mimi

Hi everyone,

I know I hardly post here, but some of you might know that I am rominl's wife. As he probably posted before, we purchased our SC430 last November.

I have been quiet for quite a while, but I don't think I can hold it anymore. We went to Luxury Motorworks for some work couple of months ago, and even up till now I am still very mad and furious about it.

We had only some very simple things done, and they messed up all of them. Worst of all, they damaged our driver side door panel and it will never be the same anymore. The whole door panel is bent or whatever, and you see an uneven gap easily compared to the passenger side.

It's something I have to look at every day when I drive the car. They have no idea how heart breaking that is to me. It's not a 10,000 dollar toy, it's a 60,000 dollar car, a car that I have liked and dreamed for so long. A car that my husband works so hard to get me. And a car that they messed up and leave us with no solution. It's not something that couple of "sorry" can do.

They messed up a lot of other things too. I don't know every detail, you can ask my husband about it. And we talked to some people and seems like we are not alone.

I feel so mad about them and sad about the car that I really cried before. I will never go back for any service, not even the simplest oil change. I just see no trust in them at all. If they can mess up my door panel when installing their own luxlink modules, and can't even install the coilover right, how can i trust them with anything on my car?

This is my personal experience, and I learned a big lesson, a very costly one. I am very disappointed and mad at Luxury Motorworks, and I ask everyone to be cautious about them.

AutoCoutureSC

iTrader: (8)

Sorry to hear Mimi....

I'm glad to hear you speaking out against these vendors. Maybe Henry would chime in and add a few comments...

White98ARISTO

iTrader: (5)

I feel your pain.... Huge problems with my fuel filter and other maintenance. Very disappointed with my experiences with them.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...44#post1173844

Tommy

Wald GS

iTrader: (1)

If they bent your panels, they should fix it... It's a matter of what's right and what's wrong. If they are at fault and are a top notch company, they should correct this problem and not offer some free car wash to compensate.

reamemiya

iTrader: (1)

sorry to hear...

yeah these guys really aren't any good at all. i wanted to say something before, but was afraid i would only get flamed by those who swear by these guys.

yeah everyone should be cautious where and who they take your car to not only LMS, but any place or shop.

GSXOTIC

iTrader: (6)

i agree with bryan. Recall my instance with Longo when they mess up my wheels. Although process was a bit longer than anticipated, but eventually it was taking care. The end result -- I went back and bought my SC430 two months later..... I hope they will do something about it!

r00kie

Man, that really sux. I agree that if they messed up your car, they need to fix it.

Hopefully, they are not getting complacent with their service. I haven't had any problems so far (knock on wood).

Please let us know of any new updates.

AsianGirl007

iTrader: (1)

Hey Mimi and Rominl!

I am so sorry about the problems with your car. Mimi I know how much you love that car.

I saw your SC430 and there is a definate gap issue between the panels. It's unfortunate that no one can figure out why it's like that.

Give me a call next time you are in the area and I'll see if my guys can help you.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

my wife called me today at work and she said she posted on clublexus. without thinking much i already knew what she meant, so i came home not too long ago and decided i should post up so people can fully understand what happened.

around the end of march or early april, another cl member was selling parts off his sc430, and we negotiated a deal to swap stuff off his car to my car. i got the tein cs coilovers, the daizen sway bars, and the luxlink unit. since he didn't have the stock sc430 suspensions, we had to go somewhere where both cars could go on the lifts at the same time. the other member suggested luxury motorworks, and since i didn't have another choice, i comply.

i thought these are pretty simple jobs. coilovers and sways are common, and the luxlink is their own products, so it should be fine. so we went there, and after a full day's work, everything was done and i went home.

it was a saturday and when i drove the car on sunday, i started to notice something weird. there were some noise from the front suspension, especially on uneven roads. and i noticed a very annoying squeak on the driver side door. i figured it's something about the door panel rubbing against another plastic or so.

so i was like wtf... great, we would have to go back to lmw... being about 350 miles away, it's quite some hassle for me to find a weekend, fly down, and drive over, and spend time to fix those problems.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

one weekend in may, we took the car to lmw and i told them about the squeak on my door panel. jacen took the car for a test drive, came back and said he could hear it. he said he asked ray what could be the cause and the reply was "squeak on the sc430? good luck figuring it out" jacen drove it more with me and finally he figured that the problem was the door panel rubbing against the dash. he proceeded to say that everything seems to be in place well, and the solution would be to put some vaseline between the door panel and the dash.

now i got worried, i was like what? and he really put vaselin on my door panel!!!!! at that time i was like ok fine, i am outta here, i don't think it's worth my time being here..... not even on the suspension. i don't need more vaseline.

so we left lmw. my wife and i noticed that there is a nice even gap of about 1/16 inch between the pessenger side door panel and the dash, but on the driver side the door panel is completely pushing against the dash, no gap, not even a paper can get through.

after discussing with couple of my friends and also my wife, we came to the conclusion that maybe i should let someone else look at my car rather than lmw. the fact that they use vaseline to fix my door squeak was impressive enough to give me second thoughts about them. but before i could do that, worst nightmare happened.

