I'm really trying to figure out just what it is that continually keeps screwing me/and everyone else when it comes to automotive things, mainly these trucks and our wallets.
I'll summarize:
1. In 2004 I purchase said 2000 Lightning, in the interest of keeping it stock I purchase a Diablo tuner, then a 4# lower. I pay PowerSurgePerf for a tune and it's good.(1 of only a handful of things that worked well for me over the years, but sadly I'm not using it anymore)
2. I somehow destroy a cat within a year. I purchase 2 new cats ($180) then proceed to have them put on my stainless mids ($225, yup to mount 2 cats and run my brand new bumper directly into the curb thus putting plently of nice scratches in my week old bumper and paint) from this point on I hear an exhaust leak.
3. I take it to another shop, they show me that the $225 job I had done only welded 3/4 the way around the pipe. I can't take it back because the other shop closed. So another $90 to 'fix that'. This shop in turn (attempting to weld stainless to galvanized pipe, punches about 11 holes in the top of the pipe as the welder was up too high) so $90 for bird shit welds that leak, but not as bad.
4. Then I decide that a Silver bullet is too loud with these mids. Purchase BassaniN $700 shipped to my door. Take it to shop #3 to have it installed. Shop 3 proceeds to cut the silver bullet long my catback short, about 4 inches too short. So they proceed to cut off the clamps on the Bassani and add 4 inches of 2.25 pipe to it, note Bassani is 2.5, might as well not have the damn catback as its now restricted, but moving on. They add said shit pipe to the Bassani and don't line the tips up at all, then tell me it's the best they could do with what they had. Yup a brand new just out of the box exhaust, musta been one of those shitty new ones they read about. Any way another $250 dorking around with this. It's on there good and hasn't fallen off yet, oh yeah, $75 of that $250 was making new brackets for the cat back hangers, because they didn't line up, because they cut the mid pipes short! (No problem, I enjoy paying for others stupidity)
5. So a little down the road and guess what, another cat killed (me and my running 110 octane to get my 12 second sticker!) Not worried don't care. Order another pair of cats. $180 (I guess they have like 100k warranties but getting them warrantied is like pulling teeth) shop #4 gets to install them! They proceed to repeat nearly everything from #2 and #3. I'm pissed again that I pay money for this and just decide to drive it till they go again.
#6 so I decided to get long tubes. I buy some, they come with mid pipes, awesome problem solved right? Wrong. I put the long tubes and mids on, the nice thing was they came with everything and were really not that bad to put on, however the mids were modified to fit a magnaflow, which I don't want so I didn't get that. The mids had about 8 inches extra pipe. Cool, just need it cut and I'll strap clamp it and be done. Wrong. One of the collector bolts spins so it needs to be tacked to the collector. No worries how muc could that cost. I call local speed shop, they say, 'a little money' and 5 minutes. They get it on the lift and say, oh yeah we can cut the pipe and these 2 will slip inside and you can use your acc-u-seal clamp from the Bassani and be done. 2 hours later and this monkey has been hammering on my cat back for about 2 hours. 'Slipping the pipes together. So not only does the guy cut the mid pipes short, then he charges me an hour to put the pipe back in, again about 4 inches, why? Because the catback was just laying there, slipped forward 4 inches. So he beat the living shit out of my catback until the back of the muffler is dented in. Pieced the piping together, including his screw up and charges me 2 hours labor at $91 an hour, when his 'salesman' told me $75 an hour. To top it off it still leaks, and is no better than if I did it myself except it looks like a freakin lego exhaust construction set under my frame. So $180 there too, and I still need to fix the actual leak.
#6 is the same shop that had no idea how to dyno, yet has all these supposed 500+hp Merc's, how they havnt blown up a few of those I don't know. Any way, when I was a shop owner this kinda shit didn't fly. I paid for my and my employees stupidity, what happened? I thought we were a sue happy country, now we continually get screwed by shops and continue to pay. I know many MANY people who could have a whole other built truck for what they paid in others stupidity and 'expertise'.
Bullet proof blocks dropping valves, 4 that I know of, granted maybe that's not a lie, the blocks held up just most everything inside needed to be replaced. Dyno tuning gone bad, hell ever having to buy different tuners, sct, sniper, diablo only to find out all you did was spend $400 making the tuners life easier because they already had 'canned' tunes for your truck, that 'worked for everyone else'. Over priced tranny work because it's a Lightning. Though the same work at a desiel shop would have cost fractions of what you paid. The list goes on and on. When does the bleeding stop?
End rant)
This is not a SV bashing thread or an attempt to get others to bash, it is just my experiances with just the exhaust, not to even touch on the tranny or engine stuff. Exhaust, it's pipes, not hard, not an exact science it's plumbing with much bigger pipe, how hard can it be?
