Please forgive the long story but I need to give all the details as best as I remember. If there's something left out, I'm sure the accused will chime in and I will agree or disagree.

I agreed to polish a Cosmo upper manifold for this guy after I finished some work for Joe Mirable (hope I spelled you name right Joe). He agreed on my price of $170 shipped back to him. At the time I was polishing his manifold, I had another Cosmo manifold that I was doing for a friend. I had 3 of these manifolds in my posession, one for myself, my friends and Chris (7-sins). My friend's and 7-sin's manifold got finished about the same time (my manifold was already complete). I looked the manifolds over and felt I could've done a little more touching up but I was just about out of bits. I give him a call to let him know I was going to send it but if he had any problems with it to send it back. I did this 'cause he sounded like he was in a hurry and I was just about out of bits. He tells me to take care of it, no problem. I get what I need and finish up, called him with the tracking #.

When he got the part, he calls me and leaves a message saying he's upset 'cause the manifold I sent him is not his. Told me he took some time to seperate the runners. I give my friend a call and come to find out 7-sins is right. I get the manifold from my friend, clean it up and send it out. Called him with a tracking #. He calls when he gets it and tells me he's not happy 'cause some of the lettering (13B REW) is sanded down some. I told him that that is what happened 'cause he wanted me to get between the letters as much as possible. He's pissed but I'm keeping my cool. I offered to take off $40 and he agrees.

A couple days pass and I check my paypal account, no money and no call from him with a tracking number for the manifold that is not his. I give him a call, he does'nt like his original manifold anymore and wants to keep mine. I get pissed 'cause he tells me he's sending back the one with the runners seperated (his original) and I don't want that one. We talk a little **** to each other and I tell him I'm going to go to his place of residence and kick his ***! (I still don't see any sign of money in my paypal account) I call my friend with the other manifold and tell him the story. He tells me to accept his manifold 'cause he will take it and give me his. I agree and also realize that it's my fault. I give Chris a few calls and send him a pm to send his manifold and my money. I get no calls at all but recieve the manifold a few days later. I check my paypal account again, no money. I wait a couple more days and give him a call. He tells me that he's not sending me the money 'cause the manofold he has is not his original and that he's going to have to seperate the runners on the one he now has and polish it over. He also tells me he does'nt want to do business with me again, like I give a **** at this point! (these conversations were more heated than it sounds and I should've trusted the feelings I had about this guy. The feelings that were telling me he's looking to rip me off).

My question(s) is(are), the first manifold I sent him, which was flawless by the way, why did'nt he ask me to seperate the runners and polish it back up? This would've made everyone happy. There should'nt have been an issue at all seeing that he agreed to me deducting $40 for what happened to his manifold. Also, seeing that he agreed to the $40 deduction he was suppose to keep his manifold, that was the agreement! So, to sum it up, he broke the agreement and stole my money! At this point the money is not really important. I would rather have 5 minutes in a locked room with his ***!!

 

Weird. That doesnt sound like Chris at all. Im interested to hear what he has to say about the whole thing. Hope everything works out for both of you.

 

Thanks for backing me up Mike. Let me explain. This is going to be a long message, but it has all the facts. So before you assume, READ. I am not getting into any pissing matches, this is all im posting. Those who have met me on the forum know I am a stand up guy.

Chinaman was suppose to polish both the top and bottom of my 13B-RE UIM. Here is a PM with him confirming the price… ( I don’t care who says you can’t see it. It’s the way I wanted it done. If you want, Ill put a mirror under there just so you can see it. The bottom line, it’s what I wanted)

So I sent the part out. A few days later I receive a PM with him saying he can’t finish everything, but it will look good if I do some extra work to it.

How many shops wont give you 100% of the work you agreed on but then ask for the full amount???? First clue of a bad deal. So I respond as professional as I could, stating that’s not going to work. And even asking for pics before anything goes further.


I never got pics, he just called me and said it was ready & looked good. OK I said send it on out. The rest of the transaction was done over the phone because Chinaman just moved and didn’t have internet access. Second clue of a bad deal. Obviously this was not what I preferred, I like everything in writing.

When I received the manifold, IT WAS NOT MY MANIFOLD, it had been swapped for a different 13B-RE manifold. Only the top of the manifold was polished, not the top & bottom we agreed about in PM.

