I purchased the stage 2 valve body upgrade from Paramount Performance Products on 3-18-13. Immediately after installing it my car would no longer shift into 5th gear. When in auto mode it would pop into limp neutral (limp mode) about 45 mph, and in manual mode it would pop when I clicked into 5th.

I let Bill Shurr (aka Builder Bill) know of the problem immediately and he told me to take it to the dealer and have the codes read. I make an appt at the dealer as soon as they could get me in. They checked the adaptative values and they were all good. Checked oil level and filter and all was good. Car would still not go into 5th. I email bill there findings and tell him they think it is the conductor plate and that I think it has to do with his valve body since problem started right when I put it in. I get no response from him.

I put in a new a conductor plate, and that does not solve problem. I check TCU for oil and it is bone dry. I email Bill all along with updates and he does not respond to any emails. I take to an independent Mercedes center, waste more money there. They suggest a $1300 part. Bill finally answers one of my dozen emails to him. Bill agrees that the TCU is the part that is bad. It did not fix it. I email him several more times, no response. He finally answers an email to his website and blames it on the ton of debris he now says he found in my valve body, but I have his original email stating there was really no debris in it when he opened it up. And my pan was totally clean when I pulled the valve body.

I ended up spending almost $2000 in chasing the problem. It would have been $4000 but the independent center felt bad and refunded me $2000 in labor for tearing tranny apart and going through it

Well it turns out the problem was Bill at Paramount did not tighten a single bolt holding the valve body together. I figured it out this weekend 7-14-13, and now my car drives perfect after almost 4 months of not being able to drive it and pending tons of time and money on trying to figure out his mistake.

I stated in multiple emails to Bill Shurr that I would send the valve body back to him and have him double check his work, but he either ignored me or blamed it on other things in my car.


My warning to all is to stay away from Paramount Performance. Bill Shurr is so egotistical that he would never once acknowledge that he could have missed something, or forgot something and would not take it back to double check his work. His website states “Our warranty is the best in the industry” That’s a complete lie because he will not refund my money, or reimburse me for the several thousand spent trying to fix the problem caused by his error.

 

yet another shop fail...

 

Thanks for posting and sharing.

 

Urbanworm has a Paramount valve body, you should talk to him.

 

I remember Builder Bill starting his work on the SRT Jeep boards. Never dealt with him, though.

 

Geez, seems like you have experienced the complete opposite of my experience. I had an issue with my car getting stuck in gear (ended up being shavings clogging up the valve body) so I decided to send it out to Paramount Performance to get the stage 2 mod and get cleaned in the process. Got it back and put in and drove the car a few minutes and the problem came back (ended up still having junk in the sytem). I emailed back and forth with Bill (which had very fast responses ironically) and ended up taking it out again and I took it apart and cleaned it myself this time with Bill giving me some tips.

At this time I had been putting in new fluid every time (the amount I drained each time which was a few quarts) but there was still some in the torque converter and the lines which had debris in it. It clogged up again so at that time I took it to the dealer to have them do a full flush and put another stock valve body in. I had still been in contact with Bill the whole time telling him what was happening and he was responding quickly and I talked to him a few times on the phone as well. He actually told me to send it back to him and he would take a look at it and clean it for me for free and send it back so I could reinstall it when I wanted since my car finally was working correctly after the tranny flush.

Got the valve body back and installed and has been working perfect ever since.

Everywhere I have read on the internet everyone has been happy with Bill and says he is a nice guy (which I had the same experience) so that is odd he was so working against you from what you are saying.

 

I've had a "builder bill" trans in my s600 for over 4 years without any issues. Just my experience. it does shift hard enough to hit my torque limiter if I hit the gas then immediately let off though. I've just learned not to do that.

 

Sorry to hear that my friend,

I sent a V/B & tq converter to bill for upgrading, he finished them & sent invoice to me,

i didn’t send the payment to him yet, sure i will,,

Bill is such a good person, and nice to contact with,

don’t know with unfortunate why that happened with him....

ZAYED,,

 

I did a ton of reading about him too, and everyone sings his praises. He answered my emails very quickly in the fall when I first contacted him. We talked back and forth several times.

He told me when he got my valve body he would email if anything looked wrong before he started. He did and told me there was very little debris. And that was normal.

He emailed again when it was done to pay him. But as soon as the problem arrose he just blows me off and then blames basically everything else.

I understand people make mistakes, its too bad he wont admit his. As it stands now ive told him I will file a complaint with paypal, my CC and the BBB if he dies not reimburse me. No response so I did what I said I would. My next step I told him I would warn every person I could about him on every forum I can find related to his products. That I am starting now. After that I am going to purchase another stock valve body and compare it to my stage 2 by him and tell everybody what he modifies so he no longer has a secret he can sell. I will put it out for free everywhere I can.

