A.G.A.R. Restoring the dream...

[anlauto]

...By now you've read the unfortunate results of the purple Cuda I restored for member ErikR....apparently the paint and body look absolutely terrible.
So it's directly because of that mess that member @Monsterzero has decided to pull the plug on me restoring his pride and joy. That and the fact of the logistics of moving a non-running car across the border was getting complicated.

It's very unfortunate that I won't get a shot at restoring "my dream car" but I'm tremendously thankful that he realizes NOW that my work is crap and that there is no way in Hell that my abilities of restoration will match his expectations. Far better now then twelve months from now. I was really looking forward to the challenge of having it done in time for Carlisle 2020.

So no hard feelings, he'll get his deposit and parts back in short order and hopefully we'll move on. I wish you all the best Giovanni.

The car itself is super deserving of a complete ground up  restoration, apparently more then I can offer so hopefully he'll find a shop that can do it justice.

BE&A in Ohio turn out really nice work, maybe Mike has time to take it on.

[1 Wild R/T]

...By now you've read the unfortunate results of the purple Cuda I restored for member ErikR....apparently the paint and body look absolutely terrible.
So it's directly because of that mess that member @Monsterzero has decided to pull the plug on me restoring his pride and joy. That and the fact of the logistics of moving a non-running car across the border was getting complicated.

It's very unfortunate that I won't get a shot at restoring "my dream car" but I'm tremendously thankful that he realizes NOW that my work is crap and that there is no way in Hell that my abilities of restoration will match his expectations. Far better now then twelve months from now. I was really looking forward to the challenge of having it done in time for Carlisle 2020.

So no hard feelings, he'll get his deposit and parts back in short order and hopefully we'll move on. I wish you all the best Giovanni.

The car itself is super deserving of a complete ground up  restoration, apparently more then I can offer so hopefully he'll find a shop that can do it justice.

BE&A in Ohio turn out really nice work, maybe Mike has time to take it on.

Did I miss something? 

Never Mind.. Found it... Tough deal...

[cuda hunter]

I must be missing a site to read stuff on.  Is all this on facebook?  Or what?  I'm very curious.

In any case, it's all good Alan.  You do great work and will surely do a ton more in the future.  And probably the dream car. 

[cuda hunter]

found it.  missed it before. 

[69CudaFan]

@Monsterzero you can't get something for nothing. Period.

My advice...If you don't want it restored, slap it together yourself and drive the wheels off it. If you can't do that, you should sell it to someone who can. Some people like to have old cars, some people like to work on old cars, and some people like to drive old cars. Which camp are you?

Old cars are just as bad as old boats. Trust me.

[ErikR]

I'm very satisfied that I was able to spare Giovanni and other potential customers the unprofessional experience I had based on my direct feedback and/or seeing my car in person or having friends see it.

Not sure why some of you are getting on Giovanni and speculating what he wants without asking him first or hearing his side of the story, he's a very cool guy that is passionate about ebodies just like all of us.

[Timbbuc2]

Really?????

[JS29]

 

[Morty426]

@Monsterzero you can't get something for nothing. Period.

My advice...If you don't want it restored, slap it together yourself and drive the wheels off it. If you can't do that, you should sell it to someone who can. Some people like to have old cars, some people like to work on old cars, and some people like to drive old cars. Which camp are you?

Old cars are just as bad as old boats. Trust me.

Old boats are worse.

Trust me   

[anlauto]

I agree with Erik on this one, no sense beating Giovanni up over his decision, it was his to make based on a third party inspection of Erik's car. He never called me to discuss.
I guess if I thought for a minute that there was something wrong with Erik's car, I shouldn't have giving his contact info out as a reference, but I'm glad I did.

As I pointed out....I'd rather find out now the customers expectations rather then a year from now.

This AAR is a sweat car, I hope he can find a shop to work with his budget and meet is expectations 

[HEMICUDA]

@Monsterzero you can't get something for nothing. Period.

My advice...If you don't want it restored, slap it together yourself and drive the wheels off it. If you can't do that, you should sell it to someone who can. Some people like to have old cars, some people like to work on old cars, and some people like to drive old cars. Which camp are you?

Old cars are just as bad as old boats. Trust me.

I'm not sure it was "get something for nothing", maybe he wasn't willing to pay any amount of money for what he was going to get for the so called "budget" price.  I have a feeling he was sold a "bill of goods" not knowing what he was actually going to get in the end until his buddies inspected a car that he would expect he would receive.  I'm guessing money wasn't the issue, maybe his expectations were much higher than what was delivered to Erik.

It's no secret, Erik's car has been in my shop for the past 2 weeks to address the many issues.  Between all the electoral issues, having to re-paint the top of the car because of all the server "checkering", fix all the leaks and adjust up the rear drum brakes and bleed out all the air in the system, adjust the doors up 3/16" because they're hanging, it will be back here at the end of next summer to correct all the metal work and repaint the entire car.  The body gaps are horrible, the body lines are terrible and all the imperfections in the AMD sheet metal like creases and low spots aren't even "drive quality".   At north of 100K USD, you would have expected the car to be a little better than what was delivered.  People say "you need to inspect the work being done", how can the average "Joe" inspect a car in the middle of body/paint & metal work and really know what they're looking at and what's quality?   