On my manifold, I cut the casting between each runner to make the runners look individual; plus, shaved off a few extra bumps and casting marks. This is what I received, as you can see, its not what I just explained.

for some reason the forum wouldn't let me use img codes... so here is the link

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=234596 (attachment #2)

I quickly called Chinaman and he swore I received mine, he shipped back MY manifold. I asked him “are you doing work for anyone else” “my manifold is hard to mistake because the runners are cut out” he said no, he wasn’t polishing any others and that he shipped back the manifold I shipped him. I told him I had pictures of, and people who have seen my manifold before it was sent out. He said when he gets home he will take a look around.

He called me back and said he found my manifold, it was on his friends car. (How shady is that, maybe his friend like the work I did to it and they tried to pull a fast one on me) I said good, ship it back asap. He then explained that he had shaved off the sequential twin turbo plaque. I said OK well send me some pics and I will decide what to do.

I never received any pictures. He just called me with another tracking number.

Once I received my manifold I was highly disappointed. Again, only the top of the manifold was polished, not the top & bottom we discussed in PM. Also some of the vacuum nipples were bent.

Shaving off the plaque I could deal with, what he failed to mention was that the lettering on the manifold got destroyed in the process. You can see in the picture the E doesn’t even look like an E. The rest of them almost look melted down, they aren’t raised up and stand out like the stock manifold. It just looks like garbage. Anyone who sees them in person has agreed. I don’t care what he says, if it was an experienced polisher, shaving that plaque wouldn’t even touch the lettering.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...hmentid=234579 (attachment #1)

I didn’t know what to do. My part was destroyed past repair. The other part lacked all the time and effort I put into cutting out those runners.

I tried to explain this to Chinaman, but he started getting aggravated over the phone. I told him I wanted to think about it.

After I had time to think about it, I decided to keep the manifold that wasn’t mine & ship back the damaged one. There was no way I could undo the damaged he caused and bring mine back to the way it was. With the unmolested manifold, I can go back and cut out the runners again. Granted after all that work it will need to be repolished.

I called Chinaman up and let him know I was going to send out the manifold with the runners cut out. He got completely upset, started yelling and cussing me out. I explained that he doesn’t need to yell to conduct business. He could barely let me talk without cutting me off. After all the yelling and carrying on, he said OK you send me back the good manifold and I will swap it out with another one…. At this point I couldn’t trust the guy. I didn’t even want to deal with him. I told him I don’t want to deal anymore. He once again got crazy, started yelling and cussing, then said “I have your address, im going to come down and **** you up” Then hung up the phone.

Since Chinaman isn’t mature enough to conduct business, confess or take responsibility for a mistake, or even say sorry. I stopped all conversation with him. I still shipped out the damaged manifold and kept the one that wasn’t mine. He continued to call me and leave messages saying, “since that different manifold is perfect, send me my money.” “forget what I said earlier, send me my money” As if I am going to forget someone threating me, haha funny.

Today he called and when I answered he said “wheres my money” I tried to explain that I wasn’t satisified with this deal. I have a half polished part that I have to spend my time and money to rework, then have repolished because of his mistake & mixup. Like usual, anything I tried to say was cut off by his quick and ignorant remarks. Then he started with the yelling and cussing. Ending the conversation with “I am going to go on the forum and tell everyone about you, then come down and kick your ***” Once again with the classic hangup.

So the bottom line, I have a replacement part. It will get me by, but it’s not what I want. It is still going to need the work I put into mine. Plus after all that sanding, the polish will be damaged, therefore making me pay to have it repolished. Because of that reason, plus Chinamans bad business ethics, he doesn’t deserve a dime of my money.

What if you say he did some work, at least give him some money. Well the amount of time and effort it took me to remove that casting between the runners, I feel that is worth $170. What about the fact that the top and bottom was not polished like agreed. He did half the work, cut that price in half. So $85? Extremely worth my time and effort for removing that casting. Even then, the polish work on both pieces is mediocre as you can see in the pics.

I can only hope this will teach Chinaman some better business eithics, maturity, and not to e-thug on people. If not, I feel sorry for anyone who does business with him.

 

I know Chris and he's a good guy. From what it sounds like, somebody got a little lazy and was called out and didn't like it. Bad business on Chinamans part.
Next time, maybe a shop would be the answer Chris? Good luck.
Ernie

 

Sounds soooo shady on chainman’s part! You had Chris’s part on someone else car tells me you are a shady *** forum ***.

Chris is stand up IMO.

You are lucky you got the other manifold back. I would have kept it for 1 reason and one reason only!

You FUCKED up his original part. Now he has to redo all the painstaking labor to redo what you screwed up because it is clear you have no business polishing parts,

Period the end


And you wanna **** with my boy!
Pack a lunch cause I got time for romance!!

Bring it China Boy.......



