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motoxxxman

69K views 802 replies 98 participants last post by  cinci-91-H 
#1 ·
Just before I jump into this, I want to say something. I was the one who lobbied for the thread in here that instructs us to search for existing threads about the people we leave feedback for before making new ones. Yup. It was me. So why am I making a new thread? Why am I a hypocrite? Well, I'll tell you. I could easily tack on a post in rudelude's thread, but you know what? He says good stuff about Steve. I'm not going to. This thread I'm about to make is brutal. People are going to see this. People might not see it if I just made a post in somebody else's thread. So there.

Let's begin. The month was August. I pulled my head off 'cause I thought I had bent some valves. Yikes. After bringing it to the machine shop, I was told that no, I hadn't bent any valves. Phew. Unfortunately, the head had reached machine limit for planing, and that was bad. Okay, so I need a new head. Awesome. Thanks, alllude.

After scouring the local yards for any usable B20A5 head, I didn't think I was going to find one anywhere. The only way I was going to get one was if there was a block and a transaxle attached to it. Fuck that noise. I talked to my buddy Steve about this problem. You see, back in the day, Steve and I were friends. We talked on Messenger all the time, about this and that. Blah blah blah. Anyway, Steve tells me that he has a B20A5 head just hangin' out and that he could freshen it up and sell it to me, and mail it to me. Figuring I had run out of options, I went for it.

Apparently, it was going to cost me the sum of $650 for the head, the work that the machine shop had to do, and the shipping expenses. Okay. I figured that since I just bought new valve springs last year, I'd send those to Steve so that he could put them in. I also sent him a set of new guides and a set of valve seals that I had bought to use with the old head that was now a boat anchor.

So, I PayPalled Steve the money on September 14th and mailed him the springs, seals, and guides. Okay, so now we wait...

This whole thing shouldn't have taken much longer than a month, given the time needed at the machine shop and the time required to mail a cylinder head across a continent. A month was plenty of time.

I think my head finally got into the machine shop around the middle of October. Why did it take so long? Well, I asked Steve, and he said that he was hanging out with some girl. At one point, Steve told me that the head could have been at the shop a week prior to when it had been dropped off (or hadn't, for all I know) but he was unable to get it to the shop because the girl in question made him sleep in until 4PM every day that week.

Now, I know how it is when you meet that special somebody, but honestly. Fuck. There's a time to cream pie somebody and there's a time to get your fucking priorities straight.

Continuing on...

About the middle of October was when I think Steve brought the head in to the machine shop. I got an email from Steve on the 24th telling me that the guides I gave him were no good and that I was going to have to buy more. Also, the machine shop would have to have the head for even longer 'cause the shop had to order new guides, and my money had to work its way into Steve's bank account. No problem. The head should have been there a month ago, but whatever. I'm not going to blame Steve for what the machine shop does.

I should probably mention that around the end of October, I was beginning to realize that shitty weather was looming. Back in August, my grandma was nice enough to let me use her garage for my head work. I really wanted to make sure that my car was finished and out of there before any snow fell. I mentioned that to Steve, and that getting the head relatively quickly was my top priority. I really didn't want this to take any longer than it had to, and I tried to make that clear to Steve.

Why? What does shitty weather have to do with anything? Well, my grandma is kinda useless on ice. Last year, she was trying to get the paper and there was a thin, invisible (I guess... I wasn't there) layer of ice on the driveway. Long story short, she ate a plate of shit and had to wait for some passerby to help her to her feet and back to the house. Needless to say, my grandma's balance ain't all it used to be. If her car was in the driveway and she had to walk out to it, the same thing might happen again. Once she's in her car, she's okay. She's got a walker that she uses, and she's usually pretty good with that. It's the getting-to-the-car part that's the challenge. I communicated this to Steve because hey, I don't want my grandma to eat shit. I don't want that on my conscience.

