Shark Racer

Same here... almost seems like the stuff I eff up turns out better than what the professionals do. :|

Rockn-Roll

At least it's good to know that it's not just me. But, I can't help but think that for everyone one of us Corvette owners that can't do anything about a bad shop i.e. like my parents actually paying for it and not giving me a recourse to complain...there's 10 others that will just turn around and take the work to another shop and not complain...except perhaps online. If a shop screws us over we absolutely need to take them to court and have them pay to get it fixed...so that not only does the car get decent workmanship, but any shop screwing around would actually be sending customers to their competition and having them pay for it...if the courts are just that is...a big IF in some parts of the U.S.

noonie

I can relate to all of this.
Just last nite I was trying to teach my 11 year old the decimal places. Was taught to her yesterday in school and she didn’t quite grasp the relationship to fractions. Was ready to pull my hair out.

For those that are more “visual” people, the accepted runout is about the same as the average thickness of a caucasian head hair.

...Roger...

Funny when I tell people that ,they say " What ? " No **** thats all it takes to screw-up these brakes ?

Tom454

I can't believe you were still a virgin.... you need to get out more.

TheSkunkWorks

After a few bad experiences of my own, and of hearing plenty others, I've wished I could afford to open a proper Corvette shop myself. There's obviously still room in the market for such if those that don't know what they're doing (or don't care) manage to stay in business any period of time.

Tom454

I was in business with 7 bays and a machine shop. The "bread & Butter" part of the business ends up being standard, every day, non-Corvette repairs. Not enough volume on the run-of-the-mill Vette repairs to keep the family fed. A lot of the guys that do this stuff have "day jobs". All of my friends (competitors) were always living at the edge... not enough money. People in general are not willing to pay for the work to be done the "right way". It takes extra time and extra tool bits to turn rotors with minimum (multiple) cuts and slow feed. But the "cost per rotor" ends up being the decision factor... you can't charge $20 to do it right when the next guy is only charging $10 to do it wrong. Everybody still flocks to the next guy. The market simply does not bear that out. I did have a few customers who understood the concept of "do it right the first time" and were willing to pay. But most couldn't care less. So.... I left the business. I went into an industry where I made 4 times as much money and never looked back. Moral of the story.... unless you can go big like the major vendors we have here, don't quit your day job. Notice that the big guys also sell parts.... not just machine shop service. I'm not saying it's a bad idea... just don't bet the farm on it.

joewill

absolutely, the number of corvettes out there does not justify a corvette only repair shop. mix that with the high percentage of corvette enthusiasts that work on their own cars.. usually setting up a corvette repair shop is suicide.

of course then one can get into the C4,C5, C6 repair business and then you are losing specific expertise.. those C4 early computers are a nightmare.

then you get into the 'corvette tax' added on to your repair bill.

there are several threads here of folks complaining about high cost for cheap work..

that is human nature folks.. that will never change.

some have done well with a single specialization with excellent service and high quality workmanship. but these people are rare.

TheSkunkWorks

I hear what you guys are saying, but then - falling back on past family business experience in auto restoration and mine in racing - a typical repair shop isn't exactly what I have in mind, tho taking care of Corvettes would certainly be somewhat the specialty.

Rockn-Roll

Actually, there are two Corvette only shops within 2 blocks of each other here in Sacramento, CA...they are actually in Rancho Cordova which is a suburb. They both seem to be doing very well and have been in business for 10 years.

I find it exceedingly strange then that the last time I checked which was about 5 years ago nobody on this forum actually lives near here. There was one member that lived in Willits which is a good 50 miles from here, and a few down in the bay area. Perhaps that has changed...it's been about a year since I've even visited the forum.

If anyone wants to open a decent Corvette only shop then this is the place to do it. From all the posts it seems likely that these two shops have been creating their own work by damaging other parts while they fix something...at least they did it to me...they fixed my broken spindle, but then the brakes started to fail after that...and they were in excellent shape when I took it in.

vetterestorer1

Hi, I am Dick from Corvette Care, one of the founding owners, now back (Keith is also back). We pride ourselves as professionals and do look out for our customers. Please call me at work so that we can get to the bottom of this (916) 638-1911. I will talk to Phillip on Monday morning to find out what he knows. Typically, when the rotors are still riveted to the hubs, the run-out is next to nothing. Additionally, we do indeed sublet turning rotors -- just to clean them up. And, we have been using the same machine shop for years without problems or complaints.

