I just wanted to share my experience with Peter Horvath from M7Tuning. i believe he is the owner but i am not sure. i purchased a Venom nitrous kit from M7 many months ago. the system did not Work properly. i had it installed at the shop that Peter reccomended so i assumed the problem wasn't the installation. so i discussed it withthe installer and he called peter at M7 and Peter told him that he has been having problems with the wiring harness of these units so he sent out a replacement wiring harness. the harness was exchanged and was found not to change anything. so once again the installer called peter and peter says that i need to buy new fuel injectors because the ones i am using are too small. so i spend the $400 on the new injectors. this didn't change anything either. the unit still didn't work as promised. my nitrous would shoot for 3-4 seconds and then shut the entire car down for 5 seconds. At this point i had spend $800 on the nitrous plus shipping and handling and tax. i had also purhcased the injectors for $400 and paid for the install. my car was inoperable for weeks at a time awaiting a call from peter to come up with another excuse of why his nitrous systems don't work. plus i had to pay for the installation of the unit and the injectors. I then learned that others had the exact same problem as i had. at this point i had enough and i choose to return the unit as a defective one and get my money back. this is advertised on his website and is clearly stated in the literature i received when i purchased the unit. i called Peter and left more than 10 messages for him with no return call. so i discussed this with the installer and after threatening to sue i finally recieved a call from peter who told me he was only going to refund me $700. to this day i don't understand where he came up with this random number. i purchased the unit for approxs $950 including tax and shipping. then i purchased the injectors that he told me would fix the problem and then i had to pay for the install and removal of the unit. so i was out over $1800. he was firm on his $700 and so i told him that was fine. i wasn't about to waste my day in small claims court over $700. but i did want to share this story with all of you Mini owners who would like to purchase aftermarket accesories. i would also like to share with you the fact that i have been told that many of the M7 line of products do not do what they claim to do. i have heard many stories similar to mine surrounding M7 and Peter Horvath. Please beware.

If you have this Venom nitrous unit from M7tuning and it shuts your car computer down after a couple of seconds i would call peter and demand your money back. The system should work flawlessly as advertised. i have years of experience with Nitrous and this unit doesn't work.[

 

I was very close to making this my X-Mas present to myself. Thanks for the warning. Your experience coupled with some advice from a professional Mini tuner have convinced me to re-think the nitrous thing.

 

wow... That really bites.


Thanks for the headsup.

 

Hey guy, did you or did you not blow your engine up using too much nitrous???

 

Sounds like lots of lack of good communication.

I'd like to hear what Peter has to say about this as well. There's always at least two sides to a good story. On a lighter note, El Diablito Rojo should chime in any minute now to defend how excellent nitrous works on his car, that I may bet on.

 

i know exactly how you feel(well kinda) i had a bad experience with a previous car part purcahse(not from M7)where they would not return a defective part and such. however my part was only like 40 bucks

 

hmmm...that's funny...Peter relayed some of this horror story to me just today while on the subject of NO2. Did "user error" play any part? I like to hear more if you could elaborate...ie, under what circumstances did the unit shut down and was the engine harmed.

 

Not to rain on anyones parade or add fuel to the fire but.... a good friend of mine had an M7 Plasma Booster on his 03' MC CVT. He was very enthusiastic about it--feeling it really improved his gas mileage. About 2 weeks ago, he was driving along and his car lost power and the engine quit. All the dash lights came on. He shut the car down and tried to restart but it wouldn't. He called MINIUSA to get his car towed. Still 30 minutes later after they arrived it still wouldn't start.

After several days at the dealer, it was determined that the cause of the problem was the Plasma Booster and since it was due to an aftermarket part, it wasn't covered under warranty. They had to replace his ECU, Coil Pack, and sensors---a $2,300 repair.

While waiting for a determination from the dealer, my friend called Peter for advice--but was told he was in a meeting. From what I understand he never called back.

After the repair, I believe my friend did talk to Peter, but was simply told he no longer sells the Plasma Booster so he was out of luck. I think my friend only wanted to know if the PB could have caused so much damage.

Beware on adding ANY aftermarket part. Something as small as a PB with a couple wires can cost your thousands in repairs. But it's even worse if the vendor doesn't offer any support.

Having met Peter several times, I think he's a good guy, but the practice of abandoning customers isn't very good business in my mind.

And while we can all blame the problems on this poster, I **THINK*** if you have a professional install a product as recommended but it fails to work, the product should have been returned immediately.

The moment you are required to purchase something additional that wasn't agreed upon up front, just to make it work---something is seriously wrong and should have been dealt with at that time.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I agree there's always two sides to every story. I hope both parties will elaborate further so everyone will be better informed.

 

It's times like this that I miss Trippy!

 

I have had good luck with purchasing products from M7 and Peter has gone out of his way being accommodating, but that doesn't mean that there aren't bumps in the road for some people. My guess is that there is more to the story that we aren't hearing about. I am also always wary about people who make there first post a major slam on a vendor. Not that he might have some truth, but it always raises questions.

As far as the Plasma Booster, this is one of those cases that you should always do your homework and research prior to buying something. I won't start a Trippy tirade into the Plasma Booster, but with a little research on this site, it would have been clear that the benefits (if any) don't outweigh the cost or the risk of the product.

 

Yes, how much nitrous were you running ffs? I havent heard of any problems with his nitrous kit... El Diablito Rojo? The larger injectors are absolutely necessary when you get this kit to maintain a decent a/f mixture.... maybe you screwed something up by not getting these in the first place as reccomended on the M7 website.