Around the end of October, I was finding it very difficult and almost impossible to get ahold of Steve. We used to talk on Messenger all the time, and now for some strange reason, when I IMed him, he didn't seem to want to respond. I was constantly sending him emails and PMs asking him to give me some sort of update since this shit was taking an extra long time. After having no success at all, I decided to phone him. Steve often puts his cell phone number in his Messenger name, so I gave him a call on the evening of Sunday, November 12.

I was a bit of a prick on the phone. I asked why Steve was ignoring me, and I was told that yes, my project had been put on the back burner, so to speak. Why was that, Steve? Well, apparently, the people who all were in on the B18 intake cam group buy were all more important than I was. Also, some guy with a Honda Civic or something was having problems 'cause he put the wrong fuel in his car. Steve had worked on this guy's car, and now felt that he had to help him out by fixing it for him. Also, people who brought their cars to Steve for tuning were higher up on the food chain than I was. Mmm, okay.

Well that's great, Steve, but what about my shit?

I don't understand Steve. He takes on a million projects and insists that he has time for all of them. Well, all of them except mine. I still catch him offering to rebuild engines and tune people's cars. How about you finish all of your other shit first, Steve?

Yes, I was an asshole on the phone. I was very condescending, and I was very condescending because I was very pissed off. I felt as though I was being ignored, and I didn't like that very much. A few days later, thinking that maybe I had gone a little overboard, I PMed Steve and said that maybe I was a little harsh. Maybe I shouldn't have talked to him like that. We've both been pieces of shit. Let's just finish this shit off and be done with it, eh? I thought that by being the bigger man here and admitting that I had made a mistake, maybe Steve would finally cooperate and keep me informed.

Nope.

He did get back to me, but only to feed me more bullshit about how he was working on it and that it just wasn't finished yet. How long does it take to put a fucking head together, Steve? If Steve had designated five minutes a day toward putting the head together, which is nothing, it would have been done a long fuckin' time ago.

Steve has continued to ignore me. I don't believe that he intends to send me anything. The last time I heard from him was November 24th. He told me that he was out of town because of Thanksgiving and that he still wasn't finished the head yet. He said he would tell me right away when it was done and when he was ready to send it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Thanksgiving ONE FUCKING DAY? This guy is completely useless.

Well, I'm finished holding my breath. Last week, I emailed Steve telling him that I would like my money back. This is the ONLY time I have EVER actually been in a bit of a rush for anything on here, and it isn't even because I'm a selfish prick who wants to get the head back so I can rip around the neighborhood. It's because my car has been in my grandma's fucking garage since August, and I'd really like to give her garage back to her. She was nice enough to let me use it, but this has taken way too long and everybody knows it.

Steve has shown that he really doesn't care about me or my situation. I know that this kinda shit takes time. I knew that it was going to take at least a month from start to finish. This isn't about how long it has been taking. This is about Steve ignoring me and letting me draw my own conclusions because he didn't feel like playing ball. Steve is on PreludePower almost every day. He knows damn well that I've been trying to talk to him about this stuff, and he doesn't care. The theme of this whole thing has been that it only takes thirty seconds to write a thirty-second PM or email to tell me what's going on. So many times I asked him to tell me what's going on even if he has nothing new to report. So many times I never got a reply 'cause Steve just doesn't give a shit.

Well, maybe now you'll give a shit, Steve, although I genuinely doubt it. I don't know why I was the lucky one. Everybody else loves you to pieces. Well, I don't. And this really sucks 'cause we used to be friends. I thought we did, anyway. Is this how you treat your friends? Nope, just me. I'm lucky, I guess.

We had our first snowfall on December 1. A couple months ago (unfortunately AFTER I sent Steve all my money), I found a Prelude at a yard that had a B20A5 head intact. I've retrieved that head and it has been in and out of the machine shop. At this point, I don't care what goes on as long as a head does go on and that car gets the flock outta there. This week, the head is going on. As a result, and as I told Steve in the last email, I am no longer in need of his services or his head. I asked Steve to refund my money and mail my parts back to me.

