As some of you know, since late 2010 I have taken my current/former cars (2010 C63 AMG, 2012 CLS63 AMG, 2013 M3 and 2013 M5) to ACG Automotive (formerly Automotive Connoisseur Group) to have various modifications done. I have spent a lot of money with them. And for the most part, there were no problems with modifications I ordered through and had installed by ACG. As a whole, ACG is a company made up of honest, pleasant and well-intentioned individuals. But in those 3 years of doing business with ACG, there has been one consistent issue that, with the latest one I unearthed today, has brought me to a point where my patience has fully deteriorated and now I feel it is incumbent on me to write a post to warn individuals who are considering ACG to install modifications on their car. All of these mistakes/errors/problems were previously brought to the attention of ACG, and to their credit they handled it for the most part. This post is not about calling anyone a crook or liar, because that isn’t what ACG is. But what I have found is another thing ACG isn’t: meticulous. And this isn’t about me wanting everything to be perfect…this is about carefully installing products and making sure that when the newly modified car returns to the customer, there are no problems due to carelessness or oversight. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect, but when one problem follows another which follows another, it becomes inexcusable – despite a litany of apologies and credits/refunds/make-goods.

The history of issues:
- 2011: HRE wheels mounted and balanced on my C63 after my newly painted calipers arrived. The lugs on one of my rear wheels wasn’t tightened, as I was driving down the freeway to my house on the 805/163 South …I noticed major vibration. As I drove back up to ACG to see what the problem was, I started to see lugs fly off my car. (ACG credited me for my calipers)

- 2011: While I was waiting for my calipers to be painted, my car was at ACG overnight. The HRE wheels were stood up overnight, and by the morning one of them had fallen on their face. (ACG had the wheels refinished)

- 2012: I got a quote to have silver piping throughout my C63’s upholstery and door panels. I agreed to the quote and paid for the install and labor. I was in Alabama taking a deposition while the installation process was occurring. I then get a call that the seats had been re-done but that the company ACG brought my car to for the upholstery couldn’t do the door panels (even though I my quote included the door panels); and that if I wanted the door panels to be done they would have to take it to another shop and it would probably cost about $2000 extra. I was told that the reason they did the seats first is because they wanted to get the car back to me ASAP and didn’t realize until after that the upholstery shop could not do the doors as originally planned. I decided not to have the door panels re-done and expressed my frustration that I didn’t want my car completed fast, but rather completed correctly.

- 2012: ACG installs HRE P43SCs on my CLS63. They did not test drive the car before giving it back to me. When I get it back, on my drive downtown to my house, it is clear the car is rubbing on the front. The shop had already closed, but because I just gone out to dinner with them and the techs, I gave the techs $100 each as a Xmas present if they would take the car back that night and readjust the suspension; which they did. Nonetheless, I was told by ACG that they gave me the car back originally without testing it because they knew I was waiting a while for them to go pick up the wheels and install them, they didn’t want me to wait any longer. Again, I repeated the now repetitive mantra that I always want my car back with modifications installed correctly (and tested) instead of quickly.

- 2012: ACG installs a Brabus exhaust for my CLS63. They return the car to me. One of the sides of the exhaust is clearly uneven. I was told that it might have just been the angle I was looking at them from. I then sent the picture to Brabus and right away they said that one side was higher than it should have been. My stereo installer noticed it too. I brought the car back to have ACG realign the exhaust.

- 2013: I order a second set of HREs for my CLS63. I was quoted a price and gave ACG a 50% deposit. A week goes by and I eventually get a call that the pricing structure for HRE retailers had changed and the price of my wheels were now going to go up by over $1000. Now, the pricing structure change occurred about a month prior – but apparently the entire shop was not aware until the day after I placed the order. But that means there was still a week that went by that the entire shop knew the price of my wheels went up over $1000 but no one told me. I told ACG to cancel my order and since then I have never ordered another new set of wheels from them.

