Hello my name is Rich Cognat I own a black 1999 procharged frc with 58k miles .. Im 24 years old and did most of the work myself ...Ive had plenty of cars and have a history of knowledge with ls cars considering this is my 5th ls1/ls6 car
I just wanted to share my horrible experience with anyone deciding to have their car worked on or tuned at ecs..
Please excuse my grammar or punctuality I wanted to type this as it was fresh in my mind.
The mods include 317 heads, epp blower cam, p1sc1 ..3.4 pulley, tpis longtubes b&b bullets, racetronix 65 lb injectors, ls6 intake, bbk 80mm throttle body, zr1 headgaskets , arp studs, hardened pushrods, prc 650, snowperformance boost cooler stage 2, kenne belle boost a pump and racetronix harness etc etc ...
Anyways yesterday which was friday June 7th 2013 ..I was scheduled for my tune at ecs.....I woke up nice and early and drove down to cream ridge New Jersey from Allentown PA which was about a 2 hour commute..I arrive stop into the office and let them know i made it and that i was going to be swapping out my injectors for the 65lb injectors....I went about that and finished I also had one of the techs come out and install my catch can and drill a hole for the meth ..He also relocated the maf and installed the iac breakout kit...(We will get back to this later)...Everything seemed to be going well he finished up added some nice red silicone couplings where the maf was to complement the red fuel rail covers ...it came out very nice....I waited for a while finally Doug comes along and gets into my car plugs up all of his computer equipment doesnt really say much to me at all ...So i decided to ask him a quick question about how he was going to set the start and full spray on the methanol kit....His response was, "We dont use snowperformance here so i have no clue".....Now im a bit worried...I thought this was a tuning session to have everything working...Anyways he plays around with his laptop and i guess loads a base tune for the 65lbers....He starts her up and takes off towards the driveway and leaves....Im excited at this point....He comes back about 20 or so minutes later and I asked him how it went he said "it would have been nice to have working A/C" at this point im like okay this guy is just not very nice at all..... he then starts to hook my car up to the dynopacks ...first run sounded pretty bad the car was breaking up and bogging all over the place almost like it was running out of fuel really bad ... he plays around again on the computer and goes for a second run...Same thing he shuts the car off and walks away down to the office grabs a wrench and a pad to lay on...He jacks up the front of my car angrily slamming the jack under the front passenger side fender probably doing some sort of damage... and slides underneath and i just hear the wrench going ...First off im pissed he just slammed the jack under my lowered corvette and it wasnt a small jack it was a truck jack and also what the hell is the tuner doing under my car ...Then it hit my hes probably installing his own o2 to get a A/F reading....He gets back out from under the car drops the car pretty hard no regard for my property....Gets back in still angry at this point starts it back up and goes for another run...Again same thing bogging down he shuts it off and hops out and says " this car is so fuc-ked up i cant get a reading im done with it have the techs look at it"...Now im in shock this is supposed to be a professional place and im being cursed at...I dont say anything i just walk down to the office and wait until he drives it over so he slams open the office door in rage and says to the other guys "that car is so ****ed up i just want it gone and i never want to see it again"..And i continue to hear him bad mouth my car to the other guys rite as im sitting there..anyways the techs take a look....Finally Alex comes over and tells me that the o2 bungs are positioned at an odd angle so he cannot get an accurate reading ....they install new bungs.....Hour or two go by...Finally Doug takes the car back over to where the dyno is ...i walk over and hes taking the back wheels off again...He finally hooks it up to the dyno and gets back to his laptop then he fires it up and makes a run...it bogged a little then went all the way to redline....So i figure okay making progress...He shuts the car off and gets out pissed and says, "NOW IT WONT MAKE ANY BOOST " " You should Hang up your tools because this car is ****ed up you honestly shouldn't work on cars"…and then says .." im just being honest I'm the guy who will tell it like it is im done with this thing (meaning my car)"...Im just standing there with my head down feeling like I'm worthless and a failure ....I honestly almost teared up I just felt really low and he treated my car like it was a piece of junk slamming the jack under the passenger side fender and just slamming **** like it was an old junker and no my car is not a showcar but by no means should anyone be slamming my car around its a very nice car to me by no mean is it close to junk...Ive had 4 4th gen camaro's and one fire hawk a bunch of motorcycles and a maybe 20 other vehicles and i was so proud of myself for doing all the work on the corvette it felt good to accomplish what ive done and he made me feel awful he made it obvious he did not care about me nor the car whatsoever.....So I walked down to the office and Alex apologizes and says there is nothing they can do today just that the car is in non working order and is having mechanical issues and said Doug thinks its either valve float , my plug wires or the belt slipping…The valve float is impossible because the car has brand new 650 prc's…The plug wires are fine they were good on the way down how all of a sudden do they take a ****..I don't think so..and belt slip is not the issue because the car was bogging down at 2k rpm..it wasn't able to get into boost to slip ..so he charges me 525 dollars which was a huge waste of my money Considering the car now is barely drivable and these new sensors they installed are pointless now...I leave and im pretty upset at this point because of how i was treated and the worst part was i just paid them and my car runs 100 times worst then before..The pedal just feels dead no acceleration nothing i couldnt get the car to go above 60 mph on the highway constantly bogging and backfiring finally after the 3rd time breaking down had to have the car towed over an hour home which also cost me ....The car ran amazing compared to how it runs now i had my old maf tune from when i made 550hp this was before my new mods so it actually didn't drive too bad on the way to ecs yesterday morning i had acceleration it idled great ….now my car is left barely driveable for who knows how long they said they will take a look at it in a week or two and thats funny because im never having them touch my car again....so finally i make it back home in PA and im just so confused and pissed off wondering how or why the car is acting up like this when that morning it drove very well....So i pop the hood and do some inspecting ...IN plain damn site where the tech relocated my maf he must of not tightened down the clamp enough because it blew rite out of the silicone coupler...Thats the problem obviously next problem the IAT break out the same tech installed was krimped on not soldered as soon as i touched the wiring loom it fell rite off he must of krimped it so tight that it snipped the wires rite off....So hmm a giant boost leak and no IAT...all caused by the shops master tech and he tuned the car that way ....And im the one who has to hang up my tools i found these 2 problems 5 minutes of looking under the hood ....I would not recommend this place to ANYONE beware this is a 100% true story I wish it wasn't ...And I dont care how many cars they built and how many tunes doug has done...After how i was treated they will never get my business again... ill make sure all of my buddies in allentown and philadelphia know about it... Or any LS based clientele :salute:
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