Complaint Review: Pro-Imports

The employee you spoke to was David. He specifically told you that the K04 turbo could be run with the standard Revo software but it would not run optimized. He also told you that in order to take full advantage of the turbo, you would have to upgrade to the Revo K04 software WHEN it became available for an additional $150. It is NOTED on your invoice, signed by you the customer in acknowledgement, that the Revo software was a $150 upgrade when released. It is ALSO noted on the invoice, signed by you the customer in acknowledgement, that you had an exhaust rattle which you did not authorize nor allow us to properly repair. The facts are the facts and in your signing of the invoice, you acknowledged these facts. Again, if you need a reminder, this is a copy of your invoice printed from our management software. You are more than welcome to return and see the signed copy of this invoice that we have for you on file.

http://www.pro-imports.com/invoice1805.gif

Unfortunately, we cannot post all the positive letters and reviews our company has received in this forum. Your experience is truly unique in that you decided to publicly post your problems before respectfully consulting with us about these problems. Our techs are not immune from making mistakes and that is why we have a full 1 year/12,000 mile warranty on all our work. It is also not uncommon for a turbocharged vehicle to have hoses pop off under hard driving. If it were something as simple as this, bringing the vehicle back to us would have resulted in a simple fix. I know for a fact there was nothing wrong with the actual turbo installation itself.

We regret the fact that you chose to take warranty work elsewhere and be charged for work that we would have been happy to resolve for you. If I purchased a product from Best Buy and had a problem, I would certainly contact Best Buy first before I went to Circuit City. If you make the decision not to come back to our establishment, then there is nothing we can do to help you. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to repair or solve issues with your vehicle over the internet. We have made every effort to be respectful to you as a customer and try to help you with your issues, going as far as to call you a week after your initial service to make sure things were going well and again after your public post of your problems. If both times you are dishonest with us about your satisfaction and your issues, then there is nothing we can do for you.

We respectfully decline to continue this public debate with you, as all facts have been presented. If you are still confused about the fact that Revo software for your K04 turbo does not exist, then you are more than welcome to contact Revo Technik directly and hear it from the horse's mouth. You can then contact the other Revo dealer you went to and find out that they flashed onto your car the exact same program with the exact same settings we had installed. If you have further problems or issues, we are more than happy to discuss them with you. You can call or email us anytime.

I am responding to the rebuttal of Pro-Imports. I am the owner of the Volkswagen GTI 2003 that Pro-imports worked on March 2004. The person that responded to my rip off report lied. Pat (the chief mechanic)claimed on the report that they don't have a REVO software for KO4 turbo. That is not true! When my boyfriend and I were at their shop, we spoked to another employee and he told us that he can upgrade the REVO software for the K04 turbo for the price of $170.00(approximately). The car was not on "limp mode", the car was not running properly. The car would not boost at all.

We took the car to another mechanic, he looked at our vehicle concluded that the turbo was not installed properly. It had a leak. They even fixed the exhaust that was rattling (which pro-imports claimed they fixed).

We don't care about the amount of money we paid to install the turbo, we just want their company to install the turbo properly. The reason why we reported their company is to make sure no one else will end up in this situation. We don't want to be reimbursed with the money we paid. We just want justice for what they did to our car.

It's disconcerting to us when customers take these measures before contacting us to resolve problems. We pride ourselves on customer service and offer a 1 year warranty on all our work. Our service writer had even called this customer a few days after the work was completed to check and make sure the customer was satisfied and was told "everything is alright."

For reference, this customer's invoice can be found at:
http://www.pro-imports.com/invoice1805.gif

There are a few errors in this customer's presentation of her facts.

We did quote the customer $1,100 for the turbo upgrade and the labor. That did not include the additional oil and coolant we needed to replace (both of which have to be drained for a turbo install).

We did say it SHOULD be completed in one day. We did not PROMISE it would be completed in one day. The customer had an incorrectly fitting exhaust which caused a delay in the work completion. The exhaust she had on, which had been installed by another performance shop, was designed for a Volkswagen Jetta, not a Volkswagen GTI. The Jetta exhaust is slightly longer than the GTI exhaust, despite sharing the same basic design. The exhaust which was made to fit by this other shop was rubbing up against the bottom of the gas tank. This would be considered a hazard. We had planned on modifying this customer's exhaust for it to clear the gas tank at no charge. Not only did this incorrectly fitting exhaust take us time to attempt to repair but it also caused an exhaust rattle and possibly an exhaust leak. We notified the customer of these issues.

We also did inform the customer on Thursday March 4, 2004 that her vehicle would not be ready because we were trying to resolve these issues with her vehicle. In most cases, on an otherwise stock GTI, installing a turbo is a 5 hour job. She said she called around at other shops and then called us back and proceeded to insult us for not being able to complete this job the same day. The customer was quite belligerent. We did not tell the customer that we would not put the parts back, nor did we threaten the customer with towing the car out of the shop. What we told her was that her car was not ready and the only way she would be able to pick it up that day was to have it towed out of the shop, as the car was apart and in pieces. We put the car back together without having time to properly tune and test the car. She called us back later and told us to go ahead and keep the car and to go ahead and install the intake hose as well. We sell this intake hose for $190 and 2 hours install time. We did quote the customer that we would install the intake hose for 1 hour labor while the car was apart. Since she was so belligerent and adamant about us putting the car back together, we did put the car back together but now we had to charge her 2 hours install time for the intake hose.

Since we had the customer's permission to keep the car an extra day, we did thoroughly test the vehicle. We did warn the customer that, until the software was out for this specific turbo in a few weeks, they may encounter check engine lights and limp mode (when the Volkswagen ECU goes into safety mode and decreases power output to protect the engine). Neither of these are dangerous to the vehicle.

We did follow up with the customer again after reading this post to ripoffreport.com. Apparently this limp mode was mistaken for a boost and/or exhaust leak by this other shop. They charged the customer for the repair and for installing the "proper" software (which we know for a fact is not out yet). For an inexperienced shop, this could be an easy mistake to make and the problems this customer is having (from what we were told this morning) still exist.