- 2013: I went up to LA to have my stock wheels removed from my F10 M5 and install my HRE Flow forms. At this point the only shop that has taken the wheels off my car since I leased it was ACG to install my H&R Springs. Before we even had the Flow Forms installed, both I and my wheel shop noticed a giant scratch on my front driver’s side caliper. Now, if that scratch was on my caliper before ACG installed my springs and they noticed it, I know they would have notified me about it so I would be sure not to assign blame to them. And how do I know it wasn’t my new wheel shop that did it? Because ACG took the stock wheel locks out of my car and placed it into a bag filled with my stock components. So after driving up to LA to have the stock wheels removed, I realized that I did not have the stock wheel locks in the car; and had to drive all the way back to San Diego to find them in the bag of stock components ACG had put in my trunk a couple weeks prior. Why would anyone take a wheel lock key from inside a car and put it in a bag with other components for the customer to possibly take it out of the car? Thus, while I cannot say with 100% certainty that ACG scratched my caliper…prior experience overwhelmingly leads me to that conclusion.

- 2013: I noticed the ride quality of my M5 had started to suffer. So I ordered KWV3s and had them installed by MRF Engineering in Lake Forrest. He noticed that there was fluid leaking all over my rear H&R springs (that had about 4k miles on them and never ones did I hit anything hard enough to bend any of my wheels, let alone dislodge "seals" from my springs/struts) and that the seal over the strut had broken. He also noticed that the prior installer – ACG – left a rag/microfiber in my car’s shock tower. When I talked to ACG about it and asked the process they followed in installing the H&R’s, I was told that their techs used prior experience on other cars (they had done two other F10 M5s prior to mine) and a “DIY” post from the Bimmerpost forum as a partial guide. This was disturbing to say the least.


- Today: I have the rear diffuser of my E92 M3 removed. Not only are there pieces broken and mutilated from when ACG originally installed it and then tried to have it fit better on my rear bumper…but now there is a scratch that will not come off and cannot be properly touched up (I have already been in contact with my body shop). Can I live with the scratch? Yes? Should I have to? I think it’s pretty clear what the answer is.

Now some of you may say, if ACG had these mess-ups, why would you keep going back? Well, because ACG always apologized and offered to (and sometimes did) resolve them, the answer is I just kept chalking these mishaps to the old “well nobody’s perfect” maxim. Also, as I wrote previously, ACG has always been honest and this is not about being overcharged, waiting on refunds, etc. This is about a shop that – at least in my extensive experience – has not taken extensive care with all of their customers’ cars. I don’t write on behalf of anyone but myself, but after spending probably close to $100k with them over the past 3 years, I feel like my experiences cannot be attributed to fluke accidents or Murphy’s Law.
Some of you may ask, well if they apologized and offered to resolve or did resolve these issues, why write this post? The answer is simple. Would you go to a doctor simply because he/she seemed cool and are the type of person you would go have a beer with? Would you hire an attorney because they were big sports fans like you or liked the same music? I would hope the answer would be “no” to all of these questions. Well, despite my personal affinity for the people at ACG, that does not mean the quality of their work/customer service is excellent. Nobody is perfect, but I felt it was time that as someone who extensively mods my own cars, to alert others that are thinking of doing the same and potentially bring their car(s) to ACG.
I stand behind everything I write here and provided the details of my past experiences so as to demonstrate that I am not some disgruntled customer who is being unreasonable. What I am is a car enthusiast that doesn’t want to see fellow enthusiasts experience the negative issues/problems I did when taking my cars to ACG.

Some of the recent pics from my M3/M5 "experiences":

 

Nobody is perfect like you said! But for sure your long and repeated experience with this vendor/shop speaks for itself. I hope this post will be beneficial for both of us members/car enthusiasts (as a warning) and ACG (to improve the quality of their work).
Thanks for sharing

 

No problem. That is the point of the post...not to bash, but to hopefully inform others and maybe spur ACG to readjust how they do business. I dont expect anyone to be perfect...but I definitely don't expect this type of repeated carelessness.

 

Sorry to hear that and thank you for letting us know.

I definitely understand your frustration and know where you're coming from. I've found from my own experiences (with other shops) that it's best just to keep interactions professional with them, as often times, friendships can lead to complacency and not the best work being performed.

