Long story short.
Back in 2016 I went to Angel Motorsports for an engine rebuild and new turbo kit and some other stuff. John utilized extremely unethical and underhanded tactics when it came to my invoices and he was dodging calls/texts and had the car for months with no progress. Paid ~90% of my invoice in advance and he said he still needed more to finish the car, so I pulled the plug. Got the car back Sept/Oct of 2016, non-running and took it to Zerek Fabrication and then Tri-Point motors to fix what Angel Motorsports fucked up.

I sue Angel Motorsports in small claims, John comes up to me in court begging for a settlement and doesn't want to go to trial. (he brought 2 pictures as evidence meanwhile I had 34 seperate items in evidence) he was done. I took pity and decided to give a guy a chance to make things right. He agreed to complete the car in 30 days at no extra cost to me and there was a cash penalty if there was a violation of the settlement agreement. I deliver the car to him in April of 2019. 30 days go buy, and of course he has excuses. He wants to use a specific machinist because they won't charge Angel Motorsports and I know the guy is struggling with money. But then he starts ******* around. I had purchased new housings in my original motor build and one had a manf defect Tri-Point discovered when they turned the car on for the first time. It had a crack and was leaking oil. Instead of getting NEW housing, Angel Motorsports tries to convince the machinist to put the motor together with a ******* trashed used housing. The machinist in question is a genuinely good guy and it was obvious no one would want to put a motor like this together with one brand new housing and another used. He gives me a call and I immediately call Angel Motorsports and eventually he yields and says he's going to get a new housing. This was effectively the last straw and I knew Angel Motorsports was not even trying to make things right.

I give Angel Motorsports a line in the sand deadline saying if I don't have my car by then, I'm proceeding with filing the paperwork of violation of settlement agreement. Days before the deadline, Angel Motorsports informs me my car needs a couple hundered dollars in extra parts before it can run (at this point the vehicle is assembled and I was told it was running). Angel Motorsports claimed parts were never delivered with the vehicle however they only told me ONE YEAR after I delivered it that parts were missing. The shop is easily one of the least organized shops I've ever seen and odds are it was misplaced or probably put into another persons vehicle while in the care of Angel Motorsports. I tell them I'm not paying anything since they agreed to not charge me anything.

They then refuse to release my vehicle. I get the judgement from the court. And then Angel Motorsports tells me my vehicle is available for pickup. They disassembled the entire engine, broke my windshield, chunks of the interior are missing, my entire fuel system has to get redone again because they just took zero effort in protecting the car at all, wiring is all kinds fucked (and I have a new mil-spec harness in it) destroyed my passenger seat, and it looks like they went above and beyond in making it a mess.

And not only that, AM agree to a payment plan with me for the judgement and then immediately violate the payment plan forcing me to once again go back to court.


Angel Motorsports isn't in the business of making things right with their customers, its an ego driven hype company that lashes out like children when caught ******* up and are completely incapable of admitting mistakes or even addressing them.

 

This is horrible! So sorry man! Had something similar happen to me when I was a teenager. Pretty much do everything myself now or don't do it at all.

 

Your attorney needs to go for a higher settlement for the incurring damages. Their hubris attitude is all because of YouTube. I believe that the community needs to reject and remove Angel Motorsports from this platform and upcoming future meets like DGRR. Why support Phil and DGRR if he allows AM to attend the meets as an advertising gig just to ruin relationships such as this one and many others in the past. Preventive measures should be taken Because the community needs to be protected from failed companies like AM.

 

Thank you for sharing.
Most surefire way to kill interest in a platform is **** like this. It's ******* bullshit and I'm sorry this happened to you.

 

Why the **** is there an engine in the passenger seat? That sucks, dude.

 

I am very sorry to hear you went through this.

I truly hope you get a decent $$$ settlement and get you car sorted.

out of curiosity as I have only ever modified rotaries - Do all car platforms have this many dodgy shops or is the rotary community especially bad? It feels like there are a disproportionate amount of bad shops, meaning the few good shops charge a fortune, meaning owning rotaries continues to look unappealing .....

 

If you didn't use a lawyer for the small claims case you should consult with one now. I am not a lawyer but here are a few points based on my ongoing similar case with an auto shop.

1. If they have shop insurance, which they *should*, their insurance should be paying your claim out to you not necessarily the shop directly. They may not have filed a claim in order to prevent anything happening on their premiums. A lawyer will be well equipped to get to the bottom of stuff like this.

2. Your case probably falls under large claims at this point. Depending on your state's laws AM may be on the hook for much more than you think (just the replacement/labor cost). I bring this up because you might be able to get a lawyer who will work for a % of the damages and still come out whole yourself.