Rikki

 

IM sorry im gonna have to agree with 7-sins on this. Chinaman was acting shady from the beginning.

then when he screwed the shipping, he didn't have the professionalism to take the fall.

 

pwnt

 

So, how was I acting shady? Everything that went down, I noted. I did'nt pay attention to his part and ended up sending him the wrong one at first, did'nt I say that?? When he told me, I got his manifold and sent it right away! What was the problem with that? ALL OF THAT DOES'NT MATTER ANYMORE 'CAUSE HE AGREED ON THE $40 DEDUCTION FOR THE MESS UP ON THE LETTERS!! SO, WHERE'S MY $130?? Looks like you guys are judging this by this guy being your friend and not the facts. THE MAIN AND ONLY FACT THAT MATTERS NOW IS, HE AGREED TO KEEPING HIS MANIFOLD AND TAKING THE $40 DEDUCTION. IF I TOOK THIS TO COURT HE WOULD LOOSE ON THIS FACT ALONE! Why do I need to be shady with this guy and his one manifold when I've done so much manifolds for guys on this forum? There's no one on this forum that can say I screwed them over, including njstreets. I had some problems with his lights and would've done the one porblematic side over again. He uses his car everyday and did'nt have the time for that. I did another set over and offered it to him but never came and got it. That offer is still up.

Anyway, I should let this guy have the polished manifold and keep the money, is that what you guys are telling me? You got to be kidding me! He's got to pay something!
Oh yeah, who the polishes the underside of a manifold.....for $170! You got to be kidding me.If I led you to believe that, I was wrong and explained that to you but you kept on asking about polishing the underbottom, which was'nt going to happen for that price. Even the shop you told me you talked to quoted you a price of $300 for top and bottom! Pics were'nt sent to you 'cause I told you about my move to Pennsylvania and that I would'nt have internet hook up until later in April and that you needed to call me. Guess you forgot about that.

 

Man, some of you people can talk alot of **** when you're not in front of them! I will be more than happy to meet with you, anytime this weekend, any place!!

 

ok fool come get some
703 675 1748

lets get it on sweety pie

 

What the **** bro its its clear to see Chris got the worst end of this deal. I suggest you chill with the *** whipping **** its just making you look bad. The forum knows now not to get work done by you

 

lol.. cym_t61 your comments made me laugh bro..

 

I figured there would be a used toilet paper making some un-necessary comment. I would give you a call but I let my phone at home. You friggin hand job! Your daddy should've left you on the tissue.

 

This is the fact and this is the only thing that would be in question if we were in court; Did you or did you not agree to the $40 reduction in price for me messing up the letters on the manifold?? It does'nt matter what has been said. I could've dissed you and your dog! That is not the issue. Stick to the facts ladies

 

This is the fact and this is the only thing that would be in question if we were in court; Did you or did you not agree to the $40 reduction in price for me messing up the letters on the manifold?? It's not like you did'nt see the manifold before agreeing to the new price, you had both of them in your posession. It does'nt matter what has been said. I could've dissed you and your dog! That is not the issue. Stick to the facts ladies

 

Dude your jokes are as bad as your polishing work .

You need to stop trash talkin me and start puting up some real facts....

its just making you look even worse.

 

Personally, if I had done the work to that manifold, sent the customer the wrong one, and FINALLY sent the "damaged" one to him, I would be so embarassed by my mistakes that I would completely refund the $170, and cover the shipping myself. It's one of those things that kicks you in the nuts, but you have to do it if you are screwing up that badly... ESPECIALLY if that part was on someone else's car... that's a big NO NO...

I can understand where you can be upset, but your writing should probably be more thought out and written a bit more passively. Reading "7-sins" writing was fairly easy, like I was going over an incident report. Reading your writing, I felt like I had to scream it out loud to understand it.

 

Exactly. Chris is like the calmest most laid back guy I know. He is super **** when it comes to his car though. He would never have sent the part to you if you didn't tell him you were polishing both the top and bottom. Bottom line is that you didn't do what you agreed to and sent him the wrong part on top of that. Tried to lie to cover it up and he called you out. He is worse off now then he was when he sent you the part so he used his own judgement in keeping the money. Everyone except for you seems to agree that his judgement was correct.

Your attempt at getting a following on the forum has failed so just stop responding now. Every remark you make is ruining any previous reputation you might have had on here. You couldnt take this to court becasue you are obviously unable to have a rational conversation so I guess your only choice now is to go down to his house and kick his ***. Hopefully you are a grown enough adult that it doesn't come to that. But if it does I know several Prince William County PD officers that would love to have thier way with you.

