount less than the full amount they had received back for the turbos – they would not refund my money. Do you still think I am too sensitive?

One tuner took my car hostage for an extraordinary period of time -- what was initially estimated as a 10 week job extended to almost 18 months. During the protracted delays, the tuner often refused to communicate with me for extended periods. Message after message was ignored – voicemail after voicemail went unreturned. The excuses I received from the receptionist were outright comical. I would occasionally have my secretary call back and ask for the same person who, one minute earlier, I was told was out of state, only to have that person promptly pick-up the phone. The tuner candidly admitted to me that, on one occasion, he delayed calling me back for several days because he had experienced a major set-back and he did not know how to tell me – so he, instead, concealed it from me and ignored my inquiries – he left me hanging until he built up the nerve to call me back and tell me the bad news. When I did actually get someone on the phone, I repeatedly received conflicting information – not slightly different – completely different. One employee would tell me he just looked at my car and the engine is back in the car – ten minutes later, the owner would tell me that my engine is in parts and the heads are at the head shop. They promised that they would give my car first priority (which was well deserved after almost 18 months), then they would not touch it for weeks, while they knocked out other cars.

These are merely the experiences that immediately come to mind. Again, this is the tip of the iceberg. I could write a book about this sh*t. Moreover, I have heard similar, and often far worse, stories from countless other people on this forum.

My advice to the newbe: Purchase a simple, straight-forward, proven bolt on package providing reliable mid-level power, and stop. My happiest moments with my 996TT were when I had a great mid-power set-up. It was reliable and fun. Everything went to sh*t when I pursued more power.

In the end, I am as guilty as the next guy with respect to concealing my bad experiences. While I have shared a few anecdotes here, I have not revealed the offending tuners and, therefore, I have deprived this forum of valuable information. Interestingly, my motives are different today. In the past, I concealed this information because I was beholden to the tuners – I needed them to warrant their products and continue to service my car, notwithstanding their outrageous conduct. Moreover, I was reluctant to admit to this community that perhaps, just possibly, I had not made the best selection in tuners (even though people patronizing the other tuners were sharing similar stories with me behind the scenes). Today, I am not beholden to any tuner. So why do I continue to protect them? I don’t want the backlash. I don’t want to be drawn into a protracted battle with both the tuners and their loyal posses. I don’t have the time or the inclination to fight the inevitable battle that will result. Thus, I share stories that may be amusing, but are of little value without the corresponding offenders. I’m sorry about this.

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say on Hill Street Blues: “Be careful out there.”

Regards,

Craig

Originally Posted by Dr_jitsu

Craig,

When you sold your car it was making in the low 600's to the wheels, yes?

My problem is that is what I consider to be mid-range power

Originally Posted by Prche951

Craig, it is easy to get taken in this field. I heard stories from all over and luckily I talked to many people privately before I went with the tuner I chose. No problems here. But a different decision and I could have been in a world of crap.

Originally Posted by ttboost

I agree...if anyone, myself included, has learned anything from this forum, it's DO YOUR HOMEWORK! There is plenty of info here to help almost anyone with almost any problem, and it's likely every tuner is going to screw-up, nobody's perfect, it's how they fix the screw-up that determines their lifespan.

Originally Posted by Christian

People tell you what you want to hear, seldom do they stand behind it 100%

Christian

Originally Posted by Prche951

Did you mean tuners instead of people?
most people have nothing to gain or loose by privately telling you what they know, and if you consult more than one, you can make your own informed decisions.