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I have to share my experience with a Corvette shop so that others may make an informed decision before choosing this business. I met the owner of NuVintage Corvettes, Jim Durham, through his wife who happened to be a friend of mine going back a few years. Him being a Corvette guy we hit it off pretty well and after a time he began to hound me into doing an LS swap on my car at his newly built facility in North Alabama. Since my motor was having issues anyway I took him up on his offer. Well the project snowballed and turned into a full body off restoration. Jim wanted to do the car his way as a means of promoting his new business and he made all sorts of promises. Here’s what transpired:
1. We worked out an arrangement where I would work at his shop in my spare time for free. I would pay for my own parts and materials. I would get to use the facility to do the work on my car and help him with any customer cars and help him get his fledgling business off the ground. There would be no charges for any labor and he would take care of the things I wasn’t the most skilled at, like spraying the paint. I did the majority of the grunt work on my car myself. I had a key to the facility which allowed me all the time needed.
2. For over 2 years I showed up at his shop regularly putting 15, 20 or even more hours a week. Most evenings, Saturdays, Sundays, Holidays that I had off from my real job. I worked for him and he billed out my time. I lost count of how many customer cars I helped work on for him. I did everything from trailing arm rebuilds to carpet installations. At the same time I chugged along on my car.
3. Fast forward 2+ years and I’m at my patience end. The car was supposed to be ready for Carlisle '13, but my frame is still awaiting the body. The body got its initial paint back in February, but since he got caught by OSHA for having a paint booth not up to code and several other violations, painting on my car came to a stop, but not on customer cars. All my other body panels are in primer, the body itself needs more clear sprayed, but it all has been sitting in the corner collecting dust. He promised to have his paint booth back up by the end of March. As of October it still isn’t up.
4. It becomes clear to me that he isn’t planning to finish the paint job anytime soon and I have been deemed untrustworthy to the point that he took my key away. Why? I don’t know. On July 19th I paid up my outstanding balance and a short time later I begin removing my belongings. He’s not there when I’m trying to gather the last of my stuff, but his wife is and one of his full time workers. I’m loading up my possessions and his wife is going off on me and threatens to call the police. I say “Call em. I’m just taking what belongs to me.” I take 1 load home and come back for the last 4 or 5 things and my tool box. As soon as she sees me she closes the roll-up door and gets on the phone to the police. I call Jim to tell him I just want my belongings and he proceeds to cuss me out and says “if I had been there you would have takin as a** whooping!” I am banned from the property.
5. So, he holds my car and property hostage for over 45 days after I informed him in writing that I want it returned. He continually implies that I am a thief because I removed some of my property when he wasn’t there, when he is the one that has lost or taken parts from my car. He didn’t even return items that I paid for and were listed on my invoice. I had retained an attorney when he finally returned most of my property.
He has become completely paranoid, I think, because he knows he is in violation of OHSA, EPA and Fire Marshal regulations. He’s operating out of a building that hasn’t even been certified for occupancy yet, the building permit is still on the door and after 2 plus years its so sun faded you can barely read it. Stay away from NuVintage Corvettes guys. The empty promises and unethical practices will come back on him in the end. You don’t want your car locked in his facility when it does. He treated me like crap and just used me, which is why I cut my losses and got out.
Man that is one sorry ex-friend to me. But a lot of people are like that when they have someone that is good and can be used like he did you. One thing in life I do believe what goes around sooner are later comes around to them. Robert
JIM DURHAM IS A CROOK!
He will lie and scam you.
I really wish I would have read this post earlier... It would have saved me $11,442 USD.
Car involved ... 1971 Corvette Stingray
- All original, numbers matching (engine, transmission, and body/frame)
- "Ontario Orange" Colour
- 454 engine, manual transmission
- Original Blue 1971 Ontario license plates
- The car won 2nd place at the Wasaga Beach car show
- The car was on the green at Cobble Beach, Canada:
Jim hooked me by selling me a used T-10 transmission for $1250 and offering to refund his labor if I returned it in good condition.
- Jim had a sob story about how he needed the work, and he was short on money. (I should have never listened, there is a reason he has no money)
- I agreed to bring him my corvette to give him work, and help him out
- he promised $1000 off his labor for his work in exchange for the T-10 transmission
- problem is he lied.... he never refunded the money, and what came next was even worse.
- Don't trust this guy. If you are a nice person he will take advantage any way possible.
