ok, long story short. my opti crapped out a few months ago. i ordered a new one and pulled the old one out. unfortunatly the new one showed up on the same day i had to leave for korea(im in the army). my cousin recomended a "mechanic" friend of his to finish the job for me while im gone. he finished the job and said it ran great. they then had a falling out and my wife had to take the cops with her to get the car from this idiot. when they got it home i had my buddy go over and drive it, just to check it out. he said it runs like absolute crap and wont shift out of first gear, and the starter was actually broken into pieces(brand new six months ago). so clearly this dipshift did some dirty stuff to my car. i think he swapped my tranny out for a junk one(his uncle ownes a junk yard). i was just wondering if anbody had any ideas where to start looking for the motor problem. it ran great before the opti problem. from just a visual, nothing jumps out to be wrong and it is the new opti in the car. any suggestions would be great.

oh, its a 94 z28 a4
josh

 

First thing I would check would be the plug wires- make sure they are not crossed up.

 

Very easy to insert the splined drive shaft for the Opti incorrectly, throwing the timing way off.

 

If it was up to me I would have someone take it to another mechanic exactly thw way it is to find out what exactly he did to it and fix it. Whatever he did can be fixed or corrected. There is nothing worst than worring about something a million miles away to which you have no control over. Hopefully everything will work out.

 

thanks for the tips. my buddy said some of the plug wires were pulled apart, so they are being replaced probably as i type. if thats not it ill have my wife take it to the shop and probably spend an assload of money. hopefully i can get some of it back when i take this idiot to court. my buddy also said the spedo cable was cut. could that cause the tranny not to shift. if not, thats a pretty good indicator that he swaped it on me. this guys lucky im half way around the world. there are just some things you dont screw with, and a mans car is pretty high on that list.