Hmmm I remember years ago I dynoed the camaro at his shop and i only had enough $ for like 3 pulls but we all wanted to see what it would do on race gas so he not only gave me some race gas for free he let me make more runs and pay him later. Then we realize he has a slightly used fuel pump i wanted and gave it to me for a price that was redic and let me pay him another day. This was the first time meeting him so this really says a ton about his character to me. I look forward to doing more work with him in the future.
Mike tuned me and i have yet to see any real issues. And anything that i was unsure about or concerned about, i simply gave him a call and either would talk to Mike himself or Joe that usually works the desk. There both great guys in my book. Like i said, besides a few VERY small issues and minor tweaks that i did after…my car has been running excellent. :tup:
Nice, bout time you got tuned…how is everything (oh yeah, answer in pm so we don’t whore the post)
I wish I had more time today to write up all of the great things Mike’s done for me and how much I like his business but it’s a very busy day here …
Cliff notes version is that he’s always under-charged, over-delivered and gone over and above in everything from communicating to me to working on my stuff to hooking me up on products. I couldn’t ASK for better service, and won’t hesitate to give him my business whenever possible in the future!!
Ive never had anything installed from innovative, however when I order a $800 part, pay in advance and wait longer than they said it was going to take to come in without them calling, call them and ask about it and they say “ill call you right back” and never do (this happened more than once) it really takes away the feeling of being a valued customer.
I understand that things happen and distributors may underestimate the amount of time a part might take to get to the shop but in my opinion its extremely unprofessional to not even call a customer and let them know whats going on. (especially when Its going to take “1 week” to come in and it takes 8 weeks and still no part)
Jim it was a supplier issue that caused the delay, but a few customers told us they didn’t receive calls back for this type of issue over a period of time and that is certainly a problem. In the employee’s mind, if he had nothing to tell a customer because the supplier had no info for us, he waited until he did have information for them. That’s not an excuse…just an explanation of what happened. It was not acceptable, it was addressed with a personnel change, and should not happen again. I certainly apologize that you did not receive a call back.
Currently when a supplier gives us no information at all, we still call the customer to tell them that we have no info, rather than waiting until we do have something from a supplier to tell them. Of course we try to deal with brands that have proper support so we can get our customers the parts they want. Over the years I’ve dumped a lot of companies because they were doing this to us, forcing us to call them to get updates on orders and keep them moving along, so I certainly understand that this is an important issue. That was always a last resort after bringing this problem to their attention and giving them a few chances to make things right and carry on properly in the future.
lol… WHere to start. 
I have nothing but good things to say about Mike and crew.
Ive bought a shit load of parts from Inntune and never had a problem. They’ve always treated me with respect, not just as a customer but as a friend. Mike and crew were always there to help and give me advice on any problems that i had. Those guys are the ShiTzzny yO!
Innovative tuning :tup::tup:
Man…
Nothing but the best from Innovative. They’ve helped me out so many times, mainly in ordering parts, but also they did an emerg. alt. belt install for me on my RX7 in the middle of winter, let Lee build my exhaust there, and countless other little things. They’re class act people, always have been. Not much more to say.
Also, the personell aint too shabby at pong…
Huge thumbs up to Innovative Tuning.
I know people usually only take the time to post when something goes wrong so it means a lot to us that so many people have taken the time to post their positive experiences without being asked to. I’m also glad that they’re all from firsthand experience with our shop and not secondhand accounts since all feedback on a shop, positive or negative, should only be from personal experience with that business. They’re too much gossip about auto shops in general to trust secondhand accounts.
A lot of people have already guessed what happened with Bovice’s car. We were asked to take water and turn it into wine using customer supplied parts. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. It certainly wasn’t the most extreme case of it either.
When we’re asked to make poorly made parts “work” and do it as cheaply as possible because the customer has already paid a lot for parts and didn’t plan on them causing problems, I do understand where the customer is coming from. However, they picked the parts, they bought the parts somewhere, and they chose to go ahead and use those parts despite their faults. That was their call. We just put them on. In a more clearcut case I would have refused to install the parts i.e. cross drilled timing belt;), but this was not that sort of situation. We do try to look out for our customers so if we see something we think is dangerous we let them know.
It’s not like the customer has bad taste…he got the only FMIC that was available for this setup at the time. It turned out it was terrible in terms of fit and finish. The customer ended up calling the company to complain because it was so poorly made. He saw with his own eyes when he stopped by during the install. I wasn’t happy with what we had to work with or what we had to do to make it work. Neither were my mechanics, but we did it for him and didn’t charge for most of the extra time required to make the parts work. I did tell the customer how we felt about the parts.
