The Resurrection of #22579

I know that my answer must be somewhere here but I am still struggling to find it. Without re-hashing every detail, correspondence, or expectation may I ask for the following:

1. Purchase price of the car (prior to restoration)

2. Work requested / agreed upon between purchase and your receipt (a basic list)

3. Amount of money spent exclusive of the purchase price from the moment you bought the car to the moment it left the shop (exclusive of shipping charges)

I ask this because I am trying to understand the basics before offering an opinion (I've been down the restoration road before and am in the middle of one now).

Lastly, it seems like you went back and forth a lot and without satisfaction. Now by going public what are you trying to achieve (ie. what is your ultimate goal here?)

 

You sound like Columbo.

 

I asked this same question. This is one of, not all, but one of the root causes in this issue. Shame on both parties but it appears that there is not a written and agreed on estimate in this rather fluid transaction.

And I asked THIS same question a while back and warned that taking this tack would likely result in neither party ending up happy.

 

I do not understand why my three simple questions were not answered with simple replies. What I have seen posted so far seems to cater to the casual forum viewer who will do nothing more than scan through the pictures and draw a conclusion from that. The reams and reams of posted correspondence only serves to confuse things and does not simply answer the basic question of 'what work was done for what amount spent?' From this starting point you can see if you truly got ripped off or if your expectations of quality were unrealistic for the amount spent.

If all you want to do is publically vent then I guess you've done that and we can all get on with our lives. If you are trying to build some kind of case then there are people here who can offer good advice but it is important to try and help them out a little too. I'm willing to bet that there is blame to go around here.

 

Yep, I'd be pissed also. Expensive? Yes. Stuck dealing with it? Yes. Horrid paint job? Yes.

You and I have talked about this job and the quality, or lack thereof. Kurt you know I like you. You also know I strongly suggested you not air this in public because I believe it will not get you to your goal; a nice 400GT. Since you insist on trying this in public I think it is important that you publicly acknowledge you did not have a written and agreed upon estimate. That you may have given less than clear instructions. And that a refund has been offered to you and you have not accepted it.

You know I don't think the work on your car is right but if you're going to crucify a guy in public fair is fair and you need to own up to your shortcomings also don't you think?

 

Pictures have disappeared!

EDIT: I wasn't logged in!

Popcorn in microwave...

 

We'll chalk that up to jet lag for now

 

I think the both of you are being a little harsh on the OP.

What we do know is, he has spent 90 grand so far (I'm assuming) he has documentation of all this to a tee, given the emails and details he has posted thus far.

Looking at the pics of this car , even a donkey can see 90 grand has not been performed....asking complete details as if you are lawyers is a bit much don't you think ?

Stop making it sound like he should be made accountable ....if anything all owners when our cars are in the shops are actually held "hostage" you both should understand this.

Stop acting like you know better, cause you don't ! Next time your car is in the shop, just remember you could be in the same boat.

Give both sides a chance to explain.

 

Agreed Rick. The car is a disaster. It doesn't need a bodyshop...it needs a priest. I thought my back seats were bad...

At the same time would you drop $90K and not even spend a few hundred on a plane trip to see the shop, meet the owner, inspect their work first hand or to see the work in progress?

 

Before you call someone out you might want to have all the facts. Obviously you didn't read the entire thread. If you had you would have read the part where I said I have been privy to the emails going back and forth between the two parties prior to this thread being started. So pardon me but I have seen the explanations. It is you that hasn't.

 

No, what I see is you playing the polictal fence and the candle at both ends.

You can't be half pregnant.

Answer the questions -

Did the OP spend 90 grand ?

Does this car look like 90 grand ?

The proof is in the recipts !

Simple , stop making it complicated.

All I said was don't be harsh on the OP , I'm not calling anyone out - stop stirring a pot that doesn't exsist for me.

 

Yes of course you are right as you always are. After reading your post there is no way anyone would think you were calling someone out. How silly of me to think otherwise.
(laughing)
Lighten up boy, and try to keep your eye on the ball. I'm not your enemy.

 

Of course trying to be condensending when you can't answer direct questions.

I have no dog in this fight, obvious you must.

Good luck with it !

I'm done with this thread, thanks for the detailed facts.

 

Very, very tough thread for me to read and try and processes.

I have spent a lot of time talking with Brett, both via PM, email and on the phone. I am almost 100% sure that this car was offered to me when I was in the midst of my 400/412 search. After driving a few different examples I decided to stick with the injected cars, just due to driveability issues- I wanted to be able to daily drive the car.


So with the 400GT scratched I instead bought the white 400i that was the subject of the "Rebirth Auto" threads that perhaps encouraged Kurt to paint his car white.