[Arctoad]

I'm a little confused, where is the post?

[anlauto]

I'm a little confused, where is the post?

The car that HEMICUDA is referring to was being discussed in an older thread that has since been locked. https://forum.e-bodies.org/your-restoration-project-roseville-moparts/10/a-g-a-r-1970-barracuda-convertible-important-update/1935/  It was because of that car that the owner of this AAR changed his mind about having me do the restoration. I choice that I fully respect.

[ErikR]

Alan I think you are being way too vague here. Since we just spoke this morning, I'd like to add to this post to clarify my situation and to try and understand what you are really saying here so we all get on the same page and and move on.

In your earlier post you said that you'd rather find out a customers' expectations now, before the car is restored, rather than later, like what happed with me and have them be upset – so in the case of this AAR, you understand and respect their decision to go elsewhere.

You also said that if you thought that if something was wrong with my car, you would not have had other customers reach out to me for feedback. Also this morning, as in the past, you said you did not see any problems with the body/paint on my car.

The body and paint are the REALLY BIG problems with my car.

Keith did professional metal work and rust repair, somewhere north of 400 hours, right? And a ton of AMD sheet metal was used, somewhere over 20 thousand in parts? I think I paid roughly 45 grand USD in metal work when it was over.

What I have learned the hard way with my car is that next step should have been for a top notch shop to take the metalwork to completion, panel gaps and alignment, doors aligned and cross the goal line so to speak.

Then have the bodywork done all the way, long blocking etc. I am not the expert here so therefore the 'etc'. Then get a really professional paint job to finish it all off.
I have bigger body problems than just the paint, but I want to cover the paint.

I slowly started to realize there were issues with the paint during the first 2 weeks. The top half of the car had serious checkering / cross-hatch pattern in the paint and/or clear, it's so obvious and smacks you in the face evetime you see the car. I also noticed a spot on the rear tail where the paint was buffed down through the clear and another spot near the decklid that had a baseball size spot that simply did not match.

After having it for approximately 2 weeks, Kevin with the red 1971 cuda 383 convertible you restored stopped by to see my car in person. He said my 15 grand, collision shop paint job was not even acceptable for a daily-driver collision shop job. He pointed out the above problems and really schooled me on the body/paint problems.

A few days later, Giovanni's buddies, Donovan and Larry stopped by to see my car. Donovan sold him the B5 AAR and Larry has 10+ years body shop experience. They are all members here and can chime is if they want. Now for Long Island guys, it surprisingly took some coaxing for them to cut loose and be honest of what they thought of the restoration work. Eventually, they both ripped the body and paint apart and again schooled me on the numerous problems, that in retrospect seem obvious to me. Their feedback to Giovanni is what led him to pull the car from you.

The three of these guys with previous restoration and/or body shop experience all agreed there were bigger body problems than the paint with my car, but the paint was completely unacceptable, and the car should never have been accepted from the body shop with that paint job.

So that's the core of the problem I have with you is trusting that I could rely on your experience and expertise to evaluate the quality of work from your subcontractors, especially the body shop, and determine if the job was acceptable. For my car, this collision shop paint job was unanimously unacceptable as I have learned the hard way from all that have seen it in person.  You consistently say that you did not see any problems with the paint, and everyone that has seen my car in person / firsthand completely disagrees and says it is clearly unacceptable.

Mike and his expert craftsman Kenny have fixed it as much as possible without completely re-painting, but a re-do is planned for the near future.
To be fair, 100% of the guys that looked closely at my car first hand really liked your work in the engine bay and undercarriage. Some of you may have seen it at Carlisle and can speak for yourself. People with cars at Carlisle voted on it and it won second place in the e-body convertible class.

So all this has all been really tough for me to digest and figure out where I'm at with the car. For what I paid to get the car back to solid metal, and all of Keith's good work, WE should have taken the body/paint to the appropriate high level that the car deserved and that did not happen which has been extremely disappointing.

Live and learn I suppose. I'm moving on getting things straight with the car and will finally be enjoying my high school ride now that I'm 50, damn that's old! It's a great cruiser and my plan is to rack up the miles and then re-do the body/paint next year. I hope we can keep this post, and others open (not locked) and have open discussions of what's good and what is not, and folks can make up their own mind.

[Arctoad]

For me as a bistander "for lack of a better word.."this is a very real heart felt story. I'm certain that Allan is a very good Man with very good Morals, but I think the question is whether Busniness and hobby for the most part on this site should cross the line.
I have been in the Electrical Field for a number of years and have had many customers that were completely satisfied with my work, fortunately for me I have not had a bad experience. That said, this field of study is very very Broad in its spectrum and very very expensive in nature. My heart goes out to you Eric. After reading the entire post, which Allan did not hide at all and I think has taken complete responsibility for his position on this post at least.
I truly hope that both parties can come to a mutual agreement.