foxystealth

We rented a car for the UMG last year, and were looking at the Shelby GT-H or a 350Z through Hertz, but no locations even remotely close have them. We ended up getting a Chrysler Crossfire through Avis. Wasn't too shabby... we beat the piss out of it the whole weekend, just had to make sure we cleaned the rubber out of the wheel wells good before we returned it.

I paid $3.50 for the VIN inspection, Around $7 for the title transfer, $40-50 for new plates and registration on each of my vehicles (fees depend on type of vehicle, of course)

Whoops, I forget that I never changed my profile...lol. I'm living in Lima. Moved here from MN about a year and half ago.

Yeah, FHA has certain minimum property standards that the house must meet, and they can be pretty strict. From what I've heard, FHA's are easier to qualify for, but if your looking for a cheaper home, fixer-upper, or foreclosure, you might have problems getting FHA. Speak with some different lenders and see what they can offer you- you may be able to find one that will offer 0% down with low interest on a conventional loan. Like others mentioned, you will have to pay higher mortgage insurance (PMI) per month with no down payment (around 40-50 bucks). Compare closing costs also- they can vary quite a bit between companies. Sometimes you can even negotiate with the seller to have them cover closing costs, but most likely they'll be less flexible on the price of the house.

I failed to subract the 2 month wait for the shortblock. That was my mistake and I APOLOGIZE. I will go back and edit my original post. The time frame we should be looking at is approx. 6 months... which is still ridiculously long. And I did not post it numerous times like you say, only the once.

Because I have a life, Jeff.

This is Jeremy chiming in to explain in more detail my dealings with IPS. I brought my car to your shop 3-10-05. Unfortunatly I do not have documentation showing when I ordered the new shortblock, but I know it was after I moved to Lima and started school. I started school on May the 9th and it was about 1 month after that when you called me and told me it was a defective shortblock, and I started my attempt on getting it replaced under warranty. I would have gotten the shortblock a little quicker if you would have gotten the reciepts out of the folder that was in my car, "like I asked you to" numerous times. But you never did so I had to go through the process of getting copies from Mitsubishi for the original shortblock, and I had to get copies of the towing bill from the towing company to prove how long the car had been down. I will give you all the benefit of the doubt and say it took maybe two months to get it cleared. I picked up the shortblock on the 16 of July and took it straight to your shop. From there it was waiting on you guys. As far as the heads are concerned, you guys sent them out and I have never recieved documentation that they were done, or how long they were at the machine shop. As soon as you provide that information I will gladly edit the time frame. I belive it was sometime in September when Jeff called me saying the the car was nearly done, and would be done by the end of the week. I called later in the week to check, and Jeff said he never promised the car would be done. This hapened at least two more times in the following weeks. One time you admitted to having delays due to spending all of your time getting your 300z ready for the magazine article (despite my telling you I needed the car back ASAP, as my other car was dying, and I would have no form of transportation). Car was finally finished, and I picked it up on Oct. 22. Unfortunatly I was a little short on cash due to some unexpected money issues, and you guys cut me a deal (letting me pay only $3000 of the $4179 bill right then), which was greatly appreciated. I immediately experienced problems with the car and I called you. You said you were going to come and fix it in the parking lot, but you ended up driving it back to your shop runing on five cylinders. You diagnosed as a bad spark plug wire, "not as spark plugs as you stated in your earlier post". So you took my brand new MSD's off and put used Accel wires on. It was during this visit that the car was broken into. We picked the car up, and shortly after I experienced the same problems with the car again. Approx. 3 weeks after it left your shop the car was dead. I was going to try to diagnose the problems myself so I would know if the probem was related to your work or not. I didn't want to bring the car back accusing you if the problems had nothing to do with your work. Unfortunatly I never got the time between full time work and school every evening. About two months later you gave me a call "with your unprofessional attitude". I explained what was going on and I told you what the hold up was. At this point I was very frustrated with your shop, and felt very uncomfortable bringing the car back to you. I told you when I figured out what the problem was that I would pay you the money owed. Shortly after you called again "with your unprofessional attitude", making accusations that I just didn't want to pay, and threatened to get a lawyer involved. You made the comment that you called me xx amount of times and that is false information because I never recieved any of them. I will admit that I should have kept in touch more, but unfortunately my busy schedule distracted me. Again, I apologize for this. At this point I decided that I would bring the car back to you, but only after I had another shop look over a few things. You called me, and as soon as I explained this to you you had a hissy fit, and went on a half-hour rant on how bringing it anywhere else was useless since no one would know jack squat about the car. The car was towed to the dealership the following week, where the diagnosis of the bad MAF and CAS sensors was made, as my girfriend already explained in her post. I called you immediatly after with the diagnosis, and you then admitted to suspecting the ECU. Deep down I was weary of my car going back to your shop again, because I knew what the outcome would be- That again you would say there was nothign wrong with the car aside from the tuning of the arc2, and charge me for Misc other things. Guess what? I was correct. When I came to pick the car up you tried to charge me for a tranny leak that I KNOW I never had (perhaps a ploy to get the "interest" that you knew you couldn't legally charge me?). You said you found no problem with the ECU, and that a plug change and an adjustment to the arc2 got the car running again. I knew that the underlying issue was still not solved, but at this point I was so frustrated with your shop that I just wanted my car back, and I paid you the remaing amount I owed you. Fast forward to this weekend. Like my girlfriend already told you, my friend and I spent the other night working on the car and found the problem with my car, which is explained in her post. I'm sorry that a simple comment that she made had to turn into all of this, but in a way im kinda glad it did because the only point i really care to make is The way Jeff handles situations, and puts an unproffesional face on IPS's name. I know that IPS is capable of good work it's just unfortunate that my experience was not so great and my girlfriend has every right to express it if she feels like it. To add to that she isn't nearly as ignorant as you think, I would put her knowledge of 3s's up against most other owners. As far as PhantomCRX's "so called incompetence" goes I would put his knowledge of any given vehicle up against yours. So for your own sake don't always assume your the only one that knows 3s's Jeff and that no one else does. I might have more to add, but I'm not sure its worth my time since its very limited.

