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I pay my bills all on time and give Don no grief but I’m not getting any replies in time and no updated pictures that I asked for. I tell him to hold off on the paint because this is ridiculous and I just don’t trust him anymore. We are now into July and no paint has touched the car and the engine is on a stand still not touched. This is 11 months later and over $6000 paid to Don Walker. He emails me again stating the car is ready to go into paint and will be there this month and we are still on track to getting this done by the deadline we agreed on August 15th 2009. But August 15th is one month away and the car has no paint on it. Don assures me that it will be done, I know it won’t be. He also tells me “you know one of your pistons was cracked and chipped?” I said no and he tells me “yea and 2 of them were warped as well.” I asked him “so then the engine was bad after all but you told me the compression was good.” He proceeds to tell me “the compression was good, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference on a chip like this, the compression test wouldn’t show it” and he agrees to pay for ½ of the pistons costs if I pay 1/2 , so I agree. August 29th 2009 I go to see my car, it’s in a million pieces not done and it somehow has masking on it? Don explains to me it’s in the process of getting put back together and due to the masking I can’t open the doors to look inside, so basically it’s a shell and the windows are taped off and there is black paint on the brown masking? So I ask Don Walker’s mechanic “Did Don paint this car” he tells me “yes he painted it here in the back” Funny? I asked Don not to paint it? So I ask Don, “Who painted this car?” He proceeds to tell me that Harvey from Corvette City painted it. I say hmm, “so you didn’t paint any of this car”? He tells me he painted “some” of the car. I’m pissed, not only does it look like crap but he painted the car even thought I told him in the contract and in person not to. The car looks horrible. One year, or 365 days later and the car is in pieces, the paint is horrible and the engine about 25% done. He tells me they had guys “push the car” to Corvette City to have it painted. But from his shop you have to take the highway and its 13 minutes away according to map quest. I ask his employee “did you ever push my car to a shop to have painted?” He tells me “no Don painted it here in the back” He assures me again that the car will be done in the next 3 weeks because there behind even after 365 days of having the car. He then goes on to tell me and show me my pistons. “You see here, here is that chip, good thing I took the engine apart or else I wouldn’t have noticed this, it must have happened when that map sensor wire was loose.” So of course it’s my fault right? He knew it was loose, I knew it was loose so it’s my entire fault because I’m not the one who put the engine together and into the car he was. Even though he tells me he will pay ½ the piston cost since he verbally warranted my engine, so I agree and pay $500 for the pistons which cost $650. He tells me since he had to next day them and gets them from another supplier there $1000 for him and $500 is half. I ask why so much and he told me he needed them next day (in July) to get the car done. So I give up arguing and I continue to wait for my car and call Don Walker over and over to get a status of my car. He tells me it’ll been done at this time, weeks go by, he tells me this time, more time goes by and the car is still not done. He continues to bill me updated bills and numbers change every time I get a bill for the paint, more hours here, more money there but its suppose to fluctuate he tells me cause it was an “estimate” and now it’s good. A month goes by and he tells me it’ll be done before the trip my wife and I planned to go to Vegas on September 30th which is 2.5 MONTHS later. I tell him I’m coming to get it on the 28th so I can drive it home to test it out and make sure it’s all good. He says sure come buy and it’ll be ready. My wife and I planned this vacation for 10 months and this was my coming home present from Iraq, and our yearly trip together we make to go to Vegas with the other supras for the big car show. So I proceed to get my car on the 28th and I call Don at 2:30 in the afternoon to tell him I’m coming. He tells me the leather seats were not redone yet and the guy redoing them (they needed new stitch) had left for the day and he could not find the right size thread ANYWHERE in Denver for my car. Then tells me it’ll be another good “day” because I’m now at the back of the line since he has other projects to do. I was pissed and told him to call him up and get my seats out of his shop so I can have them done elsewhere and ill have them done myself. So he calls and says that there is no way that it’s going to happen and he left for the day at 3:00pm in the afternoon, great huh. So I call LITERALLY 2 stores in Colorado Springs and acquire