I Wish Samson could open his own shop ... Maybe I should call him up and get something started..

As far as WS Motors.. I had the shop written off after Harry left.

I still take my MINIs at TATE - The new head mechanic Tony (from BMW )seems OK and he and I already met so he knows what I expect from him and his guys when the work on my Little Ones.
Calvin the SA at TATE is cool, I hope he stays ..
BTW : TATE must be doing something right as I see a lot of people dropping off their MINIs and the last time I had to wait a couple of weeks before getting Streghina in.

some old faces might return to TATE, who knows..

 

I called Samson yesterday, but did not get a reply. Do you know something......

 

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I do have my facts straight. WS was not a dealership. I said this to you then, and I am saying it now. When Ben was there, we, the customers that you ended up pissing off, went to Sam and Harry to schedule appointments. They told me how much it cost and when they could do the work. When we made the appt., I told you that I scheduled it with Sam and that you had no idea about it, than you go and give us prices WAY ABOVE what I was quoted. WS IS/WAS NOT A BMW/MINI DEALERSHIP and should not have tried to be so. Why should I go to WS and have something installed w/o a warranty when I could have had a REAL dealership do it for the SAME PRICE and have the work guaranteed. I am sure WS would have done the same thing, but at least they would still be in business.

All I am saying is that you went about it wrong with the wrong attitude. It was supposed to be a shop that we could get aftermarket parts installed and not get screwed over, which was going on till you showed up. Now look where WS is.....

Coincidence?????

 

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Perhaps it was unclear to Ben. We, DCMM, or at least to me, went under the assumption that WSM was a performance shop.

You are the only one I have had issues with in the MINI world. No this is not a keyboard war, just what I see and how it went down.

Yes, you did lower the price @ the end, but what can I say, I had to pay WSM since the work was complete and it was a verbal quote. At least it is VERY CLEAR whom not to deal with.

Good luck in your future dealings.

 

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JustJay is correct. In all my dealings with WSM, when they first opened, they were to be a performance shop, and I did not deal with Ben. I am not sure why ApexinM3 has the attitude that he does. Some things never change. But talking to customers such as to belittle them will not get you very far. I have delt personally, on many occasions with JustJay and have never had a problem. In my opinion, he is probably one of the easiest clients to ever work with. ApexinM3, change your attitude. Maybe thats why you cant find one place to settle...

 

We just received notification yesterday (November 5th) that WS Motorcars is no longer in business (as of October 31, 2007).

Mark

 

Thanks for the complement. Can I put that in my sig?

 

Jay, how much did you pay for that?

 

It took only 5 minutes, but book time is 3.5 hours, so much more than expected.

 

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Aah, that's it. Now we gone done hurt feelings and he no love MINI's anymore. Sheesh. I'm crushed... What will we do?

Well, have to say it wasn't any picnic from the WS customer side either. Worst experience I've ever had with amy type of auto service business. The work I had done was awful, just terrible. I had previously paid $40 bucks for a local muffler shop to do a one ball. Good work but just a slight alignment issue. But having heard all these great things about WS and the 'master fabricator' working there decided to go there instead. Support these guys catering to MINI's. Support these guys extending a hand to the club. Went there instead thinking THIS is the place to do this right. Not naming names. I'm not 100% sure his name and it doesn't matter! I was dealing with a business not a individual.

Paid 7 times as much as the regular muffler shop and ended up with a piece of patched crap much worse then when I took it in that I would be too embarrassed to show as even MY work. And the 'fix' is so bad I'm now going to have to replace the entire exhaust system. I wasn't sure if my experience was atypical or not so I held my tongue giving benefit of the doubt.

If the techs were giving estimates that's not the customers fault! Sounds like the house was not in order in a lot of ways. We're the customers. We're not supposed to have to know how a auto business is run. We're not supposed to get a qoute from one guy then go check with other people working there to be sure it's OK for this guy to give me a qoute. We're dealing with a employee of a biz and assume if he gives us a qoute that it's appropriate for him or her to do so. This is/was WS's problem not the customers problem. Well that and the guy who did my exhaust.

 

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Well, I am done with this subject. ApexinM3, we all know where you stand and what you stand for. You don't have to worry about me because where ever you are or will be, I won't be there. You handled the situation the best you could and that is why you keep moving to different places.

The reason I didn't say anything on NAM before was because WSM was a vendor and I did want to bash a vendor for 1 situation.

BTW, anyone reading this that remembers me working on getting a group buy going so than WSM could get vendor status from M7...... Well, lets just say ApexinM3 was the downfall for that and any other projects.

Ok, now I am done.