I was an original owner of Corvette Care until around June of 2004 and we repurchased the business about a year ago. A Corvette only business would have a hard time staying in business with such a small group of clients if they thought we were unprofessional hacks. We are not hacks and give good value for our service with many, many satisfied customers. Hopefully, we can make you a satisfied customer.

Keep in mind that I cannot comment for what happened at Corvette Care from 2004 to December 2009. Keith and I were not there.



Once again, call me.

Dick

PeteZO6

I have known Dick for several years. He is a serious businessman; this is reflected in the care he takes while working on his customer's cars as well as his own Corvettes. He replaced the foam and seat covers on my '69 a few years ago. They look like they did when the car was new! I feel confident that now that Dick is aboard the problem reported here, the OP will be completely satisfied with the resolution.

My seats after Dick restored them with the original type Comfortweave vinyl insert seat covers.

Pete

myoriginal77

At the least ....


Frank

Rockn-Roll

I brought my receipts from 2006 and my rotors down to Corvette Care and talked to Phillip. He looked at my receipts and couldn't explain the problem...he indicated that the previous owners had a brake lathe of their own...looks like they didn't know how to use it or something. He looked at the rotors while they were still in my trunk and measured the rotor thickness and indicated that they are too narrow and that I will need to buy some new ones.

He referred me to CarQuest to buy new rotors and shared info on how to drill the rivets out and install new ones. I brought up the fact that many of us have reported problems with new rotors on old hubs which he apparently doesn't believe is a problem. I guess the only way I'm going to get anything done is to go ahead and replace the rotors and get a dial indicator and shims. I thought there was somebody that indicated new hubs might be available sometime soon...anyone know anything about it?

centralcalvette

Machining rotors is fairly simple, whoever messed up these rotors didn't know what they were doing. It probably could have been prevented by securing the rotors tightly to the hubs with lugnuts (turned with the cone facing out), this was only compunded by the Corvette shop not having enough integrity to do the right thing. They obviously don't understand how simple a job this is, nor that there is no way they should have let those rotors leave the shop. You're in business, sometimes you have to take a hit and do the right thing, or if you do the wrong, lazy thing, you can just get free bad publicity. Good job Corvette Care...

Rockn-Roll

It's getting worse. The rotors I ordered from CarQuest...which I was directed by Corvette Care to buy...don't have the holes for the rivets, plus the wheel studs they sold me are too large and not the same size. I measured the holes in my hubs for the studs and they are .4560". Here's the measurements for the shaft of the studs (the fins stick out more than what I measured):

The originals: .4560"
2 of the new Studs: .4565"
1 of the new Studs: .4580"
1 of the new Studs: .4590"
8 of the new Studs: .4630"

I've done extensive research and crunched the numbers for interference fit installations, and if I use the .4630" studs in my .4560" holes...and my hub survives then I could put over 2 tons of torque on the wheel nuts if I wanted! I used a desired torque of 120ftlb for a safe margin and the calculations came to a .002" interference fit installation with Steel studs in Steel hubs which require heating the hubs to 200ºC. But, the studs aren't designed for an interference fit...they are designed with fins which deform during installation and which dig into the hole (there's plastic deformation in the holes where the fins dug in) to provide the necessary resistance to the required torque.

I've gone as far as buying a $200 IR heat gun so I can make sure I heat the .4630" studs up enough for the installation (the calculations indicate that the hub needs to be nearly 600ºC) so I won't be beating on the hub with a sledge hammer and bend them out of shape. But, then I realized that this is insane for me to continue to follow the advice of a shop that damaged my rotors by turning them with a lathe when all I wanted was for them to sandblast them, plus wouldn't fix them after they damaged them.

I did remove the rotors from the hubs. I bought the dial indicator and installed the hubs onto the spindles by themselves...just to make sure the hubs were OK. The dial indicator only moved .007" when measuring the near the rim and rotating the hub 360º. That should be fine...at most there would be only .014" runout if the rotors are perfect (because the distance out to the rim of the rotor is about twice that to the rim of the hub).