Mike, you obviously made your post before I made mine regarding the wiring, and how the problem was fixed. Care to comment?

I truely apologize for flooding your thread with this nonsense. Fellow members were commenting on their experiences with IPS, and I thought I had every right to do the same. I am glad you had a wonderful experience with them, as I'm sure many others have also. We were just not as fortunate, I guess. As far as me posting instead of my boyfriend? I am not as out-of-the-loop as Jeff thinks I am regarding this matter. I have followed the whole situation very closely, and have gotten all of the facts from my boyfriend. I would not make such a post without evidence to back it up. I also hope I am not being accused as being ignorant due to the fact I am female. I have followed these cars (3/S's) for a while now, and I know more than Jeff obviously gives me credit for.

Again, a lie. The car had to come back not even a week after we picked it up from you, because it ran like a pile of crap. THAT's when it was broken into.

First off, why did you lie about not having touched the wiring on the arc-2 until I posted the bill proving you had? Secondly, Jeremy NEVER had any issues with the arc-2 unit or the wiring before it came into your shop, so we know that the original wiring was never the problem. He knows what the wiring looked like under there before you worked on it, and knows it looked nothing like the hack-job mess he found afterwards. You did a half-assed job reconnecting the arc-2 just enough to get the unit working, you said it yourself above (Although, we're not sure why it wouln't have worked anyways, since it worked absolutely fine when it came into your shop). You may wonder why I am focusing so much on the arc-2 and the wiring, and I will tell you. My bf and his "incompetent" friend, or so you call him, spent last night diagnosing and fixing what we are sure has been the problem ever since the car left your shop. Somewhere in reconnecting the arc-2, you left wires improperly grounded, affecting signal from the MAF and CAS. The dealership that looked at his car, the week before it went back to your shop for the third time, found a fading/on-off signal from the MAF and CAS. We told you this before you picked the car up, and even you admitted that it was most likely an issue with the ECU. So when you found nothing wrong with the ECU, you assumed that the problem was nothing but his supposed "innability to tune" causing the spark plugs to foul. You ignored what we told you about the signals (and the CEL's the car was throwing), didn't look any further into the problem, and simply changed the spark plugs. Well last night my bf and the "imcompetent" friend tried to tackle whatever problem the car was still having (since the underlying problem was never fixed). Once again, the car was a no-start. We checked the ECI fuse and found that to be blown. Replaced that, car tried to start, chugged a little, then died. So they then disconected the arc-2 unit, this time the car started and ran, but ran very badly. They then traced the wires under the console, where they found the improperly grounded wires, and grounded them themselves. Guess what? Car started up great! Can you imagine?! I bet you also would have had a hard time tuning the arc-2 with a bad MAF signal. Care to retract that statement? LOL PS... I'm working on getting those dates for you

Oh really? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/TraciBande/IPSInvoice.jpg So do you charge customers for work you didn't do? Or are you just trying to cover up your work?

Lucky for you... They took 6 months to do a shortblock swap on my bf's car. Car has never run right ever since. I won't doubt that they have many satisfied customers, but our experience with them was very sub-par.

I saw a gorgeous blue one driving north on 75 outside of Toledo last month. It was teh sex.

I sometimes do some graphic design work in my free time. I've done a t-shirt for a local sport compact club, and a logo and banner ad for a local shop, among other things.