Pontiac Business Entities Exchange Sources, Compliments and Grievances in regard to Pontiac parts or services rendered by an individual or business.

          
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Old 11-11-2019, 01:19 PM
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Default PAUL CARTER(gtofreek) & Jeff Koerner. Must read if you plan to do business with them

It’s unfortunate that I even have to post this but Paul Carter (GTOFREEK) and Jeff Koerner have not done the right thing and I would hate for someone else to fall victim as I did. I know this won’t be a popular thread because Paul does have a fan club and he shares a lot of his knowledge and experience on the forum. The business end of dealing with Paul and Jeff is not worth going through them if something goes wrong. I’m going to explain everything that happened, and I will just go through the facts as they occurred and leave my opinion out of it.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=816829

I first contacted Paul in January of 2017. I bought a 455 block from him and gave Koerner racing a deposit to start on the engine. I sent Paul the KRE heads and sent him parts that suggested as he needed them.

When Paul was completed with the engine build, he scheduled a time to dyno the engine. It should be noted that Koerner Racing Engines DOES NOT have a test stand in their shop so be mindful of that. The dyno that Koerner Racing Engines uses does not use mufflers. When the engine went to the dyno, Paul called me later that day and said it failed on the dyno. He said the pick-up tube fell into the oil pan which caused a “Vortex”. Paul described the damage as a spun bearings, rod 5 was damaged, rod 6 was exposed to extreme heat, the bearings were “eaten up”, the crankshaft had to be replaced. Paul said he fixed the engine and when he sent it back to the dyno, he DID NOT go because he had a knife making class to attend. He had a catastrophic failure of an engine that he built, and he didn’t bother to attend the dyno run. After the dyno run Paul discovered a rear main seal leak. He said he fixed that, and the engine was delivered.

- We installed the engine and soon discovered it had a mechanical knock. Here is the video of the first start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHLshwwe-Tc. As you can hear, it has a very distinct knocking noise.

- I suggested to Paul and Jeff that they take the engine back and repair it. They refused to do so and blamed the shop that hooked up my wire harness and fuel lines. I offered to pay for Paul to fly to Virginia and he refused. Paul suggested that I pull the engine, so we did. I sent Paul pictures once we took the windage tray off. Paul immediately noticed that there was only one washer that was used to space the windage tray and noticed witness marks on the windage tray itself. Paul suggested that we properly space the windage tray. Paul apologized for the mistake and him and I made a deal for one of Jeff’s carburetors. I agreed to pay $500.00 for one of Jeff carburetor and Paul would pay Jeff the remaining balance. Here is a text that I got from Paul admitting he made a mistake and agreeing to pay for the carb (Paul later charged me for that carb when he held my engine hostage). We spaced the windage tray, started the engine and the same knock was present. (See picture)

- Paul and Jeff still refused to take the engine back. Paul and Jeff did nothing but give me new diagnostic testing to complete. Over the next year and a half, they had me change the rockers, lifters, pushrods, flex-plate and requested that I have the heads inspected. This all cost me over $1,900.

- Finally, Jeff, Paul and I come to an agreement that they pay for the engine to go back to Arizona. At this point my fear is that Paul and Jeff will either find or create a “Part Failure”, which as expected, they did. Paul gets the engine and says that he located a bad distributor bushing that was causing the knocking noise. Paul sent the distributor to MSD, they repair the distributor. On the forum Paul says the engine looked great when he broke it down and there was no further damage. Jeff, (the carburetor builder), goes behind Paul and says he located bad piston rings and bearings, the crank had to be polished and a light honing was needed. This is where Paul and Jeff are trying to make up the money they lost when the engine had the catastrophic failure on the dyno. Paul sends me a handwritten bill charging me for pistons rings, bearings, gaskets, oil, dyno time, shipping to and from their shop and Paul adds the $950 for the carburetor even though we already had a deal. (SEE PICTURE). I tell Paul and Jeff that I do not want the engine dyno’d because I already know the numbers. Jeff calls me and states that he REFUSES to send me back my engine unless it gets on the dyno. Paul has told me that their dyno shop charges them $500 each time they put an engine on the dyno. According to Paul, my engine was on the dyno 4 times and they charged Paul and Jeff $2,000 for this time. I don’t believe that. Now that Jeff and Paul are refusing to send my engine back and it’s being held hostage, I was worried that they would get a mechanics lien on my engine. I sent them $2,575.