I purchased this "mostly restored" car for about 1/3 of what Kurt has into this car. While I was a little disappointing at the fit and finish of the car when I received it- it is MILES ahead of this car. The leather work was done to a very high standard- bumpers refinished almost perfectly, nice berber carpet installed nicely... not an "A" but a solid "B+"... A little bit of fettling and detailing and I have a really fine 400i.

With the 400 now safely in the garage I then basically gave Brett the green light to find me a 308GT4 and "sympathetically restore" it for me, knowing that this would be a $50,000 project. The car Brett had in mind turned out to be unavailable and I never heard from him again, so instead I bought a 13,000 mile original car and had Bradan on Long Island restore the car. For a number somewhat south of my original budget with Brett I have a really impeccable GT4. Now it's not apples to apples because my low mileage car needed no major engine work or tranny work, just totally rebuilding the suspension, retrimming the interior a bit and of course a really great bare metal respray. This was done to concours- quality levels, and I' quite tickled to own it!

In all my dealings with Brett he really seemed to "get it". When this car was being assembled I was in the middle of doing some work on my own 400i and Brett and I spoke at great length about the exhaust system on this car, the clutch "feel" and many more items. He told me about the interior coming together and the paint work. I was jealous- it sounded like a great build.

Not sure who dropped the ball here but at least from what has been presented here so far, the cosmetic work is not the kind of work that I would consider "Ferrari-quality".

I've had the chance to speak to a few other Fchatters who have received similarly partially-restored cars from North of the Border, and it seems that there is a real difference of opinion here between the owners and the restorer as to what constitutes "Quality". Don't know what arrangements were made and who is right or wrong, but I know what I can live with, and it ain't this.

The shop who is doing all of my work now- Bradan, has put me through some of the same issues with missed deadlines, but the quality of their work has so far exceeded any reasonable expectations I could have had that they get a pass.

I feel for Brett here and hope he can come on the forum and give us his side of the story. But more importantly I do hope Kurt does forget about the money and gets the car to the stage that he can be proud of it. I know from personal experience that living with these cars can be challenging, but highly rewarding. It always feels very "Special" to drive my 400i, and once the car is sorted and with the benefit of a bit of time... I'm sure it will be special for Kurt as well.

Here's a few of my clean white 400 as an indication of the good times ahead...eventually...
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I'm not trying to be harsh on the OP at all. All I am doing is asking some questions to try and understand. Again it all comes down to the purpose of the thread. If he just wants to vent then by all means ignore any interest I have in offering an opinion. If he wants to achieve something more then it will require the answering of some questions to achieve some clarity.

I for one am not passing any judgement here just yet. All I see are some photos, hard to follow (for me at least) communications, and no real objective. To say look at those photos and judge them for 90 grand is way shy of making a decision with the facts. Sure the car is not 100% but dstacy has seen the car, is friends with the OP, and still does not totally side with him. Also there is the info that a refund of some kind was offered yet that was not enough.

Again I say that there is blame to go around here but given the original presentation of information it does not appear to go both ways.

 

There is no difference of opinion North of the boarder when it comes to quality. Like you said this ain't it. There are some excellent shops here in Canada and some not so good....it's up to the client to do his homework and find someone who is competent. Again I ask, why didn't the OP spend a few hundred bucks and fly up to see things in person before dropping so much money?

Go banana!

 

Well I didn't mean to impugn Canada- Just that a few others who have received cars from this shop were less than impressed with some of the cosmetics. I know ZERO details, just anecdotal complaints.

As with anything in the exotic car world- small mistakes can create huge expenses, and the more involved the owner is in the process, the better.

 

In this specific case there are lots of posts on FChat saying Granturismo is a good shop, happy customers etc. If those people are not being open, then they do a disservice to all.

There's the rub, how can you tell in advance? By a visit, some chats, some discussions, would previous customers be open with you if you asked about their experience, how do you even know who the previous customers are? Getting references from the shop itself is likely a waste of time unless you get them to tell you who is not happy with the results. How a shop handles those situations tells a lot.

It is clear from other threads relating to some shops in the Ontario region that no one is publicly saying much of anything about problems in specific shops. After a disaster, then it is 'oh of course you shouldn't have gone there'. 12 years ago it wasn't quite so clear who was good and who wasn't. I'm not sure it is easily determined today. I lucked out in where I got my work done.

Other parts of the world have the same challenges, there are good shops were people have a positive experience, and then there are the rest.

Threads such as this provide a lot of useful information, not just about a specific shop but about how the situation got to this stage. I already see a few key things that neither side did (unrelated to the actual quality of the work). Once the whole set of information is before us we can draw conclusions.

Gerrit
ex-11966

 

I am sorry but for all that money that was paid, he should of received a 'just off the production line' car back. Those pictures are just shocking.

