$4000 engine rebuild from 4Kruzn Motorsports

[JEFFRIX]

WARRANTEE no guarantee

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by mobius
Does it make it right? No. But it does sound like he offered to make it right and you turned him down, so now it is your problem.

If it was a stealership that fucked up his engine, what would you say about him if he took it back to the same place? We would all call him an idiot if he did that.

[kdwebber]

Originally posted by mobius
The part that bothers me is that you have decided to take a tear at Conroy on a public forum because of one bad experience. Having known Conroy since 2006, I can tell you that this is not indicative of his work. I can also tell you that he has gone out of his way many times to help people diagnose and repair their cars with no gain to himself.

Did Conroy actually say the he was the one to spec and assemble your engine? I would find it more likely that someone he had working for him 3 years ago (or however long it was) was the one who actually assembled the engine. Does it make it right? No. But it does sound like he offered to make it right and you turned him down, so now it is your problem.

I chose to make this public because I gave Conroy every chance to make this right and he refused. He is too stubborn to admit that he was wrong. Only monetary compensation would have been sufficient. The workmanship inside that engine was disgraceful and under no circumstances would I let him touch a motor for me again. The best he could offer me was replacement parts which I have mentioned I took as there was no other alternative.

Ultimately he is responsible for the product that leaves his shop and ends up in my car. That's what I paid good money for and did not receive. He doesn't get a pass because he might or might not have assembled that motor, that is the most ridiculous thing I have heard. I see it as professional accountability and he has none.

What bothers me is that you have a passion for rotaries and not be disgusted by the pictures that I posted. Forget about the relationship you have with Conroy and just look at the pictures.

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by kdwebber


Only monetary compensation would have been sufficient.

As has been said, you are an unreasonable customer. No shop would give you said compensation, so in essence, you did not give him the opportunity to fix the issue.

Basically, you goofed. Hard lesson to learn.

[bjstare]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1


As has been said, you are an unreasonable customer. No shop would give you said compensation, so in essence, you did not give him the opportunity to fix the issue.

Basically, you goofed. Hard lesson to learn.

Once in a long while, I actually agree with your posts haha.


Only monetary compensation is acceptable? That's a horseshit stance to take as a customer. At least give him one more shot to redo the work, it's only fair. Just about any shop would tell you to kick rocks if you didn't accept their offer to do the work again. And I don't know OP or the mechanic in question, just using common sense and my own personal experience.

[A790]

Originally posted by kdwebber
Only monetary compensation would have been sufficient.

You lost me here.

I agree with the other posters: give the guy a chance to fix the mistake.

I've had customers demand money from me too, and they don't get much of a response. That kind of customer is the kind of customer that won't be happy regardless of what you do... so why play into it?

[kdwebber]

First of all I did not refuse warranty right away. I gave him a chance to answer my pm's on Rx7club to which he straight up ignored me. I can even post my logs to prove this. After a long time of him ignoring me I contacted him one last time to let him know that the motor would be dis assembled and he finally answered me.

Guys why on earth would I want another motor from him given what was found in the first one? This wasn't a warranty issue where a part had failed or had suffered a quality control issue. This was a case of mis representation and in my opinion borderline fraud. Used parts were used in the place of new ones. Proper procedure was not followed. Parts that were out of spec were re-used. Very specific tolerances outlined by Mazda were disregarded. This is gross negligence. At this point I am well within my rights to refuse any warranty offer.

Also I did not request full compensation. I offered for him to keep the portion of the $3800 that was responsible for his labor. I asked for $1100 in return, not unreasonable whatsoever.

[dirtsniffer]

sue him?

[JRSC00LUDE]

Originally posted by kdwebber
First of all I did not refuse warranty right away. I gave him a chance to answer my pm's on Rx7club to which he straight up ignored me. I can even post my logs to prove this. After a long time of him ignoring me I contacted him one last time to let him know that the motor would be dis assembled and he finally answered me.

Guys why on earth would I want another motor from him given what was found in the first one? This wasn't a warranty issue where a part had failed or had suffered a quality control issue. This was a case of mis representation and in my opinion borderline fraud. Used parts were used in the place of new ones. Proper procedure was not followed. Parts that were out of spec were re-used. Very specific tolerances outlined by Mazda were disregarded. This is gross negligence. At this point I am well within my rights to refuse any warranty offer.

Also I did not request full compensation. I offered for him to keep the portion of the $3800 that was responsible for his labor. I asked for $1100 in return, not unreasonable whatsoever.

This makes perfect sense to me.