The customer supplied top mount intake duct actually looked kinda cool when we saw it. Unfortunately that was the part that ended up causing a problem. The car comes with a top mount intercooler. Some company made an intake airbox that fit where a top mount would usually go since a front mount intercooler was being used. The duct was wrapped in some sort of reflective woven fabric to reflect heat from the engine. Apparently after a period of time the fabric fell apart and pieces of it went in the turbo, damaging it. I feel sorry for the customer, but of course we didn’t make or sell the part and we had nothing to do with it failing. We took it out of the box, pulled the air filter out of the protective bag, set it in the airbox and bolted the whole assembly on the car. We drove the car to tune it and everything was fine when it left our shop. It was quick for what it was on the temporary tune I made and the customer let us know he was happy with it. I say temporary tune because the customer didn’t get the fuel mods or clutch needed to run the turbo in it’s normal range.
If our install was involved in the failure of the customer supplied airbox that would be another story.
If we sold the part that failed that would be another story.
If the customer told us about any of this rather than us hearing about it from other people and asked us to talk to the manufacturer of the part for them I would have done it as a favor. I certainly felt bad for him when I heard this had happened.
As for the timeline on the build, one of my mechanics just reminded me that the exhaust manifold gasket for it took forever to get here because none of the local dealers had one and neither did any of the regional warehouses because the car is so uncommon. We were going to try and reuse the stock one for the customer since he was trying to keep costs down, but we could tell it wasn’t going to seal and had to be replaced. Then the customer supplied FMIC kit was missing parts that we had to wait for. We have a schedule like most shops do, so we generally get all the parts together for a build before the car gets here to avoid delays. In a case like this when a part needs ordered and the supplier can’t tell us when we’ll be getting the part accurately, we have to wait for the part to arrive to put the car on the schedule for work. Another delay was caused by the instructions provided for the customer supplied wire in ECU being totally incorrect. Again this was not the customer’s fault. The manufacturer apologized about this when we called them on it, and we showed the customer what they’d done wrong in their instructions, but some time was lost due to this as well. The time we spent trying to figure out if we’d wired something wrong (which we hadn’t) because of those incorrect instructions, plus the correspondence back and forth with the maker of the ECU were not billed as a favor to the customer. None of the hours I spent reading about and looking through the software for this new piggyback system to prep for tuning it was billed either.
Again, I’d be more than happy to talk to the customer about this so they can tell me specifically what they’re upset about. Maybe something happened that none of us here know about. Our door is open or he can call me any time. I’m still shocked about this since the customer never expressed anything but satisfaction to us.
-Mike
i had a good experience with mike when he tuned the spec the first time. the car was only running on 3 cylinders due to someone else’s install errors on the emanage. not anyone from innovative. and he let me solve out the problem rather than paying hours of diagnosis and labor to fix it. which saved a ton of money. he kept me updated on how the car was going even tho it took a few days cuz of snow and shitty road conditions which is understandable. but it was also the middle of winter so i wasn’t in any rush to get it back right away. but he was very conscientious about checking to make sure everything was installed properly before he went out to tune the car.
and back in july i think i had the car retuned for 10psi and meth. the fuel line blew when he was out tuning and he limped it back as far as he could to the shop so i didnt have to pay for a tow which was very generous on his part. and didn’t charge me for the time it took to get the car running up to par again. it wasn’t their fault or even mine, could’ve just been waiting to happen. and i picked up the car and the AFR’s were okay not consistently around 11.5 like i had hoped but it was good. then the tune wandered a little bit or something happened a few days later and i talked to mike about it and he said to just set up a time and he would retune it on his part since the AFR’s were jumping around. i never took him up on his offer because i put the old tune back on and took the turbo kit off 2 weeks later but if i was keeping the car i would’ve definitely gone back. he offered to fix an error in the tune even if it wasn’t his fault, i never figured out what happened with it but it was generous of him to offer the retune to fix the problem.
i was very pleased with the work mike and the guys at innovative did on my car when i took it there.
That’s how business is supposed to be handled. A nice explanation of what happened and no finger pointing. That shows alot of how Mike is. I’ve bought a couple items from Mike and he’s done the chipping on my ecu and it was always pleasant to deal with him even when I showed up 2 min. before closing on his birthday, lol. I manage a retail store and if the customer can’t express their concerns or complaints I can’t take care of them, that seems to be the situation here. Shitty to see Mike get dragged through the mud because someone can’t express themselves in person.