one evening when we go out at night, we unlocked the sc430 and the car went crazy, windows suddenly came down, and the top came down. before i could react, the top started going back up again. now at that point i was panic since my remote was out of control and i couldn't do anything. i finally scrambled to squeezed into the car and just started the car. everything stopped, but now it kept on saying that my door is open, and i can't lock the car anymore.

i was totally screwed since i was not able to find anyone to fix my car, and i couldn't leave the car unlocked... i finally got a hold of my personal mechanic, and i rush to his shop at over 9pm at night.

he helped me to take off the door panel, and to our surprise, the wires that connect the luxlink systems, they were pinched. that probably caused a short and messed up the systems. he helped me to rewire everything but that didn't help. and finally at 10:30pm i found steve from lmw and he told me to just cut all the luxlink wires and everything went back to normal (minus the luxlink of course).

at that time, we were pretty stunned and pissed to say the least..... i decided to let my mechanic have the car so he could look at everything that lmw did (coilovers, sways, and luxlink). i told him about the noise i heard on the suspensions and the door panel, and i asked him to check that for me. little could we guess how shocking the results were....

i am going to document them here so you guys can see what happened for yourself. we took all the pictures as well

rominl

iTrader: (4)

coilver
=====

when he took off the wheels, he noticed that some brackets in the front suspensions (i believe to hold up the abs lines) are completely bent. yes, those are not major piece, but it's a matter of doing it right and clean, and this is very lousy in every way. moreover, one screw holding the abs line was completely loose.

also, on the rear suspension, we noticed that the coilover somehow pushed up against the rear wheel well and clipped on the plastic flaps. again it's not major but then i am not sure if it should happen in the first place

we also found out that lmw probably used impact guns or so on my wheels, since some lug nuts were put on pretty tight, and one lug nut actually almost stripped (some metal came off). yes, it's just stock wheels, but no, you should never do that.


pessenger side front, bracket bent


driver side front, bracket bent. screw (green arrow) is also completely loose


plastic flap damaged


same thing to the other side


pessenger side fixed bracket


driver side all fixed

rominl

iTrader: (4)

sways
=====

being an authorized daizen installer, i had 100% faith in my mechanic to check on the sway bar install. and to my surprise the daizen sway bars install had even more problems.

first of all, ALL (repeat, ALL) end links were put on in the wrong directions. per daizen's instructions (and also been discussed numerous times here on cl that even i know), the end links have to be flipped since the bars are longer than stock ones. but no, they did not.

on the rear, it's "ok" since i put on the tein cs coilovers. but if i am on the stock springs/shocks setup, it would have been disaster since it will hit the springs constantly.

for the front, it's way worse. with the wrong setup, the end link actually rubbed very badly against one suspension bolt. and in my case? my driver side end link was torn and grease was leaking already.

that's not the end of the story on sway bars. remember the suspension squeak? i asked my mechanic if that's from the end link, he said no. and he pointed to the source -- completely dried out sway bar bushings, front and rear. yes, they were COMPLETELY dry. i was stunned, speechless. my mechanic then helped me to regrease all the bushings and put them back together.


pessenger rear sway bar end link, put on wrong


driver rear sway bar end link, put on wrong


driver side fixed end link, also put grease on the bushing


pessenger side fixed end link, also grease on the bushing

rominl

iTrader: (4)

pessenger front, bad angle, but you can see that the end link is very very close to the bolt (wrong direction)


driver front, you can see that the bushing is touching the bolt


arrow pointing at the bolt that the end link rubs against. tell me they "didn't know"?




you can see the torn end link, and the grease leaking out. this is on a car with like 2000 miles

rominl

iTrader: (4)

pessenger side, took from the front. you can see the RIGHT position of the end link.


completely dry sway bar bushing


driver side end link in the right position


pessenger side bushing greased


rear bushing greased

rominl

iTrader: (4)

door panel / luxlink
==============

last of all was the luxlink and the door panel. i was sure the door panel squeak was due to the luxlink install, since i didn't have that before and they had to take off the door panel when installing the luxlink.

my mechanic had no idea how luxlink worked so he didn't touch anything besides rewiring. he said the idea to have those wires going through a metal hole is a completely wrong procedure. my mechanic is a professional audio installer and he said any audio shop would tell you that. rubber rubbing against metal, that never works. and that's why the stock wires they run all the way across the door and then up, that's to prevent any rubbing

he thought that's the reason why the door panel rubbed against the dash, since the door panel can't go flush anymore coz' of the wires. but rewiring the wires didn't help. the door panel still rubs against the dash.

after some more testing, it seemed to us that the door panel was bent causing it not able to lay completely flush with the door, thus bubbling up and rubs against the dash. we then tried to bend the panels back a bit and it helped quite a bit. at least we were able to slice a paper through, but the 1/16 gap was still not there



please compare the driver and pessenger side door panel gap and tell me there is a difference. see how heart breaking it is?