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Old 08-24-2011, 01:24 AM   #717 (permalink)
98intrigue
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Clearwater, FL
Age: 39
Posts: 4,855
Drives: 2014 Viper
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You guys ready for a rant???

Me: "Hey, I need to know how to unbridge my MAFs."
Lutz: "Hold on let me go check for you..... All you have to do is cut the bridged wires."
Me: "That's it???"
Lutz: "Yup."
Me: "Wow, that was easy. Thanks."

Hey Lutz...you suck! I'm so tired of being screwed over by them. Let's document what went wrong...we will just use $100/hr labor rate:
  • intake piping caused the car to not run right since day one ($$$$ I can't even put a price on the headaches this has caused and the amount of money I've spent on tuning)
  • (done by a friend at a cheap rate) to redo intake piping and a new vertical row intercooler ($450 with the intercooler pretty much given to me for free)
  • left passenger side wiring harness hanging with no support to pull away from hot piping. it was left to sit against the passenger manifold, melting all the wires (2hrs of labor to rewire = $200)
  • due to the above problem, 140amp fuse on the battery was blown ($50)
  • uppipe is too close to one of the power steering lines. burnt a hole through the line and caused the pump to seize and the pulley to snap off (2hrs of labor for uninstall/reinstall plus $500 for pump = $700) Do I need to mention the 4 days of work I missed? Or the $200 towing fee? Or the hotel room I had to pay for?
They said they would redo the intake piping for me one time at no cost to me. I also said I wanted a single exhaust. Back in the day by an employee, I was told $700. The same employee told me it would be around that same price. My car sat there for a month. Against my suggestion of redoing the intake piping, they bridged the MAF sensors, which didn't fix anything...granted I didn't get it retuned. It took 2 weeks to get the quote for the exhaust, which was double what I was orginally told. So I said no thanks. I go to pick up my car and it has a flat tire. This ruined my plans of taking it to Orlando for a professional photoshoot. When I returned 6 days later to pick up my car, the tire was STILL flat even though I was told 2 days earlier it was going to be fixed. Also, I was never given back my exhaust gaskets or hardware when they uninstalled my HKS Hi-Power exhaust ($30).

And now the last thing was that I called them to ask how to unbridge my MAFs. They said just to cut the bridged wires. They assured me that it would run just like OEM... does this look OEM???


After driving my car home in limp mode from my friend's house who redid my intake piping, I was so excited that a very nice forum member who I've never met named Joe let me borrow his UpRev cable. Jon from Z1 sent me a base map today. I uploaded it with excitement and then the car was still in limp mode After cleaning the MAF sensors, switching MAF sensors back and forth, and even checking the throttle bodies to make sure they weren't the culprit, I checked the MAF voltage

Well...that's not right? So I checked the MAF connectors and tried swapping them. Still no voltage to the driver's side MAF. So I cut the protective wiring and saw the cut wires. Real nice tap job!

I won't even tell you the ridiculous price I paid to have my kit made. What's left of Lutz Performance's turbo kit engineering on my car... the uppipe and part of the downpipe. Part of the downpipe had to be redone because when they took my HKS exhaust off, they hacked the downpipe. The intake piping was obvioulsy redone. The band clamp used on the downpipe is leaking for the 2nd time, so that still needs to be replaced. The power steering line next to the uppipe still leaks, so I have to top off the fluid daily.

At first, Lutz treated me like gold. They treated me like a paying customer and I thought they went above and beyond to make sure my car was reliable and I was happy. As soon as I broke down in Georgia on the way home from ZDays back in May, that's when they seemed to stop caring. All they compensated me for was for 2hrs of labor for when they installed the 2 Flexalite fans. It's now August...my car is finally on the verge of running 100%. I don't even want to add up the money I've wasted fixing Lutz Performance's mistakes... because it just upsets me even more. This experience has really pushed my limit of patience and has severely effected me financially. The only thing I can think of to end this story and to somewhat make me think this may have been all worth it... I will be shortly
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Ryan - 2014 Stryker Green Viper
Gone - a few Vipers and a couple turbo VQs

Last edited by 98intrigue; 08-24-2011 at 01:55 AM.
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