And here comes AK...
Omg
Did I call him a liar? No I did not
Stop your crap and leave it to the topic at hand

At first i just skimmed through the OPS first post as it was a lot of information to digest.I first came to conclusion that this was another disgrunted customer and i wasnt going to comment. You can usually get a feel for the whole story by reading peoples reactions in their posts, so I came back later to see whats up

Scenario is the OP had a CLS55, he and bruce came up with a budget of $20k to mod his car.
My opinion is that's a lot of money to throw at a budget and not get a firm commitment of whats being done or sold. Ive actually wrote contract agreements for construction projects for less money.

Then the OP sells his car on his own. But you just gave some guy on the internet $18K and now you have to negotiate it back, or think of a new way to spend it with TTM without causing Bruce much grief.

The big kink in the hose is.....Bruce claims that he lost shop time due to this build projected at taking 1.5 months. Well Ive seen the inside of bruce's shop and its decent size and he can take pretty much more than one car. I've seen more than one expensive car in there at any given time. I honestly question this claim as there is a lot of downtime in a build. To operate overhead on a shop for 6 weeks on one car just does not sound right. And you have to ask, if your car didnt show up at Xmas time, do you think Bruce would have idly stood by and twiddled his thumbs? Lets add to the fact that Bruce had a stressful family situation.....So its safe to say that yours and anyone elses car wouldnot have gotten worked on anyways for that same period of time.

The cheapest and easiest solution is to hire an arbitrator. Youre not going to get all you money back may as well negotiate it. Bruce may have a stand on the fact he had downtime from not taking appt. However you cant really penalize a customer for that.

From reading Bruce's email, it doesnt sound like he plans on hanging out at TTM for very long. So once he closes you can kiss that money goodbye and any lawyer will tell you that. I honestly dont think Bruce would do that but legally he can.

If i was in the OPs shoes, with that money I would have gone to Renntech or Kleeman. They arent going anywhere for a long time, maybe they dont have the best performsnce packages or pricing. But those two companies are pretty much stable. Im pretty much a Eurocharged guy, but i appreciate Bruce's products and have known him to give good customer service esp to Hulk and trust me thats asking a lot.

OP never ever give the full amount of money to anyone like this again. Always come to an agreement on whats being done and work out a payment plan you are comfortable with.

Look at this way at least you didnt give your money to Fabtech.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but I don't think the OP did anything wrong knowing what he knew then. Sending the $$ in increments up until the point of dropping the car off was what worked best for him, it shouldn't be any different than paying for it all at once and I'm sure he had his reasons for doing things how he did.

However it sounds like Bruce may have had/have some problems, and the OPs change of plans caught him off guard. This is in no way an excuse for not having the parts or the capital available to the customer,but more of an agnowlegement that at the time of the deal being made, the OP had no reason to not feel secure IMO

I hope everything works out Ok!

Sorry to hear Kevin, sorry to hear man. I would hope this all gets sorted out so that both parties are satisfied.

Whether Kevin was infront of the shop or not, has absolutely nothing to do with the thread imo, he maybe non confrontational.

Good luck in resolving this!

wth?

My tuner did that and still has not got the $$$ he is owed. So what side are you going to defend? Oetuning or Bruce?? Just sharing what I was told when my car got tuned in jan 2013 this year.
Kelvin sorry to hear about this. Payments were made and no service or parts in turn. Pm me your Paypal. I want to make a donation to you

The 4000$ cash was so he had a bit extra for Xmas gifts... wow, this is really a terrible thing to read about, I feel for you op.

Yeah sending $4k cash in the mail is pretty sketchy...

Op I feel for you.. Hope this gets resolved in a hurry... You should have paid by credit card so you have a way to dispute the charges.. NEVER EVER pay cash up front.. Good Luck......

He said he was taking this into legel action already maybe he was told by his lawyer not to confront him. Or do anything that would risk him not getting his money back. If he walks in to the shop and politely asks for his money or he started a ruckus this is something you can use in court as a threat. Who knows im not a lawyer but i think op did the right thing by not walking into the place. He seems to have his story straight and is on the right path. i have talked to bruce a few times and he has been very helpful and willing with his time to help me sort out some of my issues. So i hope all this works out and both party's resolve this issue.

