NOT A TA
01-03-2010, 09:22 PM
About 3 years ago I made a deal with a guy named Ralph in Fairfield CT to weld in a Jegs 6 point in my Malibu I was repainting. Ralph talked a good game about a shop he had that he'd closed so he could go help his dad with a much bigger family business. He'd sold his race car etc. and said he has plans to open another chassis shop in southwestern CT eventually. He would install the bar as a side job in the business garage after work and on a weekend and should finish it within a week. I traded him goods for services and gave him the goods before I even gave him the car. He had been a regular customer at my store so I didn't expect any problems.
Then the stories/excuses started, broken hand, welder broken, and on and on. I telephoned often to see what was going on and there was always another excuse, welding slag in eye, death in family,until he stopped taking my calls. During the next 2 years the police were involved on 3 different occasions some of the excuses were verified as real. One being when they found him in a hospital in Boston. One when he was in jail.
Meanwhile during the same timeframe, my truck/enclosed trailer with a car in it and all my tools in it was stolen while I was moving. And then the following year the new (used) home was cleaned out by burglars and destroyed like in a movie while I was at the old home selling it. So my focus on the Malibu got sidetracked a couple times and I wasn't as persistant.
I left message after message bombarding his phones. He wasn't answering or calling back. Finally the car showed up in the parking lot at my workplace with the keys on top of a tire with no word from him.
The job was horrible. One of the worst looking hack jobs I've ever seen. It wasn't anywhere near safe enough to pass tech even if a half blind guy was doing it. I was incredibly disappointed in the job and the damage he'd done to my car.
I took some pictures of the lousy work and loaded the car into my trailer (trailer recovered damaged and without contents.) and moved to the home that had been robbed. I was so fustrated with everything I didn't even look at the car for a year. A couple weeks ago I finally unloaded it and decided there was no possible way to save the bar and that eventually the floor pans will need to be fixed. Funding to replace floor sections and get another bar are not available right now so I just cut the bar out to reduce the possibility of damage from the bar. Some of the parts were so poorly welded that I ripped them out of the car with my bare hands!!! Yes I took video of that and if I can figure out how to post them I will.
The pictures tell the story. Sheetmetal/pop rivet work was done by Ralph. I still can't figure out why. And why would a welder/fabricator pop rivet? We'll never know. Crack maybe? Well obviously as you'll see he wasn't a welder or fabricator and in fact had probably never done a bar, cage or anything remotely similar.
It's embarassing to admit I let this happen to me but if this post stops someone else from dealing with Ralph it will be worth it.
Here's what I found when I got the car back
First thing I notice is that the welds look horrible and that some of the welds have been ground! That won't pass tech!
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster020-1.jpg
So I peel back the carpet to see what lurks at floor level to find this.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster010-1.jpg
But wait a second that doesn't look like its weld, why no, it's silicone in the coloring of metal!!!! And underneath that its worse welding work than the welds I first saw.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster015-1.jpg
Well I move to the rear where the main hoop is expecting more crappy welding covered with silicone but in the rear I found a bonus! He'd hacked the floors enough (somehow) to need patching. And he pop riveted thin sheetmetal to cover the holes! What welder pop rivets floorpans??? He claims the floors were rusted out and couldn't be welded to. What rust? (please note that the floors have not been repainted since they left the factory)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/81Malibu062-1.jpg
I walk around to the rear of the car and notice the down bars into the trunk are really close together. But wait they're also off center and both of them are leaning to the side! on top of that they're kinked where they're bent at the rear shelf.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster001-1.jpg
Having seen how he burned through the floors I'm thinking he's lucky he didn't blow the car up when he burned through the trunk floor knowing the welding wouldn't be any better. And as long as I'm here I might as well see how bad it is right? So I pull back the trunk mat and find he's added some weight there for me. Probably to help me plant the tires on launch. Or maybe he just felt like making pyramids? Oh nooo, I get it, he cut the tubing too short!!!!!
