How good is the shop that work's on your Corvette?
05-14-2009, 05:04 PM
#1
Le Mans Master
Thread Starter
How good is the shop that work's on your Corvette?
As particular as most of us are with our Corvette’s it’s often difficult when we make a choice on who we have do our service work or perform our mod’s. I want to tell you about one of our forum sponsors, Vengeance Racing, in Cumming, GA and the length they went to too make sure my car was repaired correctly. Also I have to tell you that I live a couple of hours from their shop so I have quite a commute to get repairs done.
About a year ago my transmission, an A4, started to fail.
I took it to Vengeance Racing for repair. They had previously done some work on my vette and I was quite satisfied so they were the natural choice for the transmission. I must add that we were dealing with my aftermarket warranty company, which I’m also very satisfied with, however it did limit choices. Due to the requirement, from the warranty company, of an inspection, Ron at Vengeance recommended a local transmission shop to do the tear down, inspection and rebuild. It’s a shop they used previously and hadn’t had any problems. The rebuild would be to higher specs and would handle up to 500 RWHP so it sounded great. We proceed with the repair and everything was fine initially.
I had an opportunity, in October, to put my car on the track at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Corvette’s Against Breast Cancer event.)
I immediately noticed that the car would not shift from 2nd to 3rd at WOT and the rev limiter would kick in. I had to back off the throttle to get it to shift. I contacted Ron, at Vengeance, and told him of the problem. He asked me to bring the car back and he would have Mike check shift points. I got the car back to them in November and Mike made some shift point adjustment and we thought that it would take care of the problem. Now at WOT going from 2nd to 3rd occurs above the legal speed limit so it’s not something you get the opportunity to do all the time and I’m not interested in getting tickets or worse. Transmission was fine for normal driving.
So fast forward to April and we have an opportunity to legally test it and it still won’t shift. I contact Ron, at Vengeance, and he asked me to bring it back in so they could test it since it now appeared the problem is in the transmission. I took it in and they gave the local guy the opportunity to fix it, which he didn't.
Now here is where Vengeance exceeded their outstanding reputation and earned my loyalty! Ron told me that they were going to order me a new RPM level IV transmission, no charge and do the install at no charge! In fact he suggested if I was considering a new torque converter now would be the time to install it as it would be installed for free also. The only cost would be the cost of the converter. We went with a Yank SS series that Ron had specifically built for my application. I wanted the SS series for all the benefits, billet housing, etc, however I was concerned with slippage on the SS3200 so Yank built an SS3000 for my car. I know there’s probably not a lot of difference, however I was apprehensive and Ron saw that and made the call to Yank. Yesterday everything was installed by Charlie, one of the great technicians at Vengeance, and I’ve got to tell you how elated I am with the car and with what Vengeance did. All this is occurring 11 months after the initial repair!!!! How many decent shops would have found a way to charge you for something? The new RPM Level IV transmission shifts like it should and the converter and transmission are outstanding. I hardly noticed the slippage. Since it’s a new install I’ve taken it easy, however I did have to try a little half throttle acceleration last night and it chirped the tires when it shifted into 2nd!!
The real measure of how good a company is; is measured by the quality of their work and what they do when there are problems. Vengeance is a great company, with very knowledgeable folks, who are focused on the customer. I’m 2.5 hours from their shop, however if I was 10 hours away they would still do my work!
About a year ago my transmission, an A4, started to fail.
I took it to Vengeance Racing for repair. They had previously done some work on my vette and I was quite satisfied so they were the natural choice for the transmission. I must add that we were dealing with my aftermarket warranty company, which I’m also very satisfied with, however it did limit choices. Due to the requirement, from the warranty company, of an inspection, Ron at Vengeance recommended a local transmission shop to do the tear down, inspection and rebuild. It’s a shop they used previously and hadn’t had any problems. The rebuild would be to higher specs and would handle up to 500 RWHP so it sounded great. We proceed with the repair and everything was fine initially. I had an opportunity, in October, to put my car on the track at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Corvette’s Against Breast Cancer event.)
I immediately noticed that the car would not shift from 2nd to 3rd at WOT and the rev limiter would kick in. I had to back off the throttle to get it to shift. I contacted Ron, at Vengeance, and told him of the problem. He asked me to bring the car back and he would have Mike check shift points. I got the car back to them in November and Mike made some shift point adjustment and we thought that it would take care of the problem. Now at WOT going from 2nd to 3rd occurs above the legal speed limit so it’s not something you get the opportunity to do all the time and I’m not interested in getting tickets or worse. Transmission was fine for normal driving. So fast forward to April and we have an opportunity to legally test it and it still won’t shift. I contact Ron, at Vengeance, and he asked me to bring it back in so they could test it since it now appeared the problem is in the transmission. I took it in and they gave the local guy the opportunity to fix it, which he didn't.
Now here is where Vengeance exceeded their outstanding reputation and earned my loyalty! Ron told me that they were going to order me a new RPM level IV transmission, no charge and do the install at no charge! In fact he suggested if I was considering a new torque converter now would be the time to install it as it would be installed for free also. The only cost would be the cost of the converter. We went with a Yank SS series that Ron had specifically built for my application. I wanted the SS series for all the benefits, billet housing, etc, however I was concerned with slippage on the SS3200 so Yank built an SS3000 for my car. I know there’s probably not a lot of difference, however I was apprehensive and Ron saw that and made the call to Yank. Yesterday everything was installed by Charlie, one of the great technicians at Vengeance, and I’ve got to tell you how elated I am with the car and with what Vengeance did. All this is occurring 11 months after the initial repair!!!! How many decent shops would have found a way to charge you for something? The new RPM Level IV transmission shifts like it should and the converter and transmission are outstanding. I hardly noticed the slippage. Since it’s a new install I’ve taken it easy, however I did have to try a little half throttle acceleration last night and it chirped the tires when it shifted into 2nd!!
The real measure of how good a company is; is measured by the quality of their work and what they do when there are problems. Vengeance is a great company, with very knowledgeable folks, who are focused on the customer. I’m 2.5 hours from their shop, however if I was 10 hours away they would still do my work!