3. Depending on your state laws the way they trashed your car probably falls under vandalism or some other destruction of property offense. The case could very well have a criminal component to it at this point.

 

In my experience this kind of crap with car/motorcycle shops is more common than not.

Every shop has **** ups, the difference between the real pros and loser shops like this, is how they handle it and communicate it.

Good shops know they aren't perfect and own up to it, do what they can to make things right.

Garbage shops blame everyone else, make excuses, don't communicate, and in general just do petty bullshit.

 

I live in Socal, personally been screwed by 3 rotary shops... There's only like 5-6 down here, and I have no idea whether or not the last 3 would screw me over.

It's not so much that there are less shady piston shops vs rotary shops. There's 1000 times more piston shops, so it's a lot easier to avoid the shady shops. 99.9999% of the country owns piston engines, so reviews are much more prevalent, knowledge is far more widely shared, etc. If half the piston shops are bad vs half the rotary shops being bad, here in socal, that means there's 3 good rotary shops, and probably 2000 good piston shops. Most important though, you can hit up the national chains who value their PR far more, guarantee their work, etc. While it's more expensive than Joe's Auto Garage, it's probably cheaper than a specialist rotary mechanic charges, and there's less chance of getting screwed. There are no rotary engine national chains, except maybe the Mazda dealership, and they just R&R instead of repair.

 

Well, he's on his way to VA to run 4 bays out of his brothers shop to do fab work. Time will tell if he sinks his brothers shop.

So sorry to see this, I hope you can get proper restitution for your financial losses due to this clown. Hopefully this is cross posted over to facebook groups or you make a video review and post it on YouTube.

 

You should legally be allowed to beat someone up for putting a motor on your front seat like that. I hope you take him back to court.

 

Just watching his youtube vids and seeing how fucked up his shop looks makes me cringe.

 

There are a lot of Honda shops like that around the PNW. This type of stuff is exactly why I spent time and money to learn on the rotary platform because I simply don't trust other people to do a good job. Sorry you had to go through this, man. I'm sure there's probably many examples like this which is why he's headed back to the east coast.

 

Sorry to hear this... That's just pathetic what he did!
Goodluck man!

Well said! This x1,000! Learn to do your own work. we all know most FD's are hobby cars not daily drivers.
Id rather my car sit in my garage or storage unit while I learn and work on it.
Than pay a shop that'll screw my over with questionable/shitty work and a endless time frame busting promised deadlines.
Invest in yourself to learn the ins and outs of the platform. So much information is out there for the FD especially here on the 7club.
Guaranteed you'll get more out of it than writing a check/checks to a shop.

Steve
#garageguybuild

 

That photo showing all the engine parts stacked on the passenger seat and dash is just sad. I can't imagine anyone trying to defend that as an acceptable way to treat any car, especially a rare one like an RX7.

 

well that frickin sucks....
moving this to the Bad/Fugly biz section...

 

I'm still trying to figure out how the thermopellet got bent like that. I couldn't replicate it in the shop.

 

When I saw them try to claim that a rebuilt, never ran, factory motor was blown... I knew they had lost it. All to work for tommyfyeahs YouTube channel.

 

This honestly isn't surprising at all.

A few years back they screwed over a friend of mine in a very similar fashion and never made it right. After the 2+ year ordeal he went through with them he was so turned off to the whole thing he sold the car and left the rotary scene completely after having been a dedicated rotor head for nearly a decade. The only thing that I've seen that can possibly rival their business ethic would be the quality of the tunes they put out. I've come across a number of them and ended up fixing them for 'ex' Angel Motorsports customers who PAID for a tune and ended up being ghosted afterwards when it ran like dog *****, which having seen the inner workings of those tunes myself isn't surprising given the mess that was in there.

Skeese

 

Try putting it in a vise and hitting it with a hammer

 

Yes, same guys. At this point, all these youtubers are in one big circle jerk.

 

Not sure why DGRR and Phil are accepting them as a vendor when they have outstanding customer complaints.

 

You should direct him to this thread

 

I also had a very bad experience with John. He had my car for 7 months and Lied to me about work being done on my car. I flew out because he said my car was done and car would be on the dyno on a sat. That sat John ignored all my calls and found out he never even worked on my car. Took my car away and dropped off at lucky 7 racing best decision ever!

 

Also wondering this. I'll be attending this year and was really surprised to see their name pop up on FB as a sponsor. Have never heard ANYTHING good about them. Guess for the right price "aplscrambles rotary garage" could be a DGRR sponsor, lol