the right size thread in 15 minutes and drive it to Dons shop. This is where I realize its another excuse with the leather seats cause someone is nowhere close to even having my car done, but thought the leather was a good “hold off” until he could get it done. I arrive there to see my car’s hood up and it on the lift. I’m confused as I walk around the car to see it NOT polished with compound all over it, and it sanded down in a lot of spots. The engine has no cams in it and it has no intake manifold on it. I’m pissed and look around the car at the paint, now I can look at the doors jams I wanted to see since they were masked before. I open the doors to see the jams were not done!? I look under the hood to see that there were spots on the inner fender that was not even painted and was primer gray? I look at the hatch to see there is rust in the hatch area and none of the jams were done. I see dirt in the clear coat in spots. I ask Don “why the jams are not done, he tells me “I didn’t know that they were not painted, and I didn’t know that you wanted those done as well.” I could notice runs in the door jamb area where it was cleared to “look” new. I was like “what are you talking about, you know I wanted them painted, look at the paint runs here, and the dents not fixed here!” he looks oddly surprised and tells me he did not see that. I see the paint line on the windows; I ask him “were these removed for paint?” He tells me “no they were taped off”. So I paid $6000 for a Macco paint job! Its funny cause there was a Macco literally 2 blocks down the road….you could push the car there? So the car is not done for Vegas, I paid $600 for that trip I drove in my other car to, the car was not done and Don said he was going to fix it himself. So I call my credit card company and they say I have to let him have another chance to fix it. I agree to give him 2 weeks to fix the car in good shape and he agrees. I know I’m an idiot. Were at month 15 and the car is WORSE off than it was before, it has depreciated in value due to the workmanship Don Walker did to it by recommending it to a crack head. I talk to Don on the way to Vegas to get this all straightened out. He tells me it was his bad to give my car to a drug addict and it’s his fault, he says he all painters are druggies and he will fix it in 2 weeks, or by Oct 14th.
I get back from Vegas and go look at the car, work has been done to it but it is still 35% done. There is no buffing, there are chips so Don tells me once again “it’ll be done by Friday” so I tell him ill call on Thursday to see if it’s done then I’ll come down. So we get a few snow days and I call on Thursday ready to go get the car. I ask how far we along are and he says he hasn’t touched the car at all. I get angry and we begin to yell. He tells me one of his employees went to court for no car insurance and was in an accident and the other guy has a son in Arizona with a heart attack so he has no guys to finish the work. I yell some more at him and his horrible shop and I tell him I’ll be there on Friday (my day off work) to help him finish the car myself. He says fine so I go. On Friday I get there to see the mechanic working on another car and his other worker working on my car. He goes over the talk with me on how it’ll be done by the time he goes to china with his wife (November 15th) and the guys are working “only on my car.” We talk some more and he tells me he is about to mount the intercooler and get the window guy to install the glass that day (took 3 weeks to do that) and it’ll be about 98% done. I start to go over the car to find over 6 imperfections with the paint, runs, dents, chips, overspray. He tells me “it’s good that you are so picky so we can find these problems” I tell him “I should have to drive here to find these issues you as a shop should have found these.” So I mark the spots with tape so he can fix them. He tells me “the car has to be done by the time I go to china (another 2 weeks) so I can get it out of the shop. I calm down a bit and agree to let him fix it. I call throughout the next two weeks to make sure we’re on track as I’m suppose to get the car on a Friday night(he leaves Saturday for china). On that Thursday night I call him, he tells me he will not be done with the car AGAIN because when he built the engine(back in July) the bolts “took torque” but he didn’t feel that they “felt right” so he has been ordering new ones since July and has to redo them. I yell some more and he tells me they’re going to be in the car by Saturday with him installing the bolts and then the guys will finish the rest and the car will be finished that following Thursday If I wanted to pick it up then that was fine cause he left a chore list for his employees to do while he was gone. So he tells me “I’ll have to go over the bill to see what we can do for you money wise” I say okay let me know by FRIDAY LUNCH what you are planning to do for a offer. He tells me “okay”.
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