Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Wanabee
Jon or others, any opinion you'd care to share about Dale Adams Automotive or Classic Performance, as far as getting some mechanical work done? (Both are in Calgary)
Thanks - Bob
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I have one strong answer, and one not-so-strong answer.
Dale Adams:
My recomendation:
stay away.
I've heard way more terrible stories than good;
I was for a breif period in the automotive industry, and my (then) boss started out at Dale Adams before going on to become a fully certified GM Tech - he had so many horror stories...
I first went there many years ago to inquire about them helping me with a carburetor issue, and seeing about them possibly rebuilding my carburetor... they wanted an absurd amount of money (for me a the time) to even LOOK at my carburetor.
Classic Performance:
http://www.classicperformance.us/
Carmine is CP; he can be a great guy.
He has rubbed me wrong on occasion, but I am guilty of this too(just look at the recent RAIII thread I was in on!), so it would be pretty shallow of me to hold it against him, when I'm at least just as guilty...
He is (or was a) big Pontiac guy. He was involved with the Iron Indians in Calgary (I do not know if he is a current member in good standing).
I have bought some stuff off of him, and overall, I wasn't impressed with the quality of the parts purchased (I chalk it up to lesson learned, he might have offered better stuff, but I don't recall him offering any better, and I didn't think to ask).
I have had him take care of a set of my heads getting rebuilt many years ago - long story short, after getting them back, things went awry... I ended up stranded in Thompkins SK.
I cannot recall if he made things right or not (I believe he did) - but I ended up having them re-rebuilt by another local Pontiac guy in Strathmore a while later, and he cited MANY problems with them, which is how I came to learn of the issues to begin with...
Carmine/CP is a great resource if you're looking to buy reproduction stuff, and don't want to deal with the hassle of cross border shipments yourself - he has good prices, and even if it's not an item he would regularly source, I would suspect he can get most anything out there offered.
Since I haven't dealt with him on a purely mechanical level (those heads were outsourced early on in his business), I can't speak to this, but he is knowledgable enough, that you should be able to speak to him, and get some straight answers if you're considering having him handle something for you.
One on one, he seems to shoot straight, and be a genuinely nice guy.
Every time I have popped by his shop he has had really nice cars there being worked on - I would suspect that should speak for itself.
Outsourcing any mechanical stuff is a precarious spot - which is why I generally choose to either do it myself, or zero in on a place that WILL know how to do what I'm looking for.
(I learnt this from trial and error)
Incase it matters, for
regular mechanical work, this is the shop that I recommend people go to:
http://calgaryautorepairs.ca/index.html