No response.

It's been one thing after another, and this is never going to end. Steve, do the right thing for once in your goddamn life. Refund my money so we can put an end to this shit. I never gave you any trouble. Well, on the phone that one time, I guess I did. But in all seriousness, I don't deserve this. Nobody does.

I also told Steve that if I don't get any money back by the end of the month, I'm going to speak to PayPal about all this. I think I have a valid case: I give money and parts to this guy, he ignores me and gives me nothing.

So yeah, Steve is the scum on my rice pudding. All of you guys think he's just the best shit there is, but to me he's just another Monnie Windsor*. I really wish we could have worked something out, and that it didn't have to come to this, but I think that this is the only way I'm ever going to get any sort of results. And hell, I probably still won't.

Oh, and Steve: please don't delete this thread like you deleted the posts I made in your B18 cam thread. I agree that that was not the place for this kinda shit, but you know what? This is.

--J








*Even though I never got raped by TOOfast, I am aware of what he did, and I don't think it's very funny.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
Maybe that was bogus then. I don't know. He is just so helpful normally that nobody would ever suspect that he would rip you off. You know, as I recall, there was a certain Mr. Windsor who also was very helpful, and contributed to the site a lot. Hmm...

I wish I had made a deal with Nova. He wouldn't have let my chestnuts roast over an open fire. That's for damn sure.

--J

EDIT: A HA HA HA HA!!!! THAT is the funniest shit, man. Really it is. I love it. Luci would be very proud of you.
 
#4 ·
Import_Tuna said:
EDIT: A HA HA HA HA!!!! THAT is the funniest shit, man. Really it is. I love it. Luci would be very proud of you.

Heh.

He's been goin' at it in well...this other thread tonight: http://preludepower.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253366

I will WARN you, however, that he posted a pic that may be unviewable in your eyes. You KNOW what I'm talking about. It's some IF no, no shit.
 
#5 ·
Yeah, I saw that. I didn't like it. The DVD rewinder was good, though. I enjoyed that one.

--J
 
#7 ·
Sadly i didn't have a spare B20a5 head.

I do however know how long it takes a machine shop to do a valvejob (including guides) on a modern 16v head. Hell how bout TWO subaru heads, thats double the tank time and double the surfacing setup.
Know how long it takes my machine shop guy? Less then a day.




I did get burned by Tooshit, it sucked.


I have nothing useful to say in this thread at all, as i didn't have anything to do with the entire situation.
 
#9 ·
Ahh that sucks man. The worst part is that you didn't even rush him, and you still didn't get a valid response. Holy crap. . .

Nice lil motivation thing there Chunty. lol
 
#12 ·
Ahh that sucks man. The worst part is that you didn't even rush him, and you still didn't get a valid response. Holy crap. . .

Nice lil motivation thing there Chunty. lol
no he didnt rush me (at first(within the first week)). but i did give him tons of valid updates as everything happened. sometimes it would take me a day or two to send him an update, as most of you know i am a busy person. after the first week or two, he'd chew me out anytime i didnt send him an update within 2 hours of something being completed.

remember guys, theres two sides to a story, and 99% of the time, neither side is 100% accurate. especially when a thread like this is fairly pointless but to inform other members of the situation. and considering the one who starts it is usually the one who wants to inform the community, they usually want to make their opinion very well known. whether their side of the story is even remotely close to accurate or not, sometimes they'll say anything to get the point accross.

most of the general details that tuna said are true. not accurate, but vaguely true. the fine details are not.
 