Tuesday, October 8th, 2019 I drove from Toronto Canada for Jim's place in Alabama ... everything on the car was working fine
- I discussed the "list" with Jim Durham over the phone prior to leaving
- it took me 15-hours to drive down to Alabama, no issues to speak of
I had a place booked in Virginia on Saturday evening. I told Jim to have the car ready by Friday evening October 11th so I could leave Saturday morning.
Total work that was agreed to: $3050
Four items needed work ..... nothing major ...
1 - Paint chip on the front driver side fender (cosmetic) - approx $1000
2 - Re-do the chrome coating on the rear luggage rack (cosmetic) - approx $1000
3 - Fix a very minor steering fluid leak, including wheel alignment - approx $1000
4 - Change the transmission fluid - approx $50
Paint chip:
I bought and delivered breakfast for Jim, his wife, and his son ..... and he scammed me anyway.
- Jim took full advantage of my kindness and being far away from home.
- Don't do him any favors, he certainly won't do any for you.
To my shock... The final Invoice .... $11,441.68 !!!! Shop Rate - $150 per hour ???
- my highest bill ever for a repair on this car, and for what? To do 4 minor things?
- The shop's labor hours totaled 60.6 hours. The car was only in the shop for a total of 40.5 hours or approx 4.5 days. This makes no sense.
- Plus the car was returned late because (as I found out later) Jim damaged my car .... and was charging me to fix them..... unbelievable
Repairs were done that I didn't ask for:
We did NOT discuss any repairs to the harmonic balancer, idler, lights, hood or the cover door for the wipers. No Idea why this work was done or added to the invoice.
Me trying to reason with Jim about the charges ... Impossible
- I asked Jim 3 times to reduce the bill. He refused.
- Jim refused to return the car keys before I paid the full amount of the bill. Snake.
- Jim repeated he was having financial problems (I wonder why)
- You think he might prioritize making the customer happy? Think again.
He broke the water gauge ... then refused to even look at it when I pointed it out.
- The water gauge was working great on the drive down. After Jim's repairs it was broken.
- Jim took no responsibility for this and simply denied that he did it.
- It took my mechanic here one minute to plug it back in. Jim couldn't even be bothered.
Why take apart the whole front of the car ... for one small paint chip?
- Answer: to waste time and charge me more money. Thanks Jim.
The paint wasn't even started by Friday October 11th, 2019, let alone having the car ready on time.
No steering alignment was done as promised.
- I had to drive home to Toronto with misaligned wheels. Thanks Jim.
Jim damaged the existing headlights, charged me to "fixed them", and now they worse than before
- The headlights worked perfectly on the way down to Alabama
- Jim informed me on Saturday, October 12th, 2019 that the headlights were damaged when they were removed on Wednesday ... why was I told this 5 days later?
- Apparently, he replaced all new components, he had no idea how to reassemble them properly. Completely incompetent.
- On top of that, he scratched the paint job putting them back in (more on that later). Complete amateur repair job.
- I had to drive all the way back to Toronto with barely functioning headlights. Thanks Jim.
When I texted Jim about the lights, he never responded.
- No advice or help. Just cut-off your customers. Thanks, Jim.
The lights get stuck going up:
One headlight closes too low:
One headlight closes too high:
He stripped screws so now there is a gap at the top of the light:
I tried to check my fluids .... The hood wouldn't even open ... it was bolted on incorrectly
- Do you think after taking off the hood for no reason, he would put it back the right way? Nope. Doesn't care. No attention to detail.
- I texted Jim about the problem. There was no response.
Jim stripped all the screws on the wiper door
- He broke the screws on Wednesday ... then never bothered to say anything about it until Sunday... 4 days later.
- He wanted ME to pay for it ... (of course)
- I refuse the repairs ... and took the door home with me in the passenger seat.
- all 4 screws were stripped. I'll probably need a new door.
Wiper Door ... 100% working when I drove there..... now the door can't be reinstalled
Screws completely stripped on the wiper door
After "painting the whole front of the car" ... He scratched the headlights when he was putting them back ... complete amateur
- The paint on the top of lights was in perfect condition when I arrived in Alabama
- Jim scratched the lights when reinstalling them, then never fixed them
- after pointed it out and asked him to fix it, he didn't even bother.
Despite "painting the whole front of the car" ... and charging me ... spots were still missed
- Jim's paint job cost me the same as it would paint the whole car in Toronto, and he still missed spots .... and then scratched the lights.
The steering wheel is very loose now
- The steering wheel was fairly tight when it was brought to the shop.
- despite having changed almost all of the steering components (that I never agreed to), the steering wheel on the car is now very loose and it is hard to control the car.
