BEWARE OF SOME UK ENGINE REPAIR SHOPS!!!

Here's a tale of warning to those contemplating a professional engine rebuild in the UK. I had an unexpectedly bad experience with a UK engine shop which has been praised previously on this forum. I am loathed to name the business, because although they pissed me off I would rather give them the chance to improve than slag them off publicly.

The crank on my GT550M was dead and so I took the engine out, removed the top end and took the bottom end in to XXXXXX Ltd during the first week of December 2007, with instructions to strip it and report back to me with an estimate for repair. They said it would take about three weeks to turn the engine round. Six weeks later (OK it was Christmas) I got a call with an estimate of £550 for a crank rebuild, which seemed a lot but I told them to proceed. They said it would 'not take long' before the job was finished. I didn't hear anything for a further 3 weeks and so I rang and was told that they hadn't been able to source the correct con rods and so were rebuilding the engine with the closest replacements they could find. These would be 1mm longer, and they advised me to use two base gaskets to compensate for the increased stroke. I was not at all happy with this solution, and within ten minutes on the web I had sourced three genuine Suzuki con rods from SuzukiTandGT parts in Holland (why couldn't they?). I got these sent to the engine shop. A week later they claimed the parts had not arrived despite Marcel in Holland confirming they had been sent. I have always received parts from Marcel within 2 or 3 days. A couple of days later - wow, ' we think we've found them' !! A further week passed, and when I called they revealed that they were having trouble putting the cases back together and getting the kickstart to work (it worked fine before). Eventually, 13 weeks after I had delivered the engine to them, I got it back. Upon installation I found that one of the clutch pushrods was missing. Lost in the engine shop, no doubt. Another order to Holland. Now to see if it runs. Watch this space.

Bad chit mate

I hate it when I hear stories like that when they don't seem to care that we are spending our hard earned cash on the things we really care for.

Good luck with the rest. Check your gears if you haven't already.