#11 ·
if i were trying to scam anybody, would i still be around on this site as often as i am? would i still be posting my phone number and address on here?

im not arguing this thread, the dates and stuff are pretty accurate. the excuses that tuna is saying i was throwing out however are not fully true.

for one, he left out the part about how the shop took 2 weeks to get back to me to tell me they cant use the guides that tuna supplied. so i informed him of this, and he sent me HALF the money for new guides (i paid the other half out of my own pocket). i ordered the guides myself, and have the receipt to prove it.

the girl thing was not a weeklong or longer thing or whatever, it was a one day thing. but thats a totally different story in ittself, and not really that related to the head, aside from the fact it delayed me from dropping the new guides off at the shop by one day.

the civic thing is my best friend and my sisters bf, and he blew his motor. i spent 3 days getting his car situated so he could get back on the road and able to drive to work before losing his job.

tuna sent me $650 to start, and $64 for the new guides.
actual costs for everything are:
-$312.17 for the work the machine shop did on the head (resurface, old guides removed and new guides installed, inspect for damage, clean, and everything else involved with these things)
-$109.14 for all new Beck/Arnley guides, intake and exhaust
-$114.31 for all new Beck/Arnley intake valves
-approx $60 for return shipping

before shipping, that totals $535.62
in total, tuna has sent me $714. minus paypal fees, it totals around $680 if i remember correctly.

so that leaves about $144. minus shipping, it leaves about $84, which is to cover buying the head from me, and all the gas and labor for me to drive around for everything and disassemble and reassemble the head. sucks on my part, but as stated before, at the time, me and tuna were friends online. i knew i wouldnt be making any more than a few pennies profit on this, but i wasnt concerned, i was giving a "friend" a deal.

tuna knows the reason he doesnt have his head yet, as well as a few select other people on this site who also know the situation one or more who even may or may not have already posted in this thread. tuna just refuses to believe the truth in it, thinking im feeding him bullshit stories as a means to keep all of his money that i supposedly never even spent on anything related to the head i supposedly was going to be doing for him.

i have receipts right in front of me for some of the stuff, and i can get documents for the rest of the stuff if need be.

as for chris (tuna) saying i put him on the backburner, not a priority, saying i was willing to tune peoples cars and work on all sorts of other things while his head should have been being worked on, well think about that for a minute. am i just gonna sit on my ass while the head is at the machine shop? NO! im gonna work on my other projects and jobs while i am UNABLE to work on the head due to it NOT EVEN BEING IN MY POSSESSION! doesnt take a brain surgeon to realise that concept. how can i reassemble a head that is still at the machine shop?
of course im going to work on other people's things and my other jobs and such.

as for people (tuna) relating me to monnie (toofast), thats expected. anyone who thinks they are getting ripped off will always relate it to someone who has already ripped other people off. and to me, thats a good thing in most cases, cuz it does remind people not to trust just anyone who claims they are true. hurts my line of business, but helps the buyer by giving them a reason to double think what they do with their money.
as for my actual relation to monnie, well, for one i would never put bigass ugly fuckin crome rims on a prelude. thats just plain gay. i also would never use black primer, i only use grey. i also have never used an actual machine in a machine shop myself, so i couldnt tell you a damn thing about them.
i'm not monnie, and im not trying to scam anybody. and im deffinitely not going anywhere. if i were trying to run with someone's money, dont you think i would have ran already?
 
#401 · (Edited)
Well, Dang Steve I believe you are a nice decent chap... even though you still haven't returned my $100 dollars or sent me the parts I paid for let's see is it 2 years ago or 3?, been so long I can't remember, but I do remember and I have all the pm's to prove the order and money sent. Truth is... You have a lot of knowledge and like many of us we tend to think of you as one of the best and expect that this also carries over to the rest of your endeavours, unfortunately it doesn't. I have chapter 2 of import's biography of motoxxxman already written when ever he's ready to publish. I'm sure that if I had been close by to pick up my parts it would have been a great relationship. But I take a man at his word and frankly your word is not very good.

Maybe you should stop hiding the bad reports by deleting them and just make things right with those that you have taken advantage of and then everyone can say how great a guy you are.

Yeah Import he deleted the threads that Mansfield and I were putting out there on similar problems. Must be nice to be controller when the bad news is about oneself.

my 2 cents
 
#13 ·
Well, the point of this thread was to get you to TALK to me about this. I know you've been ignoring me. You even admitted it on the phone. THAT is what this is about. It has nothing to do with the length of time the machine shop had the head. I already mentioned that there's nothing any of us can do about that. If you missed it, go read my thread again.