[Zhao Kan]

like I said on 780 tuners:

Keep in mind you are not a mechanic, and you are not knowledgeable enough to do this work yourself. That means you have a lot of holes in your knowledge. You’re getting told XYZ from someone and taking it as gospel. That’s pretty dangerous.

My experience with a conroy rebuild process is he doesn’t replace stuff that fine to reuse and replacing would nickel and dimes your rebuild up into the stratosphere. You could also ask why he didn’t replace the rotor housings, and the injectors, every bolt, and a number of other things. The answer would probably be to save YOU money, which is why you went to conroy in the first place, right? otherwise you could have called up racingbeat and had them ship out one of their 3 rotor setups for 50g USD, or drop it off at mazda and pay 10g+ for a guy who once did an oil change on a rotary rebuild it for you.

Like chris F said, what is wrong with that stationary gear? There are tolerances for it, and it doesn’t look that worn. They wear out faster on one side then another so why it is worn funny is not the issue, only if it is out of spec or something we are not seeing is fucked with it.

I like looking stuff up occasionally and here is what I found: Tolerances for that bearing from mazda state that it is 0.0013”. The grey coating on that bearing is only 0.0005” thick. That means copper showing is perfectly fine and with how little is showing, it’s gotta be easily within tolerances still.


Now maybe the published info I found is bs, and maybe the info your guy gave you is which sounds like it has no numbers and consists only of 'i see copper = replace!!!' regardless of what is ok or not. So IMO just from looking at that picture, I can tell that at least one thing your ‘expert' told you is bullshit, so he’s not as smart as he's leading you to believe.

I'm going to say he's probably wrong about a whole lot more, and is probably not so much an expert as a backyard mechanic. I'm at best a quasi backyard mechanic (not a day of formal training) and even I knew to look up what the tolerances are and how thick that coating is to gauge how screwed that bearing was. I'm guessing conroy looked at that and said yup, its within easily within tolerances...... and that is why it's in there still.

[kdwebber]

Originally posted by dirtsniffer
sue him?

I considered this option however I did not want to go through the hassle of small claims court. In the end I made the decision to exchange parts and sell them to recoup some of my loss.

This whole debacle has been a learning experience for me. My only motivation here is to post my experience supported by facts as a warning for others. I'm getting a lot of hate and abuse from his supporters which I expected however I feel the rotary community and the car community in general deserved to be informed.

I'm learning as much as I can about rotary motor and still have a long way to go. Just like any motor it is the small things that matter most and unfortunately most of that work does not get scrutinized properly by the uninformed. I certainly would have missed much of the BS that was found in my motor without help from someone more experienced. I feel this is why his reputation has not been disputed much. Also I do not believe that his personal cars or the cars of his close friends receive the same quality parts/builds as the average joe.

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by kdwebber
First of all I did not refuse warranty right away. I gave him a chance to answer my pm's on Rx7club

You talk about business and "professionals"; while PM's are a form of communication in the business world, this really doesn't mean anything, its not an official form of communication. I just logged onto reddit today and had some PM's asking about race fuel and ethanol and I hadn't been on there in two weeks. I'm not saying that is an excuse, but if you are having issues, you contact the company, not post on *insert forum here*

Used parts were used in the place of new ones

Unfortunately, this is (IMO) impossible to document. Unless you have proof of the worn parts going in BEFORE running the motor, the tear down after the fact is not definitive proof of this. Also of note, most shops don't give warranty with custom built motors, the fact that Conroy does speaks volumes IMO. Nor do they do it after you've torn is down instead of taking it to them. And they certainly don't go off the "opinion" of somebody else who isn't their shop and it appears doesn't even own a shop.

Guys why on earth would I want another motor from him given what was found in the first one? *snip* At this point I am well within my rights to refuse any warranty offer.

That's the choice you get unfortunately when you spend money with someone. You are indeed within your right to refuse a warranty offer, just as he is within his right to not compensate you further.

Also I did not request full compensation. I offered for him to keep the portion of the $3800 that was responsible for his labor. I asked for $1100 in return, not unreasonable whatsoever. [/B]

Again, but why? We are getting your side of the story. Maybe it would have been better for Conroy to take this one on the chin and tough it out, but he certainly is not OBLIGATED to.

I don't even know the guy "that" well. But you coming on here and slagging him shows the kind of customer you are. I wouldn't want to deal with you either

[kdwebber]

Originally posted by Zhao Kan
like I said on 780 tuners:

Keep in mind you are not a mechanic, and you are not knowledgeable enough to do this work yourself. That means you have a lot of holes in your knowledge. You’re getting told XYZ from someone and taking it as gospel. That’s pretty dangerous.