- My engine gets to Virginia and we install the "repaired" engine. We start it up and THE EXACT same knocking noise is present. Here is the video of the engine after Paul allegedly “fixed” the knocking noise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbt6ai8AI3A

- As you can see and hear, Paul and Jeff DID NOT repair this engine. I asked Paul and Jeff for receipts of the piston rings, bearings, gaskets etc. and they refuse to provide any receipts.

- I called Jeff Koerner and he says the engine was not knocking while on the dyno (though they didn’t have mufflers on the exhaust). Jeff tells me that he has “expert ears” because he is a trained musician and his hearing is better than a normal person.

-After sending Paul and Jeff several more videos, they hire a well-respected engine builder that lives near me. Paul and Jeff have him do tests that had been done at least 10 times prior the hiring of the technician. The technician’s final conclusion is that it’s “INTERNAL / MECHANICAL”. The technician spent around 18 hours diagnosing the engine but knew early on it was internal / mechanical but Jeff and Paul insisted in more testing in an attempt to find something that wasn’t their fault. Here is a video of engine running on racing fuel. Paul tried so hard to blame it on bad gas or anything that could not be linked to him. He was once again proven wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vB2H-k6N7g

- Finally, Jeff flies Paul to my house and I allow Paul to stay at my house. We already had pulled the engine so it’s ready for Paul to disassemble. Paul took off the cylinder heads and immediately went to cylinder #5 and rocked the cylinder back and forth and noticed it was moving way too much (Knocking). He removed the piston and noticed that the piston skirt had collapsed .040
(40/1000). Remember, this is EXACTLY where the damage was when the engine had a catastrophic failure. (Rod 5 and 6 were damaged and the bearings were spun). Further inspection of the piston revealed that it was obvious that the piston hit the cylinder head because there was a corresponding mark on the head. Paul took the rest of the pistons out and confirmed they were ok. Jeff ordered another piston and had the piston sent to my house the next day. I had a friend take the damaged piston to a machinist and he inspected it. The piston skirt had OBVIOUS damage and he observed that the piston had been “Machined or smoother over” to hide previous damage. This was confirmed by 2 other machinists. See picture of piston skirt. This was the source of the knocking noise for almost two years. It's obvious that Paul did not disassemble the engine when he got it back. He blamed the knocking noise on the bad distributor bushing and stopped there.

- Paul apologized to me for the 2 year problem with my engine. He and Jeff agreed to pay me back the $2,575 (See the attached screenshot of Jeff agreeing with Paul). Also see the screenshot of Paul taking responsibility for the engine problem and asks me not to put this on the forum. I also have audio recordings of Paul admitting fault and agreeing to give me my money back. Here is a video of the first start AFTER Paul finally fixed the problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfoiPqVZk-Q

- As soon as Paul got back to Arizona, he immediately changed his attitude. I told Paul that since they agreed to pay me back the $2,575 that we should have something in writing that protects both of us. He agreed and told me to send the letter.

- So, I send the letter, and this is what I received from Jeff Koerner. He now says the original engine that was sent to me was in perfect working order and they are refusing to pay me back anything.

**I know Paul has had some great builds on this forum but this was just my experience in dealing with both Paul and Jeff.(Koerner Racing Engines / Koerner Engineering). Feel free to contact me if you have any questions**

Be mind that this can easily happen to you as it did me. Here is the entire build thread and you can see exactly what happened during this build.
https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=816829

Feel free to look at all the videos on my YouTube page and you will see that the knocking noise was exactly the same as it was when it was first started and during the diagnosis. Paul received the engine and says that he repaired it and it came back with the EXACT same noise. The technician Paul and Jeff hired, concludes that the knocking noise in internal / mechanical and the same since the day it was first started.

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Old 11-21-2019, 12:11 PM
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Thread closed until reporting of a resolution or until there are comments from any other directly involved parties.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=742846

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Old 12-04-2019, 09:14 PM
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Va68goat Va68goat is offline
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Default UPDATE ON PAUL CARTER AND JEFF KOERNER COMPLAINT

I filed a complaint with the Attorney Generals Office in Tucson, Arizona. The investigators for the Attorney Generals Office have attempted to contact Jeff and Paul on three separate occasions with letters in order to give them a chance to respond to the complaint. Neither Paul nor Jeff have responded to any of the letters. If either Paul or Jeff believed they were in the right regarding this complaint, they would have acknowledged the complaint and provided a statement with their side of the story.

As explained to me by the Attorney Generals office, this could effect the business license that they are operating under (Koerner Engineering- AKA: Koerner Racing Engines).

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