 

I 100% agree with you...these sets of experiences has reinforced that to me without a doubt!

 

I understand your feeling too...not all people treat customers car like the way you treat them.

Likely, most tech will try get it done fast , in short period of times and not carefully double check and take time, because time is money and they want to save time and money then the professional is not meet when you trying to cut time.

In the past i haev taken the car back to same place over over and one day i decided i had enough and no more, i would rather pay some one extra money to well take care my car instead take it back and wasting my time.

To be honest, most of the shop now like that...the shop owner is kool and everything but they dont check every customer car when its done and delivery back to customers, its up to the tech, and the tech ususally get blame but then what ? not fire....and the tech clearly not gonna pay you back....this is suck

 

Pertplus,

Thank you very much for taking the time to post that thorough timeline of events regarding your dealings with ACG.

Despite ACG's best attempts at being cordial, and regardless of the fact that the staff there consistently tried to make amends for their mistakes, a tuning shop that works on high-end luxury cars (such as yours) should never be that mistake prone (especially considering that all of the modifications you had them install were very straight forward).

I mean it's not like they were doing novel, custom, or risky work on your cars. These are routine, almost DIY-level tasks that competent folks with lots of free time can perform themselves.

I sincerely hope you're able to get all of your outstanding issues resolved in a satisfactory manner.

And on a side note, after reading about the ponies in your stable, please shoot me a PM and let me know what area of the law you practice in because I want to switch to what you're doing ASAP.

 

Thank you so much for your comments. I am glad the purpose of my post has shone through. I think while sometimes shops may get held to an unrealistic standard of perfection, I also think customers get too easily branded as being "overly picky" or "complainers" simply because we want something done correctly. Lugs flying off wheels, scratches to calipers and leaking springs are not "little" problems. And because I have been on these forums as a cheerleader of theirs in the past and have recommended them to friends of mine....I feel it is my duty to now correct that mistake and get the word out to people.

And thanks for the compliment on my cars...I am a single attorney with no kids, so more freed up income than I probably should have. If I had a family of my own, there is no way I would be doing what I do. Otherwise, my kids would be digging ditches while Dad gets a new Akrapovic exhaust!

 

Man I'm 100% sorry about what you are going thru. I make it a point to personally oversee every aspect and make it right if it goes wrong.

Call me a control freak but I want my guys who buy from me to be able to
reach me anytime 24/7 365.


And another thing lugs flying off a car no way Jose I'm the owner of the that shop and the tech is fired end of story. Sorry if I you wanted "so so" then bob the shady tree car tuner will do. Not a top shop.

I don't care if it's a 25$clamp of a full set up. It's your mantel and you should honor you clients trust 110%

Call me old shcool

 

I sympathize for you.. that really sucks. I too had a bad experience with a indy shop here in Peachtree City Georgia... I had all their work re-done by the MB dealership. Funny thing was I was trying to avoid "stealership" labor fees so that was the reason why I went to the indy shop (supposedly that had a merc trained mechanic) on the first place... Boy was I wrong!

Long story short, "bit once, never again"... will not go back to that indy shop ever again.

 

I figure since you made this post i'll continue to share... considering i bought pertplus's old car. I had contacted acg at one point to ask them some questions and they gave me run around answers and thought i was just someone stupid. Any how shortly after receiving the car the cel came on for fuel pressure sensor faults. I found acg had used the crimp connections to extend the harness for the fuel pressure sensor - rather than solder which is recommended which were not installed properly and caused poor intermittant connections. I continued to have some other codes occur, I had previously contact wiestec to ask about the fuel pressure sensor code - they mentioned how acg wanted some modifications done to the normal stage 2 tune which were causing the problems so i had the m.e. reflashed free of charge by wiestec. acg installed welded an extra bung in the headers rather than extending the harnesses and put the front oxygen sensors in these newly installed bugs right in the middle of the merge collector (lots of turbulence here not the best for readings) acg also cross threaded one of the oxygen sensors. The front coilover adjuster lock bolts also were not tightened. I never mentioned any of this because I know you (pertplus) had no knowledge of any of the above and I typically dont like flaming people/shops even though i know they screw stuff up constantly. No biggies, I got her all fixed up and in full beast mode. I know most people hate the stealerships, but If your doing anything mechanical it is really a good idea to get someone who knows the product really good to work on it that is qualified. Not to say every tech at the dealer is great but most are much more capable than these mod. shops. Sorry to hear your troubles Matt, that sucks. This looks like a good excuse to trade in for a v12 benz for you