I'll summarize:
1. In 2004 I purchase said 2000 Lightning, in the interest of keeping it stock I purchase a Diablo tuner, then a 4# lower. I pay PowerSurgePerf for a tune and it's good.(1 of only a handful of things that worked well for me over the years, but sadly I'm not using it anymore)
2. I somehow destroy a cat within a year. I purchase 2 new cats ($180) then proceed to have them put on my stainless mids ($225, yup to mount 2 cats and run my brand new bumper directly into the curb thus putting plently of nice scratches in my week old bumper and paint) from this point on I hear an exhaust leak.
3. I take it to another shop, they show me that the $225 job I had done only welded 3/4 the way around the pipe. I can't take it back because the other shop closed. So another $90 to 'fix that'. This shop in turn (attempting to weld stainless to galvanized pipe, punches about 11 holes in the top of the pipe as the welder was up too high) so $90 for bird shit welds that leak, but not as bad.
4. Then I decide that a Silver bullet is too loud with these mids. Purchase BassaniN $700 shipped to my door. Take it to shop #3 to have it installed. Shop 3 proceeds to cut the silver bullet long my catback short, about 4 inches too short. So they proceed to cut off the clamps on the Bassani and add 4 inches of 2.25 pipe to it, note Bassani is 2.5, might as well not have the damn catback as its now restricted, but moving on. They add said shit pipe to the Bassani and don't line the tips up at all, then tell me it's the best they could do with what they had. Yup a brand new just out of the box exhaust, musta been one of those shitty new ones they read about. Any way another $250 dorking around with this. It's on there good and hasn't fallen off yet, oh yeah, $75 of that $250 was making new brackets for the cat back hangers, because they didn't line up, because they cut the mid pipes short! (No problem, I enjoy paying for others stupidity)
5. So a little down the road and guess what, another cat killed (me and my running 110 octane to get my 12 second sticker!) Not worried don't care. Order another pair of cats. $180 (I guess they have like 100k warranties but getting them warrantied is like pulling teeth) shop #4 gets to install them! They proceed to repeat nearly everything from #2 and #3. I'm pissed again that I pay money for this and just decide to drive it till they go again.
#6 so I decided to get long tubes. I buy some, they come with mid pipes, awesome problem solved right? Wrong. I put the long tubes and mids on, the nice thing was they came with everything and were really not that bad to put on, however the mids were modified to fit a magnaflow, which I don't want so I didn't get that. The mids had about 8 inches extra pipe. Cool, just need it cut and I'll strap clamp it and be done. Wrong. One of the collector bolts spins so it needs to be tacked to the collector. No worries how muc could that cost. I call local speed shop, they say, 'a little money' and 5 minutes. They get it on the lift and say, oh yeah we can cut the pipe and these 2 will slip inside and you can use your acc-u-seal clamp from the Bassani and be done. 2 hours later and this monkey has been hammering on my cat back for about 2 hours. 'Slipping the pipes together. So not only does the guy cut the mid pipes short, then he charges me an hour to put the pipe back in, again about 4 inches, why? Because the catback was just laying there, slipped forward 4 inches. So he beat the living shit out of my catback until the back of the muffler is dented in. Pieced the piping together, including his screw up and charges me 2 hours labor at $91 an hour, when his 'salesman' told me $75 an hour. To top it off it still leaks, and is no better than if I did it myself except it looks like a freakin lego exhaust construction set under my frame. So $180 there too, and I still need to fix the actual leak.
#6 is the same shop that had no idea how to dyno, yet has all these supposed 500+hp Merc's, how they havnt blown up a few of those I don't know. Any way, when I was a shop owner this kinda shit didn't fly. I paid for my and my employees stupidity, what happened? I thought we were a sue happy country, now we continually get screwed by shops and continue to pay. I know many MANY people who could have a whole other built truck for what they paid in others stupidity and 'expertise'.
Bullet proof blocks dropping valves, 4 that I know of, granted maybe that's not a lie, the blocks held up just most everything inside needed to be replaced. Dyno tuning gone bad, hell ever having to buy different tuners, sct, sniper, diablo only to find out all you did was spend $400 making the tuners life easier because they already had 'canned' tunes for your truck, that 'worked for everyone else'. Over priced tranny work because it's a Lightning. Though the same work at a desiel shop would have cost fractions of what you paid. The list goes on and on. When does the bleeding stop?
End rant)
This is not a SV bashing thread or an attempt to get others to bash, it is just my experiances with just the exhaust, not to even touch on the tranny or engine stuff. Exhaust, it's pipes, not hard, not an exact science it's plumbing with much bigger pipe, how hard can it be?