My experience with a conroy rebuild process is he doesn’t replace stuff that fine to reuse and replacing would nickel and dimes your rebuild up into the stratosphere. You could also ask why he didn’t replace the rotor housings, and the injectors, every bolt, and a number of other things. The answer would probably be to save YOU money, which is why you went to conroy in the first place, right? otherwise you could have called up racingbeat and had them ship out one of their 3 rotor setups for 50g USD, or drop it off at mazda and pay 10g+ for a guy who once did an oil change on a rotary rebuild it for you.

Like chris F said, what is wrong with that stationary gear? There are tolerances for it, and it doesn’t look that worn. They wear out faster on one side then another so why it is worn funny is not the issue, only if it is out of spec or something we are not seeing is fucked with it.

I like looking stuff up occasionally and here is what I found: Tolerances for that bearing from mazda state that it is 0.0013”. The grey coating on that bearing is only 0.0005” thick. That means copper showing is perfectly fine and with how little is showing, it’s gotta be easily within tolerances still.


Now maybe the published info I found is bs, and maybe the info your guy gave you is which sounds like it has no numbers and consists only of 'i see copper = replace!!!' regardless of what is ok or not. So IMO just from looking at that picture, I can tell that at least one thing your ‘expert' told you is bullshit, so he’s not as smart as he's leading you to believe.

I'm going to say he's probably wrong about a whole lot more, and is probably not so much an expert as a backyard mechanic. I'm at best a quasi backyard mechanic (not a day of formal training) and even I knew to look up what the tolerances are and how thick that coating is to gauge how screwed that bearing was. I'm guessing conroy looked at that and said yup, its within easily within tolerances...... and that is why it's in there still.

I'm always open to new information and if I am wrong I will fully admit it. Based on what you mentioned (I will look up the specs independently later) just from seeing the copper would that not mean that at a minimum 40% of that tolerance has been worn away. Without measuring it further we cannot know for sure what the true number is.

Now lets talk about the gap between the side seal and the corner seal. Since you like to look up facts and tolerances you should know the Mazda spec on this particular area. Excess of 0.4mm was found and if you want I could post every gap for you to see (I've posted two already) Given that he could not be bothered to use new seals and shape/spec them properly I'm going to go out and say that he did not measure the bearing.

The bearing is just one small piece of the puzzle and if I was wrong about the bearing I will admit it. The bearing is not the make it or break it issue with the engine but it speaks to a pattern. You guys are getting hung up on one small issues and are not looking at the engine as a whole. Not one of you has even touched upon the porting or the die grinder skip and again that is just one of the issues with this particular motor.

[kdwebber]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1


You talk about business and "professionals"; while PM's are a form of communication in the business world, this really doesn't mean anything, its not an official form of communication. I just logged onto reddit today and had some PM's asking about race fuel and ethanol and I hadn't been on there in two weeks. I'm not saying that is an excuse, but if you are having issues, you contact the company, not post on *insert forum here*



Unfortunately, this is (IMO) impossible to document. Unless you have proof of the worn parts going in BEFORE running the motor, the tear down after the fact is not definitive proof of this. Also of note, most shops don't give warranty with custom built motors, the fact that Conroy does speaks volumes IMO. Nor do they do it after you've torn is down instead of taking it to them. And they certainly don't go off the "opinion" of somebody else who isn't their shop and it appears doesn't even own a shop.



That's the choice you get unfortunately when you spend money with someone. You are indeed within your right to refuse a warranty offer, just as he is within his right to not compensate you further.



Again, but why? We are getting your side of the story. Maybe it would have been better for Conroy to take this one on the chin and tough it out, but he certainly is not OBLIGATED to.

I don't even know the guy "that" well. But you coming on here and slagging him shows the kind of customer you are. I wouldn't want to deal with you either

In addition to PM's I called and sent text messages. I stated the PM because this I can prove definitively. Also I should state that he answered the first PM and ignored the 2nd. This is how I know he was ignoring me. He also claimed he did not receive my texts or calls. The PM is how I know he was lying to me directly.

The worn parts used is not up for debate, the side seals speak to this issue specifically. Either he used worn side seals or he did not measure them once. Either scenario doesn't bode well for the workmanship this motor received. Also the rotor housing were not in acceptable condition. I didn't pay for used garbage housings he had laying around the shop.

The fact that he is not defending the motor and specifically the porting speaks volumes. He's not defending the porting because it is indefensible. Instead of using facts he is resorting to ad hominem attacks and reasonable doubt.