Exactly, confronting him would have been pointless, why would I need to do that?, I called him several times from a pre-paid New Jersey number I got, left a message, emailed him letting him know I was there, I was ignored.

The $4k I sent in the mail were a huge error in judgement on my part, I asked for a bank account to make the deposit, but was told the UPS had worked perfectly for other customers, and it worked for me too, the money arrived.

I simply want Bruce to either the give me the parts I requested or my money back, I have tried working something out for over 3 months, but it is tough to make something work when only one party seems interested.

I hope he reads this, comes in here and says, "I will correct this error by this date, I will keep everybody updated", I just got tired of waiting, because I have no guarantees that the 2-3 month period he asked for will be met, I could be waiting until next year, it has happened with other tuners, so I decided to let fellow members know, just in case anybody was thinking of doing what I did.

Hopefully you guys can fix this

Anyone asking a customer to send $4000 cash in the mail is very dodgy. Seems like there is a new tuner horror story every month on these forums.

Thank you my friend, I appreciate the gesture, but your support is more than enough, thanks again for the kind words.

I have full knowledge of what happened with said tuner and what he did to get paid and the zero results it yielded, but I decided against mentioning tuner or member names.

This stuff has been happening for a while and the more we keep it quiet, the worst it's going to get.

Wow I can't believe that!
I got beat for 500 from a dog breeder, and wanted to get the bat!
I can't imagine getting stiffed out of 20k

Completely agree.

Dose TTM stand for 'Take The Money ' ?

Damn bro that sucks, i hope you get your money back. Its unethical what he did. I own my business. And if a customer gives me money for a product even though they dont need it for a while i order it that week. They trusted me with their money im not going to use it for something else or hold on to it. When they want their product its here ready to go. its not their right to use the funds on how they want to, cause you never know what happens something might come up or customer asks for a refund. I really hope you get your money back. You have every right to be upset.

However, with the legal system the way it is consult with your lawyers before posting more online, i dont think anything bad can happen because you are just expressing your opinions but you never know if it does end up going to court you don't want anything that might jeopardize your case. Im not a lawyer but i would just make sure you keep track of everything and consult them before anything. If he does happen to call you make sure your conversation is recorded and inform him its being recorded(or its not legally binding). 20k is alot of money. Either way he should own up to it and give you your money back, if he doesnt have it he needs to come up with some type of legally binding payment plan, and at least send you some good faith money or parts.

Wait... OE and TTM had a falling out? Story time, pls.

Denroll, you are slow on the uptake- That was news 8 months ago.....

PS- Thanks for the movie last night, what was that in the pop-corn bucket I kept running into??

I have not psoted here in a LONG time. My 2 cents

Bruce has always been a stand up guy. He has gone WAY out of his way for me for no personal gain. He has provided me with some awesome deals, and I would consider him a friend. When things have been less than perfect, I have made my comments- No koolaid - No fanboy bs - No preferential treatment. And Bruce has ALWAYS been there to assist. Every-time. So that establishes his charter in my mind.

1. I would never send money to anyone without a plan and an agreement. That is simply a bad way to do business and puts everyone involved in a bad place.
2. Making a change half way through as big as "lets use a truck instead" has it's consequences. Not $18K, but something
3. Bruce seems to have explained he had some issues to work through, so I would give him the benefit of the doubt, and call him.. work it out.

Since when did they start putting salty-sour-cream on popcorn? Not that it wasn't good.. just different


Signature:
Faster than his ^

That's for either of them to talk about on the forum not anyone else

Some of you keep saying call him, did you not read on top of numerous ignored emails that he has also called many times and never gets an answer or a call back

^And he comes out of retirement! 8 months ago, I wasn't in civilization. I missed out.

As for what was in the popcorn bucket, umm.... that must have been the kielbasa we ordered, remember? It had their house special salt-mayo sauce.

The view of my car from Bramage's is in my sig.