Lastly I will sue him. And not for just the 2000 in wasted money and the 624 for his shotty work, but for lost time driving, missing work, and my tons of labor.

He can stop it by making it right with me. Otherwise I will not stop. I dont screw people and Ill do whatever I can to make sure others dont get screwed.

 

Cm60k

Do yourself a favor and check all the bolts. Im sure mine was a fluke but trust me, it will save you tons of headaches.


Im not saying he doesnt do good work. Im sure he does. Its how he resolves issues when something was done wrong is where my problem is. If he would have offered to take mine back in the very beginning and double check it and he found the loose bolts, tightened them and all would have been just peachy. Instead he leaves me out to dry and costs me thoudands

 

I understand your situation perfectly, bad far to see what’s happening with a good reputation companies...!!?!?!

I have also a problem with " IPT Performance Transmissions",,

shell i put it here or open a new thread....??

ZAYED,,

 

Sure i will do that,

Many Thankss for your value advice....

ZAYED,,

 

You can put it here, but if you start a new thread with their name in the title like I did with paramount, more people will see it.

 

It was all the 25 or so torx bolts under the conductor plate

 

Thankss,,

I will open new thread now....

ZAYED,,

 

*update*

Well not a surprise that Paramount is not a member of the BBB and they did not respond to the complaint I filed with the BBB.

Also Paypal policy is that buyer is protected for 45 days, but I contacted them and forwarded them all of the emails I have sent to Paramount and they say they will review the case and since I have proof I had problems from day one, I should be sitting good. So his idea to keep screwing me around and dragging this out so i'd be screwed with Paypal, looks like hes the one that going to be screwed!

 

Ive come to realize all performance and after market auto companys are going to have a handful of "Bad" and hopefully a lot more "Good" experiences. All i can say is sorry to the o.p and hopefully all these companys can improve there customer service. As someone who mods his car and runs a small business i understand nothing is a 100%. There is always either human error or a mechanical error (in the parts) also what a lot of us don't like to believe is are vehicles have other issues and just so happen to crap out after you have something done to them. The key is how the company or Business treats & resolves the problem. Again sorry for you headache and lost expense you ended up spending. I myself know how much of a headache you have gone through first hand.

 

Good Input & Fully Agree with each [{WORD}].....

ZAYED,,

 

I agree. Everybody makes mistakes. He was offered multiple times to have me ship it back to him to double check his work. But with his giant ego, he just kept saying it couldn't be valve body and blamed it on other parts of car.

How you deal with your mistakes is what makes you a good business or egotistical A-holes.

Don't even know why he says he has the best warranty in the business when he doesn't warranty $h1t.

 

*UPDATE*
You guys will love this. He finally responded to the BBB compliant and every singe word was a complete lie. Here is the quote:

As soon as we received his valve body, he was told that due to being full of sludge and contaminants, we would assume his transmission was shot and this valve body was not intended to fix a bad transmission, but, to enhance thee performance of a good transmission.
He told us to proceed and that he could not afford a transmission for his MERCEDES RACE CAR.
We are sorry he can not afford to fix his transmission, but, he was certainly told that this was NOT a cure for a bad transmission.
Racing is a VERY expensive hobby as he is finding out.


Lets break this down, lie by lie.
There was no sludge in anything, I seen it with my own eyes and I have email from him stating that there was no sludge.

I told them to proceed?....... Show me that email

I cannot afford to fix my "Race Car Mercedes"?
hmmmm not a race car ever. Im what most would consider, fairly wealthy. A new tranny? Really no big deal at all if it was what I needed.

I have every email and was never told a single word of this. Second if I had a sludge filled, bad transmission then why after tightening his bolts down does my car drive like the day it was new?

What a lieing piece of $h1t.

 

i didnt know mercedes made race cars availible to the public? lol

sucks to hear your story...

as others have mentioned they heard a lot of good things about paramount, as did i in the jeep circles.... but then again I heard a TON of Bruce at TTM praises and we all know how badly that ended up.

 

Just being an outsider here...I have to agree with what you say 100%! Although there are two sides to every story, being on forums and seeing this a lot I have learned that no business should ever let it get to this...EVER! The buyer is 'almost' always right and when customers post stuff like this and the biz does not respond to phone calls, emails or, most importantly, forums criticism...THEN YOU ARE GUILTY! That is death for any biz. Just because of this, I personally would NEVER use them. Only my opinion.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself!

 

If there is anything in this world that I disgust more than any other, it's a liar! They are capable of anything. Very sorry for your troubles.