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/81Malibu065-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/81Malibu067-1.jpg
At that point I closed the trunk and just walked away in disgust. I was so mad I couldn't even call him to leave a message. he'd had my car over 2 years and the rollbar was junk, he'd hacked up all sections of the floor and the trunk. A few days later I got him on the phone and just blasted him. I told him he had no clue what he was doing and he was lucky I wasn't the type of person to seek revenge and that he better not work on other peoples cars or he'll run into the wrong person one day. I was moving very far away so there would be no point in trying to go after him through the courts.
Then the stories/excuses started, broken hand, welder broken, and on and on. I telephoned often to see what was going on and there was always another excuse, welding slag in eye, death in family,until he stopped taking my calls. During the next 2 years the police were involved on 3 different occasions some of the excuses were verified as real. One being when they found him in a hospital in Boston. One when he was in jail.
Meanwhile during the same timeframe, my truck/enclosed trailer with a car in it and all my tools in it was stolen while I was moving. And then the following year the new (used) home was cleaned out by burglars and destroyed like in a movie while I was at the old home selling it. So my focus on the Malibu got sidetracked a couple times and I wasn't as persistant.
I left message after message bombarding his phones. He wasn't answering or calling back. Finally the car showed up in the parking lot at my workplace with the keys on top of a tire with no word from him.
The job was horrible. One of the worst looking hack jobs I've ever seen. It wasn't anywhere near safe enough to pass tech even if a half blind guy was doing it. I was incredibly disappointed in the job and the damage he'd done to my car.
I took some pictures of the lousy work and loaded the car into my trailer (trailer recovered damaged and without contents.) and moved to the home that had been robbed. I was so fustrated with everything I didn't even look at the car for a year. A couple weeks ago I finally unloaded it and decided there was no possible way to save the bar and that eventually the floor pans will need to be fixed. Funding to replace floor sections and get another bar are not available right now so I just cut the bar out to reduce the possibility of damage from the bar. Some of the parts were so poorly welded that I ripped them out of the car with my bare hands!!! Yes I took video of that and if I can figure out how to post them I will.
The pictures tell the story. Sheetmetal/pop rivet work was done by Ralph. I still can't figure out why. And why would a welder/fabricator pop rivet? We'll never know. Crack maybe? Well obviously as you'll see he wasn't a welder or fabricator and in fact had probably never done a bar, cage or anything remotely similar.
It's embarassing to admit I let this happen to me but if this post stops someone else from dealing with Ralph it will be worth it.
Here's what I found when I got the car back
First thing I notice is that the welds look horrible and that some of the welds have been ground! That won't pass tech!
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster020-1.jpg
So I peel back the carpet to see what lurks at floor level to find this.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster010-1.jpg
But wait a second that doesn't look like its weld, why no, it's silicone in the coloring of metal!!!! And underneath that its worse welding work than the welds I first saw.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster015-1.jpg
Well I move to the rear where the main hoop is expecting more crappy welding covered with silicone but in the rear I found a bonus! He'd hacked the floors enough (somehow) to need patching. And he pop riveted thin sheetmetal to cover the holes! What welder pop rivets floorpans??? He claims the floors were rusted out and couldn't be welded to. What rust? (please note that the floors have not been repainted since they left the factory)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/81Malibu062-1.jpg
I walk around to the rear of the car and notice the down bars into the trunk are really close together. But wait they're also off center and both of them are leaning to the side! on top of that they're kinked where they're bent at the rear shelf.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/maliburollbardisaster001-1.jpg
Having seen how he burned through the floors I'm thinking he's lucky he didn't blow the car up when he burned through the trunk floor knowing the welding wouldn't be any better. And as long as I'm here I might as well see how bad it is right? So I pull back the trunk mat and find he's added some weight there for me. Probably to help me plant the tires on launch. Or maybe he just felt like making pyramids? Oh nooo, I get it, he cut the tubing too short!!!!!
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/81Malibu065-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/01/81Malibu067-1.jpg
At that point I closed the trunk and just walked away in disgust. I was so mad I couldn't even call him to leave a message. he'd had my car over 2 years and the rollbar was junk, he'd hacked up all sections of the floor and the trunk. A few days later I got him on the phone and just blasted him. I told him he had no clue what he was doing and he was lucky I wasn't the type of person to seek revenge and that he better not work on other peoples cars or he'll run into the wrong person one day. I was moving very far away so there would be no point in trying to go after him through the courts.