 

i'm sorry i couldn't personally address until this morning, but i had my Mom in town from BC and excessive personal time on the internet was not polite until after she left this morning.

i still haven't gone through the thread line by line and i will need to do that but, obviously, this is a serious situation that we've been living through for quite some time.

there has been a lot of correspondence between Kurt and i over the past many months and very clearly there are body work issues with the car that there should not be.

furthermore, they seem to be getting worse as time passes, which is very disturbing...but i don't have an explanation for that as i type this.

i pay my employees and my subcontractors well...and i do expect better than what i see in the most recent body work pictures.

having said that, i'm not going to 'hang' my employees or subcontractors 'out to dry'...i need to let them scruntinise the most recent pictures for themselves.

what i won't do however, is have them testify in an online 'courtroom'...the buck stops here.

mistakes were clearly made and i've asked very pointed questions as to why...but there is a larger issue here that concerns communication, budget, expectation and result.

i will not make any attempt to defend the cracks that i see in the body work on the car and toward the end of rectifying those issues i made two entirely fair offers to Kurt.

those offers were not made privately and many respected F-chatters are fully aware of them...but he has rejected those offers to pursue this course of action.

a course of action that would have me pay $15 000 for a bare metal body and respray as compensation for the $6500 (which includes a $1500 windsheild) body and paint job we had done.

that is to say, Kurt wants us to pay for the quality paint job that we were not paid to do, that we did not have the opportunity, budget or authority to do.

and this where the negotiation breaks down...but it has not been a 5 month negotiation...there was no 'waltz'....Kurt took his time and addressed when he had time...

but it was only on August 10th that Kurt made his 'proposal' and 'demanded' $15 000 restitution for the $5000 (not including windsheild) paint job that he paid for.

$15 000 in restituion for the $5000 paint job he paid for...

at this end, we simply can't make sense of it and can only ask ourselves repeatedly how our budget dictated, $5000 body and paint job leaves us on the hook for $15 000...

and as far as we're concerned, it doesn't...and both of the offers made to Kurt would have given him full credit for the $5000 he paid us for the paint job.

beyond that, it only gets more confusing with made-to-order custom parts, missed time 'slots', customs delays and materials provided that were nearly impossible to work with.

so, again, forgive me, as i won't revisit this here...i can't fight this battle in this fashion...Kurt is more convincing and clever than i am...his false Ebay ad, for example.

so, please, take this situation at face value if that is how it strikes you...but i will ask one question...

do you really think that a man of Kurt's obvious intelligence believed that he was buying a 5-speed, carburetted 400 with a newly rebuilt V-12 for $17 500...

or do you think that maybe, just maybe, there is more to it than that ? think about it...maybe there was an advantage in that for him...it certainly made no difference to us...

so, what i will do is post pictures of the project as we performed various work...i think you'll see that it was a little more then the brake and suspension overhaul he mentions...

for example, the required valve adjustment and cylinder head retorque on the new motor after break-in miles or the recalibration of advance curves or carb tuning...what about a complete new exhaust with coated headers, customer centers, new silencers, gearbox service with new input and output shaft bearings, torque tube bearing, comprehensive electrical work, lights, lenses, work to the steering column multi function switches, panel switches, tach rebuild, replacement hand brake lever, serviced window motors, A/C components, cooling system mods/fans, serviced starter and alternator, seats that were recovered 3 times due specifically to the materials that were provided by Kurt, replacement leather costs, sourcing the requested custom brakes lines and suspension bushings, etc. ?

the price for all the work ?

about $41K CAN...

for everything...all parts, labour, all subcontracted work (metal, body,paint, full interior, including replacement leather), all materials (hoses, clamps, adhesives, oils, coolant, etc.), badges, emblems, center caps, hood shocks, replacement leather, all metal and body work, paint (bad example, but still)...everything, all in, fully documented...approximately $41K, for everything but not including taxes, duties, shipping charges or any other 'flow through's' charges such as wire transfer fees, currency conversion costs at the bank, etc.

$41K , for everything we did or had done, all in.

so, yes, if you add $41K with the abovementioned flow through costs and the cost of the car, it equals $89K.

is the picture clearer now ? i hope so, but honestly, there is even more to it than that...

i think the pics will also show that the body work of the car has changed a great deal since it left here, which is certainly no fault of Kurts, but for which he could have been fully reimbursed.

thanks for your time...i'll post pics after i've resized them.

 

Good day Brett,

I am not trying to add fuel the fire...but I have to ask a question and it is independent of what you said happened, what Kurt said happened, etc but it is a reflection of the final result...

Do you think that the car is worth more than Kurt's original purchase price given the work you guys did? It would stand to reason that if one paid $41K for work done to the car that the car should be worth at least $41K or thereabouts? From the pictures presented I find it hard to believe that this car would be valued anywhere close to this amount let alone if one were to include the original purchased price. Maybe I am wrong or perhaps I am not seeing the big picture, but just looking at it from an outside evaluation perspective something is seriously amiss.

Cheers,

Sam