Complaint Review: Lloyds Automotive Service

If you are rebuilding a engine and need machine work, do not take it to Lloyds automotive in Ft.Collins Colorado. Roger Schmidt is the owner. I was rebuilding a chevy 350 engine for my daughters pickup and took the  engine and heads  to them to have machined. My daughter was paying for the machine work and parts and had saved up her money for several years to fix up her truck (she loves Chevy 4x4 pickups). I dropped off the block, pistons, and heads to Roger Schmidt the owner. I told him that I wanted to bore the engine 30 over to fit the pistons. Also I wanted him to put new valve guides and seals in the heads and to vacuum test them to make sure the valves were not burnt and did not need to be ground.

He said no problem. I gave him all the parts to be steam cleaned. He called me a few weeks later and said everything was ready. I arrived to pick up the block and heads. The first thing I noticed, it that my rear main bearing caps still had the old seals stuck to them and there was metal shavings and grease still on the block. Then I noticed that the heads had sand blasting beads all over them from being partially cleaned. He handed me a box full of my push rods , bearing caps, and bolts. I payed him 1500.00 ( like a dumb a$$) for the machine work and rebuild kit and left. Not feeling very good of what I had just seen, I decided to take the block and heads to another machine shop and have them double checked. The machine shop I took them to was Automotive Machine Supply in Ft Collins. I informed AMS what was done and that I need everything checked.

AMS later called me and said I have bad news and that I needed to come to the shop. AMS told me that he checked the cylinders in the block and found that the cylinders were tapered and not round(he showed me with inside measuring gauges). He also found that the heads had been incorrectly rebuilt and he had found a burnt valve and one of the pistons had a cracked skirt. AMS said that the block would have to be rebored and the valves in the heads would have to be reground. I could not use the pistons I had  due to the reboring to a bigger size of 60 over. I confronted Roger Schmidt at Lloyds automotive about this and he denied any wrong doing. I asked him to reimburse me for the boring fee and the for the heads. He refused. Roger is very unprofessional and unwilling to make it right for my daughter and I. My daughter even called him on the phone and begged him to give her money back, but all he said is, "your out of luck" It cost my 16 yr old daughter double the cost for her engine.