You say that you're not going to work on my head when the machine shop obviously has it. It's December, Steve. You've had the head for a while. It's been one excuse after another. Finally, you get the head back around the third week of November or so, right? Well fuck, how long does it take to put a head together? Give me a break. You know you haven't put any effort into this. Maybe you did at first, but the whole thing fell apart, and you didn't want to admit it to me so you just ignored it and thought that maybe I'd forget all about it.

Price. YOU set the price. We talked about it. YOU told me the price of the guides. I paid you for them. The machine shop screwed up the price. That isn't my fault and it isn't yours. Remember our little phone conversation? That was when you told me the real price of the guides, and even though you weren't my best pal anymore, I said something to the effect of "as long as you're okay with that." I remember it quite clearly. Yeah, I know you don't have all the money in the world.

You set the price, Steve. If it wasn't enough, you could have asked for more. If you weren't happy with the amount of $650 for the whole thing, then something was wrong from the beginning 'cause that's what you said and that's what I gave you. If you didn't like that, why did you set that price? It just doesn't make any sense to nitpick about money. Overall I've sent you $900 US.

Fuck. If it was of any concern to you, you could have used the money I gave you for the ECU I will never get. What the hell happened with that anyway? Fuck.

You can argue with me over what I said that was "inaccurate." I don't think I imbellished anything. I'm not the type of person to do something like that, I'd like to think.

If that girl thing only held you up for one day, why did you tell me that it delayed the head's arrival at the machine shop for a week? Were you lying then or are you lying now? One of the above for sure.

God dammit. The point is, the head should have been at the machine shop WAY before you brought it there. It didn't get there when it should have because you neglected it. How long does it take to drop off a head at a machine shop and ask them to check it out? Not a long time. It could have been done as soon as I gave you the money. Why wasn't it done right away, Steve?

When did you end up picking up the head, Steve? The machine shop had it for two weeks. That doesn't sound like a long time. I gave you the money for this in the middle of September. That is documented. I mailed you the shit. That couldn't have taken more than a week and a half. You pick it up, put it together, mail it to me. This is December, Steve. It's not like I asked you to do any really difficult or time-consuming shit with it either. You and I both know that this should have been finished a long time ago regardless of how long the machine shop had the head.

I don't care. The bottom line is, you took too long, and I had to make other arrangements. I don't need the head anymore. I told you of the time constraints I was facing. Normally, I would have waited this long and not given nearly as much of a shit, but my car isn't sitting on jackstands in my parking spot here at my house. It's in my grandma's garage, and has been since August. Why has this taken so long? You know why. You can't honestly tell me that you have put forth a lot of effort with this. You told me on the goddamn phone that you had been ignoring me and that you had neglected this project. I asked you and you confirmed it. Fuck!

So, here we are. I am asking you to refund my money. I understand that some shitty things have happened to you, but when you REFUSE to cooperate with me and you ignore me, I can't have any sympathy for you. Normally I'm a pretty understanding guy. The problem is, you won't work with me on this. I'll email you and you won't get back to me. I emailed you a week ago asking you to talk to me about refunding my money. You ignored it. I don't get this shit.

So Steve, can you please refund my money? All disagreements, bickering, arguing aside. I just want this to come to an end. I've given you $900 in total, and you've given me nothing. I had no choice but to do this to get your attention. Maybe in 2012 when you finally sent the shit, I'd finally hear from you, but that'd be just a little too late.

Email me, Steve. Let's work this out. I don't want to tarnish your image or ruin your business. I don't think I could even if I wanted to. I just want my money back. That's all.

--J
 
#15 ·
Oh, and I'd like my damn parts back too. I paid out the ass for those valve springs...

