service shop:

Well I have gathered my thoughts, tried for almost three days to rein in my emotions as well as spoken to both of the other two shops which are authorized to do tech inspections for FOC (on my 1 1/2 month old Carrera GT). Both said it is a rigorous VISUAL inspection which results in ZERO driving of the car - as I expected! They were both floored to learn this shop justified abusing a customer and his/her car as some sort of responsibility required by the tech inspection. Absurdly enough, he still thinks he did nothing wrong!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some notable quotes from Steve Maxwell, the owner of Exotic Car Care ("car care" being a bit ironic in this case) who was the offender. It is immediately ajacent to M.O.M. Mind over Motorsport:

"did you know your exhaust glows when it is hot?" (never seen that myself nor has anyone behind me in several spirited mountain drives commented on this).

"the traction control on this car in first (gear) is useless" (fwiw, you have to give it a LOT of throttle to make the traction control useless in first gear and this suggests he was enjoying my tires he didn't have to buy himself).

he stated, "the car has some wander during high speed cornering". to which i said i'd had it at some fairly high speeds in corners without experiencing any wander. he then looked over at the guy who does detailing for the shop who was apparently a passenger in the joy ride and said "what did we hit in that one corner? about 150?" to which the detailer responded "yes, 150". he then went onto say proudly "it was 16 mph more in that corner than any other car i've taken through there."

in addition to the detailer, a director of the FOC was there and likely heard a great deal if not all of this conversation.

 

So what if somebody else enjoyed your car for a few minuets ?
What's the big deal ?
Something happened to the car ? NO! so WTF dawg???

 

I think his problem is that they had no reason to drive the car as it was a visual inpection only (or was supposed to be at least) and drove his car to very high limits.

150mph corners? 16 mph faster than any other car he had driven? thats the limits to me with risk of serious consiquences.

Glowing hot Exhaust pipes? you have to be sustaining upper RPM's for prolonged time (posible redlineing) to cause that much heat build up I would assume

And just the over all non-chalent way the manager told him all this. There was NO reason for that man to be driving his car around the parking lot, let alone 150mph+ so wouldent you be mad?

Imagine someone hitting golf ***** 10 yeards away from your car with a driver. well they might not hit the car, but its still in danger of damage. Would you let Tiger try that out? i doubt it.

 

Awesome, I'm going to be in LA in two weeks, I'll stop by and grab the keys to your Murci and take her for a little joy ride around town. Thanks dawg, that's nice of you

 

What.... I gave a ride to each of the mechanics that worked on the car. No big deal.

Hell, i even gave the keys to my 18 years old nephew to try it !!!

No big deal. A car is meant to be driven not garage queened !!!!

 

I give pretty much everyone who wants one the ride of their life. BUT, I let NO ONE joy ride in it - especially some guy I've only talked to 5 minutes in my whole life!

After reading his quotes on the internet (which were placed after he admitted to the same details on Sunday to the friend who referred me - only he reduced the speed to 115 mph in this version), he left me a message today wanting to get together so he could explain why he hadn't done anything wrong!! I'm telling you the guy honestly thinks his job as a tech inspector is to drive other peoples cars at 150 mph (in corners), hammer the throttle in first geat sufficiently as to cause the "traction control to be worthless", and achieve his best times on his personal race track - hence the "I was able to carry 16 more mph through there than in any other car before". It's simply unbelieveable to me that someone can be in this much denial. It is his attitude that this is not only acceptable behavior but REQUIRED behavior as a result of his job that I feel it is so very important to let other victims know his biz practices because he apparently has no intention to change them.

 

what wpuld you say to your nephew if he took one of the cars without you knowing? then did triple digit speeds around corners and full throtle acceleration tests?

(EDIT) Judging by the posts of Ben before this problem arose, he was driving the CGT regularly, so it could not be called a garage queen (especially since the tech inpection was for a PCA track day...) but I still do not agree with the Shop's "questionable" (at best) practices

 

my analogy may be not the greatest. but I do agree qith you ben, lj

 

Dude I would throw a fit if someone did that to my car, and it's worth a 10/th of Ben's. Unless they are specifically looking for a problem that requires some sort of high speed or high power testing, I'd be very very pissed if anyone drove my car hard, unless I knew the tech.

 

Craigger, I completely misread your post and apologize.

 

No worries, It was my mistake as I should have quoted to who i was directly talking to.

 

Funny that you mentioned, yesterday I took my Murcie to Willow Springs and let ALL my friends rape it, some of them are not realy my friends just guys who wanted to pilot the Murcie around the track at speeds over 150 mph.
My TT spends ton of time in my tuner shop, I actualy encourage them to drive it hard once in a while.
If my mechanc will approach me tommorow and will tell me "hey dude, I drove your TT around a corner doing 150 mph" my response will be -"COOL, show me the corner, i'd like to try it myself"

 

who knows, i might feel that way with a 4 year old TT and a murci too. but, i DON't feel that way about my nearly brand new CGT and it was MY choice - not his (his being the guy i'd not talked to for a cummulative 5 min before the rape). incidentally, the car was not at a "tuner" where "tuning" needed to be tested. but rather, the car was in for a VISUAL inspection and a fire extinquisher bracket. truth is, i just think you're an ******* who likes to try and get under my skin. nearly all your 43 posts are either kissing allan's *** or trying to **** somebody off. if anyone is interested in getting to better know rakjoe:

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...earchid=232608

 

Haha, i say it couldnt of happened to a BIGGER IDIOT! Ill have to give old Steve-o a call, and congratulate him on a job well done!

 

thanks joe and allan for again showing us just what kind of "special" people buy lambos. and allan, you might want to wait a while before slapping steve on the back because apparently his phone is ringing off the wall by customers not real happy about this story knowing their cars have been under his "care".