It also proves that the rotors were destroyed by Corvette Care and not my hubs being bent or whatever, but they don't care because, as Phillip put it...he already has 30 customers giving him work. Which I gather means that no matter how bad he treats me and loses my business he will still survive. He also made it clear that he doesn't care about internet activities like CorvetteForum.com...he mentioned trying to get involved but didn't continue. He also made it sound like he was the owner...not Dick a.k.a. vetterestorer1...and had the last say in the matter. Dick, vetterestorer1, was not around when I revisited Corvette Care and most likely already talked to Phillip after my showing Phillip my rotors and has said nothing in this thread since my last post.

If Corvette Care is using CarQuest for their parts and providing the workmanship that they have shown me then those 30 customers probably have cars that are totally out-of-whack and don't know it. Seriously...if you are in Sacramento then plan on working on your own car...contact some of us in the area to assist if necessary, but don't take your car to Corvette Care or Corvette World unless you want to drive home with a car that wouldn't be safe even in a 3rd world country. I'm done with them...I don't care if 100's of customers and owners and previous owners of these shops come in here and claim they do good work. I shouldn't have to work on rotors damaged by a shop...they should have offered to sell me new rotors and offer to allow me to pay them to install the hubs onto the new rotors, but obviously they aren't concerned about the money. All they did was make me sign the receipt saying that they were not street legal anymore. I gave them an opportunity to do right and they sent me to a supplier that provided me with non-OEM rotors and overlarge studs which would deform and probably damage my hubs.

I'm taking the rotors and studs back today and will order the right stuff from one of the supporting vendors that we know care about their internet customers.

Mike Ward

Ouch.

Don't take any of this the wrong way but-

The guy that owns the shop now didn't own it and wasn't there when the rotors were damaged. Why would he assume liability for the previous owner's screw up?

He suggested buying new rotors from Car Quest- I assume in good faith. You're not happy with the rotors. Your argument is with Car Quest, not the shop. There's nothing wrong with no rivet-hole rotors. Re-riveting them is redundant.

Why are you changing wheel studs? Again, if the new ones are incorrect, take them back and go somewhere else.

noonie

Why don't you just get some quality studs from ARP (better tolerances) and buy yourself a quality reamer for less than 50 bucks and size the rotors properly for interference fit.
Easy to do and better than any purchused of the shelf solutions.

Rockn-Roll

Give me a break. If you buy a business you become owner of the property, the revenue, AND the liability. My rotor was damaged by a business and not an individual. The only exception that I know of is when the owner files bankruptcy, and it doesn't sound like that's what happened. It also sounds like they have exchanged ownership a couple of times before...perhaps they think like you and hope to disuade customers from collecting on debts by saying, "oh...it wasn't us...it was the previous owners". Forget it...they damaged my rotors and did nothing to fix it. I gave the Business a second chance with a second owner and they steered me to the wrong place. Phillip said that he gets his rotors from that exact same place.

I just got through talking to Ken at CarQuest when he provided me with a refund and told me that those are the only rotors they have. Thus, Corvette Care would never be able to restore a car per NCRS standards...unless they try to drill the rivet holes themselves, and I think it's obvious that they don't have the skills to do the job. Heck, when I was there showing Philip there was a mechanic that was talking about his pickle fork he was using. A Pickled Fork! Those things damage suspension parts...for cars that you want to treat nicely a mechanic must use a ball joint and pitman arm puller...Pickle forks are for working on crappy cars that you don't care if it damages the parts.

Rivets were a part of the design of the C3 Corvettes...if you think you can do a better job then apply at GM. He actually said that Car Quest was where he buys his rotors...as I indicated he, or some shade tree mechanic he hired is drilling out the holes himself...probably with a hand drill.

As I said...Philip said that's where he gets them...so he must be installing oversized studs into all the cars that need them. I can take them back and go somewhere else, but his unknowing customers have no choice do they? Him or his mechanic are probably reaming out the rivet holes themselves, or not even bothering...why should he care if it's not NCRS approved?

Mike Ward

Well, I was trying to help by injecting some common sense and experience, but it seems you've already got all the answers. I think I see why the shop owner became hostile towards you.

Good luck!