Peter?

 

CPEWEGO has only this one post. Let's wait to see both sides of the story.


Randy

 

I just got off the phone with Peter, and I didn't get into the story with him, but he certainly has his side of the story to tell. He's driving right now, but will be addressing the issue tonight. Again, let's hear both sides - it is frustrating to be blindsided after a problem with communication.


Randy

 

Hope this isn't another "drive by" vendor shootn Let's hear more

 

Another interesting thread on this same subject on the more wild TeamMightyMiniz site. Has some insight into what happened:


http://www.teammightyminiz.com/forum...pic.php?t=1134

 

Well actually this post was made last night on the TMMZ forum. After several supportive and not so supportive posts, the
thread was pulled down.

Soon after, the poster reposted the thread, and that's what you see now. But I believe it was shortly after that, that he posted here on NAM. I think he has 9 posts total on TMMZ, so it's not like he's very active over there either.

 

I'm not sure I want to dismiss this issue/concern/problem just because he hasn't posted much on either of these sites. He might have been reading (lurking in the shadows) and been a part of the community without contributing or signing up. But I do believe there's more to the story, though.

 

Hi everyone....

Thank you for hearing my side of the story.....

Gunther called me about 10 months ago to purchase a N2O kit for his car,
in the discussion about the finer points of Nitrous use, I recommended him to
consider lager 400cc injectors which gives a safer and cooler nitrous delivery.

At this time Gunther decided to pass on my recommendation.
A couple of weeks later I get a call from "Steve" at Stevens Auto Clinc
telling me that the wiring harness is probably faulty.....
A new wiring harness was delivered, Steve told me everything was cool
the car works flawlessly......That's it.

But hold on, that's not the end of the story I get a call from my partner
Randy (3-4 months later), Gunther blew up the car with the Nitrous.
And blew it up he did...All the spark plugs incinerated,exhaust valves
burnt to crisp, intercooler ballooned etc, etc, etc. To make sure Randy
took pictures of the sparkplugs and more to cover us if this situation
would ever rear it's ugly head.

More time past and I get a nasty email from Gunther telling me he would
like a full refund of the kit with install cost, cost of additional N2O tanks
the fuel injectors and more.
I did not sell him the injectors they where ordered up after he blew up the engine.

I understand that if something doesn't work the customer should be able
to get some sort of a refund. But in this case the system had been used
for more then an extended time and I felt that $700.00 of the $799.00
he payed originally was more then fair.
I told Gunther I was happy to pay him $700.00 and he agreed.
The check was written 9/23 04 he cashed it and that was it, no calls
or email's to reflect any non satisfaction.....That's it.

As for the M7/Venom N2O systems and any problems, we have sold
close to 100 systems in the last year and a half, with nary a problem.
Many of those customers are frequenting this great forum and I'm sure
they can attest to the customer service/after hour tech help I'm always
delivering........hell I love chatting mini stuff with my customers.

As for Octaneguys friend and the Plasma Booster problem....

The customer called me the day we where leaving for the SEMA show
and I still spoke to him for over a twenty minutes explaining what the
problem was (I get to that in a second) I asked him if he could execute
this very simple task, and he said yes no problem...all I can say is
I'm sorry that the dealer ripped him of

As for the plasma booster problem, the connectors that splices in the
leads from the PB to the coil pack will in some circumstances cut the wire,
leading to an intermittent ignition situation which is very easy to fix.
When the customer told me what was happening to the car I knew imediatly
what was going on.......as it happened to me some months back.

Sincerely
peter
Team M7
562-712-3270

www.m7tuning.com

 

How did it blow though? Was it a system error or a user error? Or was it just this guy used his nitrous way too damn much?

 

No i did not blow up my motor using Nitrous. in the racing event that i "blew up" my motor i was not aloud to use nitrous.
i qoute blow up because i did not blow up my MOTOR. i cracked a valve and it broke a spark plug. so i needed a new valve and plug. i ended up having all the valves replaced but no bottom end work at all.

 

I heard he was using it on the track... holding it on for many seconds at a time... I have used nitrous for 24yrs and NEVER ...... EVER.... had a problem with it.... I only use it for 10-15secs MAX and make sure I have a rich situation...... I have used Nitrous on the Mini and it works as advertised..... of course I used the 400cc injectors..... duh!


along with an air/fuel mixture gauge as added insurance

 

with this venom unit there is no room for user error. is is automatic. the computer is supposed to shut of the nitrous if it sees any rich/lean ratio problems.
basically what happend was that i would arm the unit and when i floored it the nitrous was supposed to kick in. well it kicked in for 3-4 seconds and then the entire car ECU would shut down and i would have no power at all for about 5-6 seconds. peter drove my car and couldn't figure out what was wrong. so it could not be user error. everyone is hung up on the fact that i broke a valve. but this has nothing to do with the unit not working. besides the fact that i wasn't even using nitrous when i bent a valve.

 

Perhaps, to end the debate... we should get to some of those pics?


What do you think Peter?

 

the only reason that my first post was on this topic was because i just joined. i was on teammightminiz board but because the founder is good freinds with Peter they shut off my thread. they eventually turned it back on when i rewrote what i origianlly wrote.
i agree that there are probably many customers out there who are happy with M7 and there products, but i am not one of them. and i suppose that there are many others out there. i have purchased many $$$ of aftermarket products and this is the first time i have been involved with any forum so i suspect that there are many people out there who have been screwed but don't know that there is a forum to caution others and warn them so they aren't screwed as well