[Zhao Kan]

No one is getting hung up on any one issue. I'm guessing we have about 20% of the facts here, so all we can really work with is what we're given. No one has anything to gain in this. I picked that specific picture to pick apart because chris F brought up a good point. I thought about it and decided to check the tolerances on that part since it was something that was actually easy to figure out based on a picture if that coating was thicker or thinner than tolerances making a perfect measuring tool. Nothing else I can measure by just looking at a picture, so no proof on anything else being out of spec.

If it's clear to you conroy screwed you, then it's clear x100 to me that your expert isn't read up on what he's talking about. If he really told u that reusing that bearing was a big no no, then what he's saying goes against what the people who engineered the car published.



.....also, why would you replace something that is so far in the range of spec that it'll likely be technically good for another rebuild the next time it's cracked open? Like I said, the reason he didn't change that is probably the same reason you didn't go with brand new rotor housings and a bunch of other crap that was perfectly ok to reuse.

As someone who has dealt with service as a retail customer, and a business owner (as guy providing service, a guy trying to get something done for less from other businesses for my own, and a guy having customers trying to nickle and dime his repair down as low as possible against all advice), i gotta say, stop and think about why a business would not replace everything with new parts? We make money off selling parts because every single part is marked up, and it's much easier to work with shiny new things then old crap. There is less liability using new stuff then old crap. Why does someone not use new parts for everything? because the person paying for it doesn't want them to due to costs, or wait times for it to show up. I don't need to hear 4kruzn's answer as to why used parts were used, because it will come down to either you were in a rush for your engine, or you were worried about price. i'm happy when they reuse stuff that's in spec for me too, rather then spending 5 figures on a engine rebuild for a car worth 4 figures.

I also gotta say, from having dealt with tens of thousands of customers, I know what someone says after the fact with they were willing to pay for is often completely different then what they say before the fact on what they are willing to pay for.

I know with experience it's very rare for someone to pull the 'i would have paid to replace that' card, and actually have had them willing to replace it prior to everything going south because of that part. I suspect you're guilty of this because of the words you used, which bring up flashbacks to a ton of encounters with people over the years.

[ekguy]

No matter the situation there is no defending work of such low quality. Those ports are horrendous to look at...

I am a huge fan of rotary engines and that hurt me to see.

[-Jay21-]

The guy that disassembled the motor is an experienced technician who works for a high end European shop, not a backyard mechanic. He also has more experience than most with rotary engines.

Why is asking for a partial refund not acceptable? The work is terrible, the proof is in the pudding. Just look at the photos for crying out loud. $3800 and a core for a 'built engine' that went about 300kms? Not acceptable. Not to mention huge flaws already pointed out, parts like an fc3s eccentric shaft which wasn't what was promised is a fine example.

It's hilarious that some people in this thread are defending Conroy. I bet not a single one of you would dare buy a motor from him, yet you still insist on defending him.

[xnvy]

Originally posted by A790
I was just pointing out that when I see someone accused of something post a non-reply like that one, more often than not they turn out to be guilty.

A reply like that inspires no confidence in me. It doesn't tell me that person is genuinely interested in their customers or their businesses reputation. It suggests that your accusations are true.

I agree. With issues like this, it's more comforting as a customer to see a response like Ravi's in the Minute Muffler thread, one that gives the shop's perspective as well rather than a statement of silence on the matter.

[spikerS]

I don't know much about rotary engines, and even less about the people involved in this thread, but even to my eye that workmanship looks like it was done by a bunch of toddlers.

as to what could be done for remediation? I can understand the reluctance to let him work on the engine again, I mean, if care wasn't given to do it right the first time...and that's what it looks like, that the proper time wasn't invested. why would I take the chance that the second time he would do it right, especially when he is probably pissed at me?

Just my $0.02 as a 2nd year mechanic's apprentice in my youth.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally posted by -Jay21-
The guy that disassembled the motor is an experienced technician who works for a high end European shop, not a backyard mechanic. He also has more experience than most with rotary engines.

Why is asking for a partial refund not acceptable? The work is terrible, the proof is in the pudding. Just look at the photos for crying out loud. $3800 and a core for a 'built engine' that went about 300kms? Not acceptable. Not to mention huge flaws already pointed out, parts like an fc3s eccentric shaft which wasn't what was promised is a fine example.

It's hilarious that some people in this thread are defending Conroy. I bet not a single one of you would dare buy a motor from him, yet you still insist on defending him.

Completely agree. You don't even need to have 962kid's level of knowledge to see that was some substandard work.

I mean if there was one thing that went wrong, sure, fix it up and give it back. But seeing that many screwups, there's no way I'd let them touch my engine again and I'd want my money back, period.