ATS Performance update

Just thought some of you might be interested in what ATS actually did to my car. Specifically, someone there took my car out and burned up my A4 transmission.

Keep in mind that the owner of ATS, Eddy, specifically told me that this damage (read what it was below) "must have happened while the car was sitting in the parking lot". No joke.

The transmission only had ~2,000 miles on it since a complete rebuild in Oct. of last year. When I took the car to ATS to have the heater fixed the transmission was working and shifting fine. I had even checked the trans. fluid about a week before and it was still like new and didn't have any burnt smell to it.

I took the car back to CAM (Carolina Auto Masters) in Durham, NC. They had done the rebuild in Oct. The damage was: The third gear clutch pack was burned up, which was caused by a broken accumulator piston. I was informed by Jeff Creech (one of the owners of CAM) that it would take severe abuse for this kind of damage to occur. Remember boys & girls, this supposedly happened "while it was sitting in the parking lot" because "nobody took your [my] car out and drove it hard". Yeah, right!

This is hard evidence of what happened to at least one (former) customer of ATS's cars while it was in their care. The kicker is it was there for a problem that didn't even require them to drive the car off the lot!!! I can't say that this would happen to anyone else who took their car there for service work. BUT it's obvious that they don't give it a second thought to just take someones car out and beat the living crap out of it whenever they feel like it. So be forwarned: Don't leave your car there unattended. If you do, you may never know what they do to it in your absense.

Needless to say, I will let the Court decide whether or not it happened "while sitting in the parking lot".

Mark

 

Heh....you're a LOT nicer about it than I'd be. Mental note: Scratch plans for new Pro-Charger install at ATS. Looks like I'll be calling my buddies in OK and making a road trip to get the Pro-Charger. Thanks for the heads up.

 

If you would have heard the phone conversation between "Eddy" and me after he told me that they didn't do anything to my car and were not going to cover any damages, you probably wouldn't say I was very nice

This story gets better: After our phone conversation, while my car was still at ATS that day, Eddy had the ***** to tell me if I didn't have my car off their property by the end of the day he was going to charge me $20 a day storage! So I had to have it towed out of there because it wasn't drivable.

One way or another, this guy will pay .....

 

I would definatley take him to small claims court. You can use your mechanic in Durham as an Expert Witness. You might even want to hire a lawyer. Just don't expect your money back fast.

 

It's already in the works. A SC Majestrate can hear cases up to $5,000. The amount of damage is no where near that, so it will be a simple matter of filing a complaint with the presiding Majestrate.

Witnesses are being prepared. I haven't decided if I'm going to use my attorney or not. He seems to think ATS doesn't have a prayer considering everything (He's a great guy - never charges me for extensive advice ). He thinks if I just give my side of the story, present the evidence and witnesses ATS will go down.

Depending on the Majestrate (and I've dealt with a few over the years), if they find in the plaintiffs favor they give the defendant 30 days to pay up. If they don't, all the plaintiff has to do is notify the court that the defendant didn't follow the Judge's order and the Judge will issue a warrant and have the defendant arrested and brought before the bench. Not all of them do this, but more and more are getting so they do. Here's hoping I get one that will!

 

Mark, so sorry to hear about your bad luck. I had gotten a bad feeling when I went in there inquiring about some work I wanted done and they didn't have the time of day for me. I knew then I would never go there.

Hope you get money for all expenses and the dreaded "loss of use of your vehicle" which should easily bring it up to the $5000 limit for small claims.

Buyer BEWARE!!

 

Thanks Jeromy. And thank you for the tip about loss of vehicle use. I didn't think about that one. I'll pass it by my attorney friend and see what he thinks I can tack on to the claim for it.

Like a lot of people in our area, I'd like to find a reputable, fair shop that knows what they're doing with these cars. I took it to ATS with the heater problem already knowing what the problem was and knowing it wasn't a big deal to fix it. And I was hoping ATS would turn out to be a decent shop that a lot of us could rely on. WRONG! They had the car for two days and still couldn't fix the heater. I literally had to tell them what to do to fix it! $172.00 later the heater worked .....but my transmission didn't

Hey, when you bringing your car out of "cold storage"?

 

I had a great shop up in NC, then I have to go and move down here to SC. Let me know if you find anything. Good luck with your suit too. Don't forget that if you have a lawyer, you should be compensated for having to hire him as well.

 

"Cold Storage" hehe. Couple of weeks and I'll be going. SCFYB is trying to coordinate a date in MAR for a Jackson track day. I'll definitely be ready for that. When will you have your car back? I'm sure you're itchin' to get that thing to the track after finally getting the bugs worked out of it.

 

Isn't the scfyb thing going to be at Darlington? It's a lot closer than Jackson, so I hope so.

I was going to go get it this past Saturday, but the weather was too crappy. Hopefully I can get up there this coming weekend.

As for the "bugs", it 's time for another Opti Have some high rpm missing. Creech plugged his lap top into it at Rockingham last Nov. when I took it there for some T&T and everything else looked fine, so he's guessing it's the Opti. (It was only running 12.5's in 60 degree air )

 

Damn Mark, I hate to hear about your tranny. I hope you get reimbursed for the cost and your troubles. Hopefully I'll make it to Tubby's Saturday and talk with you then.

 

HE'S ALIVE!!! Good grief, Charley Brown, I thought maybe your '93 swallowed you up or something?

I plan on going to Tubby's this time whether I have my car back or not. Hope to see you there Chris!

 

Hey Chris I have been trying to get a hold of you. I have been considering a ARE engine, and heard they did you wrong. If you could email me at Lycaon@bellsouth.net I would like to hear about it.

Thanks
Sheldon

 

Hey Sheldon,
Just a suggestion, but Chris doesn't post on here very often. You might want to try emailing him instead. Just click on his email button at the bottom of his post. I'm sure he'll be glad to tell you ALL about ARE

 

What is the latest with this? Do you have your car back, yet?