 

I think there is a little wrong doing on both parties here.
I'll start with you Chris. First off the guy did polish the part for you. I'll admit it's not a very good job from what I see but you agreed originally to $170 so you get what you pay for. I used to charge $300 per manifold when I did it and well you know what my work looks like. You were shipped the wrong manifold. The right thing would have been to return the manifold that does not belong to you after yours did finally arrive. It is not your manifold to decide that your just going to keep it because yours was roached up a bit. That is not the problem of the owner of the manifold which you have basically confiscated. You should return that part. It's not yours. Chinaman never agreed to give you a replacement from what I have read. You willingly choose to do business with him so the damage to your manifold is a chance you took. It sounds as though he did half the job he originally agreed on, being the top side of the manifold. The right thing to do would be to at least pay him half of the original estimate. Compensation for services rendered.

Now with Chinaman. If you did agree to polish both sides you should have done so or told him upfront that you were not going to. It also was not a good idea to ship him the wrong part back. I have polished my fair share of parts for people and I don't believe that you did not know the manifold with the runners cleaned out was not his. That would be hard to forget something that obvious. I won't speculate as to why you did not return his parts the first time. I also think it was a poor decision to not clean up the buffing compound from the cracks etc before returning it. That's just plain lazy. Lastly you are dead wrong in threating to kick anyones *** over this. There are better ways to handle it. You only look like an immature ******* when you resort to threats and insults when you are not getting the results you wanted with your customers.

Chris I would send him his part back and pay him half the cash and next time you need parts polished contact someone who you can trust and are familiar with like oh I don't know.

In all honesty I don't see why everyone is jumping on the attack Chinaman bandwagon. Yes he is being an *** but the part is partially polished and Chris does have his part. I think the whole issue over the damaged "E" is petty and should be overlooked. Like I said you get what you pay for or in this case what you have yet to pay for. Chinaman has made good and returned Chris's part and at this point he is out a manifold and half the cash he is owed.

Hopefully Chris you see I am trying to give an honest opinion on this and not trying to side with one party over the other based on my relations with people. If that were the case I would take your side Chris. If you need help with getting the polish work straightened out don't hesitate to ask. I work for beer.

 

Good post Dave, I agree 100%.

 

Finally! Someone who is looking at the facts and not just posting their rediculous comments 'cause they have nothing to do and want to start trouble! The only thing I did wrong was threaten him. For that I apologize. I did what I could to satisfy him. Chris had the opportunity to look both manifolds over 'cause he had them in his posession. He never complained about the polising, just the damage to the letters. (For everyone's info, the letters are not as bad as it sounds. The pics he posted does not do the manifold any justice. Him having his hands all over it dulls the luster 'cause of the oil from his hands. You don't smear it up and then take pics)! When he told me I sent him the wrong manifold, I got on it right away and sent him the right one as soon as I could, called him with a tracking #. He agreed to the $40 deduction in price 'cause of the letters, no other complaints. I explained to him the pricing on the bottom half twice and, him going to a shop to get a quote confirmed that it is rediculous that I would do both sides for $170 shipped back to him. What he should've done was say to me, "listen, I'm not happy with your manifold 'cause the runners are not seperated. Seperate the runners and touch up what needs to be touched up." This would have made everyone happy.

For those who think he got the short end of the stick, how do you figure? He has a polished manifold (the one that has no damage to any of the letters) and his money still.

 

You guys crack me up! When Mirable posted pics of his 20B parts, all of you admired the work and said it looked great. Now all of a sudden I don't know what I'm doing. Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids

 

We have all threatened to kick someones *** at one time or another. That being said, I think most of us know that doing so ends up badly.

That is where my agreement with 7-sins ends. When you make a deal, and in this case you knew it was a deal, because Chinaman's polishing is well worth the money, you do not get to decide your part is unrepairable and unusable because of something like the melted E. He put both his time and effort into polishing the part and should be compensated for doing so. You do not get to decide if you are going to pay once you have made an agreement. The risk falls squarely on you at the point the agreement is made. You chose the polisher, he did not choose you.

Now for the court issue. I am highly surprised he did not have you pre-pay for the part. At this moment, legally speaking, he has in writing an agreement, and it is vaguely written as to exactly what was supposed to be done past polishing, so if he chose to take you to small claims court, (which is a hassle and I would never recommend it for anything under 5000) my opinion is he would get the amount agreed on; unless you can prove he only polished half the mani when the agreement was for the whole thing.