Yeah I understand that the part not being there was not your fault at all, I just dont like the feeling that if I didnt call no one would have called me about it for 8 weeks
Mike has been nothing but helpful and more than patient with some of my redundant questions. He has always given me the best prices (even better then online) Right from the START. He even lended me his tunninng ecu so i could use it as a benchmark for chipping mine. The only thing i would suggest is that i feel it is nice to at least get a call when somthing is taking longer every time it gets postponed even if there is no info to be give it makes the coustomer feel appreciated. All in all it seems Mike lives to please and make friends rather then become rich and lonley! Keep it up i know even a business needs praise to keep its morale up.
In the 2 1/2 years Ive owned my subaru I have dealt with Mike from the begining. Through all of my goals that I have gave him for it he has offered excellent advice that has always been dead on.
My quest for 11’s on the stock turbo ended with a 12.31 pass. even though it ended short I cant complain about it. It was at the time 5 or 6th fastest in the U.S. for a stock turbo.
with my new engine last winter he gave excellent advice on the build and what I should de according to my budget.
and of coarse with the August 08 install of my GT35R kit he came to the track 2 times with me to data log my car and adjust the tune accordingly for the best results.
Mike has raised the bar for tuners up here in Canada who have recently stepped up there game due to the amount of business that has been going south to Mike over the last while.
The whole gang at innovative, no matter how busy they are that day will always take the time to answer your dumb questions. I have never found that at any other shop in my 26 years of owning cars.
I’ve known Mike for years, before Innovative was even born. Stand-up guy for sure. I’ve never had any issue with anything he’s done for me.
That Joe guy needs to be fired though.
<3 Skrapper
WOW I can’t believe this:picard:,mike is a grate guy and does grate work for me everytime:tup:
I was caught off guard when this thread started, but I’m really happy to see where it’s gone. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.
LOL poor Joe…
As I said, I hate that feeling too. That absolutely positively should not have happened to you and I apologize. It happens to us all too often when we call certain suppliers and have to babysit our orders. It’s mainly the vendors in California who are often too laid back in their attitude.
I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. It just so happens that I had heard about it already from a customer and was able to deal with it in a manner that it will not happen again. Again, the employee simply didn’t understand that not calling someone when he had no info to provide wasn’t acceptable. He figured there was no point in calling when he had no update on the status of the order, because the supplier was unable to provide us with an update. I understand his thought process, but of course this isn’t acceptable to our customers and it’s not the way I want things done here, which I made that abundantly clear. The sad part is he was probably calling the supplier on a regular basis to check on the order, but because he wasn’t letting you know it seemed like we just forget about you. Regardless, it will not happen again!
I’d say the new system works based on the posts from people saying they’re happy with the service they received when buying parts, so that’s good news. Of course this situation can’t even come into play in most cases, because most of our vendors have their act together and get us the parts we order for you guys promptly.
If I ever need a car tuned I know where I’ll be taking it.
:tup: to Mike for everything in this thread.
I’m with Spencer on this… Mike is a super cool and approachable guy and I would go to him more if he did stuff for Euros. Heck, he even checked out my exhaust issue this summer and tried finding me something that would work and diagnosed the problem for free.
It’s pathetic how people buy these crap parts off eBay or XXX place and then turn it as it’s the shops fault when it does not work out as it should…
I’ve had my own experiences with this problem (NOT WITH INNOVATIVE), and it is very very very frustrating, so totally understand. However at the same time I know how hard it is for some of these shops to have time to follow up with everyone. There is usually more than enough work that needs to be done, add in the fact that throughout the course of the day there are typically so many people that stop in to pick something up and want to shoot the shit or whatever. As an employee/shop owner you kind of have to talk to the people or you’d come off as rude/standoffish, but it does waste hella amounts of time… you have to be a very established place with tight management to be able to pull off doing great work on schedule and still accomodate all customer needs.
I relalize this is a really gay company to compare it to, but for example that shop that does all of the cars on pimp my ride and crap like that, those shops are big and established. They pay that one big dude solely to keep people on task and make sure shit runs smoothly… there is not a big enough market in Buffalo to run shops like that, unfortunately.
Anyways, I have not had too much first hand experience with Innovative, just had some warranty work done there which they were very helpful with (unlike northtown subaru). But based on my own experience being positive, and those that I’ve talked to I have heard pretty much all positive reviews. I know Mike cares about what the shop does, so calling and expressing your concerns probably would have been a good call… nothing is going to fix itself.