 

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Sorry, didn't mean it as a insult. I thought the above was surely meant in a funny/sarcastic-witty vein to try to lighten things ala "I'm taking my ball and going home". I intended to respond in kind with humor I thought. If the above was a seriously meant thought then I retract my ill timed 'joke' and am left mostly puzzled and surely without any kind of appropriate response to the above...I guess the lack of a smiley should have been my clue.

I did call a couple times & did leave two messages about the now worse problems after the work but didn't get a return call. In the end I decided I didn't want to return based on the work and lack of response. Again, not about you personally I'm taling about WS as a whole and the exprience with it... But if a surgeon leaves a glove in you when he does surgery he's generally not the first choice of guy to go back in to retrieve it.

Garbage in garbage out is not too good a goal and I doubt that's was anyones real intention, nor WS's mission statement! I hope that just came out 'cause you're feeling a bit picked on and understandably a bit defensive. I'd have to agree its where I ended up but surely you can't really mean that its appropriate. I brought the car in, told the tech I had a rattle and that I wanted whatever needed to be done to make it right done and wanted WS to tell me what we needed to do. Why would anyone willing come in and pay significant $ to get for garbage in garbage out? Well they wouldn't.

I told him what I'd paid for the stainless bypass pipe and the botched install by the other shop already. I told him I was looking either for someone to fabricate the whole section correctly, or if he judged that difficult or likely to approach half the cost of a cat back after market exhaust that I'd prefer to just buy a complete cat back at that point and have WS install that. I told him I didn't want any half measures and wanted to have it done 'right'. I'd come to WS on the recommendation of club members, because of their support to DCMM, and because other members told me it was the place to go to get it 'done right'.

Yes it was botched initially. That's why I came to WS. It's news to me that the bypass pipe was burned through, because it was reused by the tech and is still on the car! Along with three other pieces of pipe that were used to make/cobble up the exhaust from the area around the convertible brace to the muffler... 4 pieces of pipe... And it still rattles and now also shifts up against the body and rattles there too. In my opinion if the shop didn't have a tubing bender then especially based on my initial request and explanation of what I was looking for he should have told me that the shop wasn't equipped to do a custom exhaust and he should have recommended we install a cat back or some other solution.

I tried very hard to make it clear I didn't want a jury rig. I ended up with a worse jury rig than I started. We can quibble about it till the internet freezes over and I've tried to be fair in my description. But in the end in this case there was a customer looking for a MINI business to spend money at over the next few years who was chased away unsatisfied.

The bottom line is a customer is happy and comes back or isn't and doesn't.

 

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Thanks for that. We all do what we can, sometimes we're hampered by a system / business that makes it difficult and frustrating... From your side of the fence as well. Good luck to you!

 

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Not surprised. (comment directed to post-ben pre-will era)

 

well, I for one was hoping that WS would make a go of it. Sadly, that didn't happen. C'est la vie. I'll miss ya, Will. Perhaps, if we buy a Smart car, I might see you if you're still with MB.
Good luck and please keep in touch if you can/want.

 

The story behind WS was that I intended it to be an honest Sales and Service location by the enthuiasts for enthuiasts. I was there at the begining and chose Robby to handle service while I handled the rest.

I wanted quality work available at cheaper prices than the dealership.
Every month that we were open under my guidance we doubled the income from the prior month with the growth of new customers.
Those are facts.
I was proud to be part of WS Motorcars at that time.
We were all happy and excited.

Then a couple of people associated with WS got greedy and wanted more.
The owner and I had a disagreement that left me no choice to stand up to him and not back down. That cost me my job.
Shortly after they ran Robby out as well.

they ran it into the ground.
It took on the look of an eastern motors store with the yellow paint on the outside of the building and just lost the feeling we had built.

I had a meeting about what would happen without me there with the original employees when I started having issues with the owner. They took this as an opportunity to twist the knife in my side. My predictions came true.
WS motorcars was not alive and kicking

No Will I was not misdirected. I had a vision which produced results during my time at WS. I also had great customer service.

We had a MINI customer request that his car be raised so it could be shipped overseas. We raised it too much for him. I had Samson spend 6 hours getting the car to the proper height at no charge to the customer. The customer was happy and we recieved lots of business from his friends on this board.

I feel happy and privelaged to have met many of you at that great cookout we had at WS.
Thank you all
I feel I can call many of you my friends.
Ben

 

FYI for all... More than taking 6 hours to fix the height... The height was fixed after about an hour, but there was something loose... Could hear a clanking/rattling from the wheel wells after going in a driveway or over a bump, which took QUITE a bit of time to track down.It was really a safety concern which was directly related to the work done.
I feel WS met their obligation of ensuring my vehicle was safe to drive with flying colors.Unfortunately others may not have seen it the same way. I do really appreciate it Ben. I still drive it at the exact same height and exact same suspension settings as were set when you last saw it.
-Will-