Lastly, I trust the guy to polish my parts in a timely manner and to do a good job, he has always treated me well. Our agreements were always a handshake when I drove over an hour and gave him my parts. I know he actually did just move, so that is not shady. I also believe he made an honest mistake about sending the wrong mani because he is extremely busy at this time. I am including a few pictures of the work he did for me, because it speaks for itself.

I hope 7 sins will rethink his decision and either take back his manifold, or compensate Chinaman for the agreed amount.

 

Wrong. Simply wrong.

1--only half of the job you agreed to do was done. That is something you did wrong.

2--you damaged the part he sent you. I seriously doubt that he sent you a part with the intention of having you damage it. That is another thing you did wrong.

Again, I disagree. Looking at the pic he posted of his original manifold, the surface is not smudged--you can clearly see that it is not polished to the same extent as mirabile's parts. Not even close. Fingerprints have a way of showing up rather more distinctly than what I see in that pic....not only that, but a polished part is obviously for looks, right? So who are you that you think you have any right to determine what is acceptable to your customers like that? He sent you an undamaged part, and you damaged it. That isnt your decision as to whether or not the damage is that bad--its HIS part!

--and then you promptly chose not to do all the work you quoted him a price for. How is that anyone's mistake but yours?

Oh, one more thing--who was the customer here? You were contracted to do work for someone--that makes it YOUR responsibility, not his, to try to make him happy as a customer. It isnt HIS obligation to tell you how to fix your mistake, where do you get this from?

I'll break it down real simple-like--you received a mani from him, to polish the top and bottom. You failed to complete half the job. The other half of the job damaged the part. Both of those things are YOUR mistakes. That doesnt suddenly fall on your customer's shoulders to come up with a solution to your errors. That was YOUR respnosibility as the guy who was "hired" to provide a service. And you failed there too.

What he has, thanks to you, is a part that is not done as you agreed to do. He has a half-polished manifold. He has to have all the work done again that he did before with separating the runners, and then the polishing will have to be redone anyways--because of your error, again not his. Also thanks to you, the only other option you left him was to receive his original part back, damaged and half-*** done. And you wonder why people think he got shafted??

Wrong, mirabile. This is not about "where the risk lies". In reality, when you contract with someone to perform a service for you, they are UNDER LEGALLY BINDING OBLIGATION to make the end result match the advertised or agreed-upon job. That doesnt put the RISK on the buyer--it puts the OBLIGATION on the guy performing the service.

Let's say you need a plumber. Your pipes broke and are flooding your house. You contract with a plumber to come fix the pipes, and he only fixes some of them. Meanwhile, the rest of them keep leaking....and when you confront him to see why he didnt finish the job, should he be legally able to say "hey buddy, you took the risk when you hired me"????

Get real already--that is one seriously lame argument.

Mirabile, do you know the law at all? By any chance? Because you are flat-out wrong. Hell, you could learn more than that by watching the people's court!! Let me emphasize this so there is no misunderstanding--

WHEN SOMEONE SENDS YOU A PART TO BE POLISHED, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PART'S CONDITION WHEN IT LEAVES YOUR HANDS.

That means, if I send you an intact manifold to be polished, my intention is clearly about the way it looks. And if you damage it, guess what that does to the look of the part? Just like I told chinaman, you dont get to decide if the condition of the part is satisfactory upon return to the customer--the customer does! And in this case, the picture speaks for itself. Is it that bad? Maybe not to you, but I see the condition of YOUR polished pieces in the pics YOU posted....why did yours come out so nice when his got messed up? Tell you what--why dont you send me your '3 rotor' mani, and I will grind down some of the letters, ok?? Then when you get it back, tell me how satisfied you are....this is a no-brainer. If chinaman is not willing to accept full and sole responsibility for a customer's parts while in his hands, that speaks volumes about his business mind. Thanks, but no thanks.

You need to go watch more people's court again.

You see, I went to school for criminal justice. And before that, as a bail agent, I had to know the law. your interpretation is not accurate. When you send someone a part, and it comes back in less than the same physical condition, the judge usually rules that the owner of the part will be compensated a reasonable amount to either repair the part back to its previous condition, or the cost of replacement if repairing it is not an option. How much does it coest to buy a new manifold, then separate the runners?? More than $170, perhaps? Thought so.

Then, there is the issue of the job being half-done. So you see, in the end, your boy will lose.

It speaks for itself?? I notice that YOUR manifold doesnt have damaged letters, does it? Yeah, it sure does speak for itself.....he did a beautiful job on yours and a shitty job on this other one. You cant see the difference in your pics and his pic??? If not, you have no business driving a car with such poor eyesight. That is a night and day difference. Count your blessings that he cared more about your business than he did about this other guy's.