- I almost lost control in high winds driving home to Toronto. Thanks, Jim.
- I'm sure it didn't help that there was no wheel alignment done either.
The cost to repair Jim's damages .... thousands of dollars.
- On top of getting ripped off by Jim, I'm now going to have to spend MORE money to fix all these issues.
- Repair estimates are in the thousands of dollars. Most of his work will have to be redone.
- I tried to go to the credit card companies to do a chargeback, but Jim fought me on it and I was only refunded a partial amount. Nowhere near what it will cost to restore the car
Totally not worth it. Learn from my mistakes and stay away from Nu Vintage!
Found myself taking deep breaths to remain calm just looking at your pics and reading about your ordeal, then the OP's initial story. This guy is a real piece of work. Hope you get your car sorted
@ Paul Giampuzzi so sorry to hear about your experience. I wish you would have seen my OP before you committed. I have to tell you something. You said you had a numbers matching car. Double check all your parts numbers. Jim Durham has a history of canibalizing parts between cars.
@ MakoShark77 Thank you for the tip. I'm having my mechanic in Toronto go over everything as we speak.
Jim seems to also have a history of threatening people with the police. After messaging him several times about the problems with my car, such as the hood not popping up, there was no help or response from him. So I went to my credit card company to do a chargeback, which is totally within my rights as a consumer. THEN ... He decided to respond .... by using EXTORTION to see if I would drop the case. I was advised by a criminal lawyer in Alabama (which I had to pay for thanks to Jim), that as a Canadian, having a felony would result in my immediate arrest at the US border if I ever tried to visit the US again.
Take a look at this message from Jim, unbelievable:
My mechanic in Toronto found some disturbing things. The rag joint that I was CHARGED $85 FOR was never replaced. In fact, it was LOOSE and about to FAIL. The cross-screw was completely stripped and not holing the spline tight. The spline could have failed at any time. I wish I could attach a video here to show how bad it was. You could move it by hand.
Does this look new??? or safe???
The rubber was rotted out so only 1 of the 2 studs was actually connected to the rubber.
The scary part is that I drove the Tail of the Dragon and the Blueridge Parkway with this garbage rag joint that could have failed at any time. I COULD HAVE DRIVEN RIGHT OFF A CLIFF!
I wonder if you could do a partial chargeback? While his work is essentially worthless, a full chargeback resulting in zero payment might be considered theft of services by somebody. If you charged back, say, half, then you could say you are making a good faith effort and the rest is in dispute...and police that might be asked to arrest you would likely consider it to be a civil matter at that point.
They might anyway, but it could remove the fear of the arrest you have regarding being a Canadian citizen. Wonder what your lawyer would think.
The criminal lawyer in Alabama advised me to only contest the line items on the invoice where the work was deficient, resulting in only a partial chargeback, and there-by avoiding that potential felony charge.
The luggage rack, for example, seems to be totally fine, and it is only fair that I pay for those few items that were done correctly.
However, out of the partial amount I requested back, the VISA guidelines dictate that they will not chargeback for labor, only parts. (At least this was what I was told by the VISA representative) So, in the end, by requesting less than the full amount, I got even less back. I was only awarded $3,125.62 Canadian which converts to approximately $2,357 USD out of the total $11,442.68 USD.
In hindside maybe I should have contested the full amount, as I would have only received a partial refund anyway? I guess Jim's threat worked in his favor after all, which is frustrating in and of itself.
As you may have guessed, I've already exceeded the refunded amount fixing the car in Toronto, and my mechanic here is very fair. To my surprise, he was able to repair the door for the wipers so I didn't have to buy a whole new part. My headlights work again, and he repainted all the scratches. Best of all the steering is tight again and I feel much safer driving down the road.
Despite all the money lost, I'm just so happy to have the car back together in running order. I love this car. I can't wait for the spring to have it all shined up .... and out on the road again!
Man, that guy is real piece of work. His wife pulls his strings and using the simplest terms and definitions they are both liars and thieves. Paul if you need any kind of statement you can count me in and I also know where to find 1 of his former employees who, I'm sure, would gladly provide a statement in regards to Jim's unethical practices.
Unfortunately I've tried to appeal to the credit card's decision, but they will not look at any further evidence. Thanks for the offer though. It's much appreciated.
I would gladly provide statements for anyone else that finds this thread and ran into similar issues. Feel free to reach out to me if you need help and are not sure what to do.
10-28-2013, 08:25 AM
Beware of NuVintage Corvettes