So yeah, money and parts. And don't you dare send me back some cheap-ass collapsed twenty-year-old springs either. Springs, seals, shitty guides. I think that's all I sent you.

--J
 
#16 ·
correction, when you emailed me you didnt ask to discuss a refund, you demanded a refund and made some threats. which is partially understandable. but how can i give a refund if the money is no longer fully there?

yes, on the phone you said if the extra cost of the guides is a problem, you'll send the extra, and i said, no its fine, its taking too long so i'll cover the extra cost myself. and the original cost of the head is the price i set, and i knew exactly what it would cost me when i gave you that price. we were friends and i was giving you a deal on the labor cost and crap.

bleh, the rest can be taken to pm or email or whatever.
 
#18 · (Edited by Moderator)
Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. Now we're cookin' with greased shit in a straight line.

I don't believe I made any threats either. All I did was tell you that if I didn't hear from you within one week (this was last week), I was going to make a thread about it. I also said that If I didn't see any money by the end of the month (that being this month), I was going to talk to PayPal about it. If you want to go ahead and think that I was threatening you, you are free to do so. Honestly, I had to give you some sort of ultimatum. If I hadn't, you'd have continued to ignore me, and that ain't nice and it ain't right. I would still be pulling my hair out in silence over here, and no money or parts were going to come of it.

As for the money not fully being there, I am aware of that and we will discuss that, hopefully. I've said many times before (or maybe just once) that I know it is impossible to squeeze feces out of a grapefruit. I don't expect you to do something beyond your capacity, but neglecting the issue--which is what you've done up until this point--isn't going to solve anything. I know that money was spent, and I know that money was taken. These are things that we can't do anything about, and we have to consider them. I do not want to nitpick about numbers. I just want to reach some sort of resolution. Hopefully now that I have your attention, we can proceed with reparations.

Ultimatum, reparations, feces. It's like I'm declaring war on poor Steve here, but I'm really not. Steve is not bird turd. He just fucked with the wrong rhino, that's all.

I will expect you to make the first move. Thanks for showing some decency. I only had to stick a hot iron up your arsenal to prompt you to do so. Bear in mind that I am probably going to post the results in this thread so that everybody can see that you're not actually a piece of shit, and that you are capable of doing the right thing even though we all know you don't really want to.

--J
 
#19 ·
of course i want to do the right thing. dont accuse me of never wanting to do the right thing.

as for the previously agreed upon thing, you said in the email that you want the parts you sent me back. obviously. i thought i emailed you back saying i'll get the parts shipped out to you soon here, but i just checked and i guess i didnt.

now, back to pm. or msn
 
#20 ·
No problem. I'll jump on Messenger and we'll take it from there.

--J
 
#21 ·
wow that sucks tuna.. you was never on my good side. but in this case getting burn't is not a good thing nor cool.......i got burnt a couple of times in my life, and made a promise to myself that if i ever see that person again...he will not walk the earth no more.....
 
#24 ·
Yeah well, that's why I hope I never see you for as long as I live. I know you'll skull-fuck me in the ass.

Ah, that's not true. We've had our disagreements, you and I, but now I just pull your leg once in a while. We have to bury the hatchet and make out a little bit with our shirts off, just like Steve and I are doing right now on Messenger...

--J
 
#22 ·
dosent sound like anyone is getting burned just maybe someone expecting there parts a bit faster than one can deliever..which can happen...give em a break he has had good feedback in the past...
 
#26 ·
You can bet your ass that I'm going to reveal ALL of the filthy details. Just you wait.

Actually, I probably won't be able to. It'll be too hot for the feedback forum. I'll have to post it in NSFW.

B20luda, it's not really got anything to do with not getting parts on time. It's about communication and stuff. You've gotta read, my son.

--J
 
#28 ·
Yes. I wrote a lot of stuff. I wanted to be as specific as possible.

Uh, I'm not liable for any injuries to your eyebollz, and I'm not responsible for any hospital bills you incur as a result of reading this stuff. Read at your own risk, y9.

--J
 
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