 

Sorry to hear about your issues w/ACG. And also thanks for the warning. I too had a similar problem with a shop where the lugs were not tightened. A friend of mine drove my car back from that shop & while on the highway, the rear wheel went flying past him! Luckily no one was hurt. I think it's great to warn people so they're aware of these unprofessional practices at these shops. Again, I hope you sort everything out.

 

Oh man that is crazy! I am so sorry! I didn't have the C63 long enough apparently to experience the problems you did. I am also sorry you got the run around. I sold the car to Fletcher Jones who sold it to the auction company you bought it from, but regardless, ACG should have stood behind it's work. It's stories like this that reinforce my decision to post. I'm glad everything got sorted out in the end but that is BS regardless of how you cut it. I'm just glad with the BMWs I now have a class act shop -- MRF Engineering. Hope all is well and have a safe and happy new year!!

 

At this point I've moved on. But this morning, all I could think about when looking at that scratch is that I don't want anyone to deal with that BS. And they wonder why I decided not to get my M3 supercharger with them!

 

sorry to hear about ur experience

 

why were u eating with em and give em a 100 each when you already paid for the service ????

are you some rich nice guy that people take advantage off all the time?

I woulda told em if they don't fix it now im going to flip.

 

^
Pert studied with the Benedictine monks for years, searching for God through prayer, work and reading. He sings his midday prayer and vespers in both English and Latin. He's an especially erudite soul and on a spiritual level that few will ever achieve. Perhaps his level of forgiveness is something that should be applauded rather than denounced.

 

Your post brought back a lot of memories of my experience with ACG (especially the lock nut key part; they lost my key too)! I agree with you, the people are cool but the quality of work leaves a lot to be desired (parts missing, parts loose, parts damaged, work takes too long, etc). I thought my experience was isolated (nobody has complained about them), so I just decided to never go back and to NOT write a warning thread (but if anybody personally asked about my experiences there I would divulge everything). Now that I know I'm not the only one (and I didn't even spend CLOSE to $100K like Pert), I don't mind chiming in with my displeasure.

Now I'm stuck because I can't find a So Cal Mercedes Tuning Shop and there are a lot of mods I have left to do. The STANDARD of Mercedes Tuning Shops is Kleemann USA in Colorado, with NO PROBLEMS with the quality of work, attention to detail, customer service and speed of work. The only problem with them is that they are 1000 miles away!

 

They have terrible customer service, took me over 6 months to get my wheels they mis-ordered twice. Never going back.

 

How dare you forget about that Gregorian Chants album I put out!!! That **** went platinum with the Trapperstine Monks!!!

 

Sorry you had to deal with the BS too! It just really came to a head for me with all of these issues and when friends would ask "Do you know any good shops in SD to get X done to your car" and I could no longer in good conscience recommend ACG. And again, for people wondering why I went back even after several problems...it was a combination of factors: 1) I was unsure of who else in San Diego I would use; 2) I kept (foolishly) telling myself "ok this time they will get it right" or maybe I'm overreacting; 3) and I was a dumbass and let my desire to mod override my common sense.

As I've learned, these cars (whether BMW, MBZ, Porsche. Etc) are finely tuned from the factory and built by people extensively trained and educated.....and therefore, if you're going to modify them or have someone else work on them, you better do your due diligence and not settle. A lesson I truly learned!

 

Thank you for posting such a complete account of your experiences. I wish you much better luck in the future.

 

Thanks!!!

 

Totally agree with you on this!

 

Honestly, I would kind of like to hear the otherside of the story, right now this thread is one sided.