[disturbedkorn]

I loaned Philip at SuperCar Engineering a 6 speed transmission so that
Philip could develop 'secret' transmission parts. He avoided me for 2 years
and finally I gave him an ultimatum. Return the parts and replace those he
sold or send me other parts (just an APR wing and some brake pads). Those
other parts are worth about $1500 or what a damaged 6-speed sells for and
about half what the parts are worth when individually sold. He refuses, so
I am forced to warn my fellow enthusiasts about this so that others
are not stolen from as well.

When discussing the loaning of this transmission, Philip offered a discount
on his future transmission project for the loan of the parts. After some
time I saw Philip at the last 3S National Gathering in Michigan. There I
found out he was making the dogbox and if any of you saw it too, well you
saw parts from my 6 speed. After hearing the price, I told him I could not
afford one and I told him to just send my transmission back as soon as it
was convenient. I wanted to replace my aging 18 spline transmission with
the setup commonly referred to as "MR gears" which uses a 6-speed. So I
waited patiently for him to finish using it.

Well months passed and my emails were ignored. More months passed and I
decided to give Philip the benefit of the doubt. Well two months ago I saw
he was selling the parts from my transmission on his website including the
VCU for $720. I immediately contacted him and asked for all the parts back
or a payment in parts. The only way I got a response was to copy a couple
of our mutual friends to the email. The following things he has claimed to
try and avoid paying me anything or replacing the parts:

He claims the transmission was junk. Yes the transmission did chip a couple
teeth and split the bellhousing and midcase. However, the cases can be
welded. Shafts and gears can be replaced. The transmission is a Kormex
rebuild and only had about 1000 miles on it. Rebuilt transmissions
currently go for $3600! All the other parts including the VCU were in great
condition. The transmission could have been fixed back to knew for less
than a $1000. If you do the math that leaves $2600. He now claims he threw
out the cases which is very irritating since they could have been welded.

He claims my friend, Jon Wieman, sold the VCU on 3si. I have no idea where
he got this idea from. Jon denies that he sold or even had possession of
these transmission parts and just to verify I searched 3si.org for an hour
and found nothing. I pulled this transmission off a friend's car and he
gave the transmission to me right then and there. Jon never had possession
of it, knows nothing of transmissions, and could probably not even remove
the VCU.

He claims that since he paid $200 in shipping, that that amount should be
deducted from what he owes me. Jon and I offered to bring the parts to him
at Road America to save on shipping. He wanted the parts right away so I
packed them, put them in two boxes to save on shipping charges, and sent
them asap as he requested. He couldn't wait for RA and he absorbed that
cost. It's part of doing business in my opinion. I doubt anyone one of you
who have borrowed parts (especially a shop) would keep parts worth the cost
of shipping when returning the loaned parts back. That's just 100%
unjustifiable.

So after several weeks Philip has been completely unreasonable and unwilling
to pay me even half of what this transmission is worth either in parts or
cash. I just can't believe someone would do this. I've helped him diagnose
issues with his own car at the race track. I've pointed countless people to
his shop for parts. I'm just at a loss....both monetarily and who I thought
was a friend.

So don't loan parts to Philip and I wouldn't even buy parts considering his
credibility. And for gosh sake, if you loan any parts to someone get
everything in writing. You wouldn't think it would come to that, but
there's some pretty rotten people out there.

 

[Supercar]

Mike,

I thought we almost agreed on how to settle this and still keep you happy. I offered to return your transmission, but you said you did not want it anymore. So we worked out another plan. Our mutual friends, Rich Merritt and Jon Wieman, thought that I was offering you a "heckuva deal", and you seemed to have agreed too. The deal was $1500 worth of new parts plus also a $200-dollar set of brake pads that you specifically asked for to settle all this. That is several times more than a grenaded tranny with 3 broken gears, exploded bell housing, cracked mid-section, and a missing VCU was worth, but I just wanted to keep you as a friend and make things right.

I didn't see this post coming. I thought we found a resolution. So what's going on, Mike? Did you not receive my last email perhaps? It was dated March 12th. I will forward it to you again.

Now that the shit hit the fan, I expect you to clean it up by posting an explanation of what happened. Then maybe we could still go back to my offer. Else I would have to dig up and publish all our correspondence to clear my name and reputation.

All -- there are two sides to each story. I do not have the time to present my side yet. Getting ready for Road America this Sat-Sun. But I will present it, if need be.

Philip

 

[disturbedkorn]

Alan asked me to post this here so I did. I gave you an ultimatum two months ago to settle this quietly and you said you don't have half my parts and wouldn't give me a timeline on replacing those, you denied receiving the VCU, and you wanted me to pay shipping both ways which is ludicrous. The most cash you offered was $500 and then the last offer was I send you a $1000 and you send me a center differential and one set of brake pads. I replied that that was not acceptable. Why would I send you $1000 cash after all this? The offer I made for parts were the only items I needed/wanted that you sold. I made that offer to give you the best break since you are unemployed and you could use your dealer discount. I'm sorry you're not able to grab them off the shelf like you supposedly can with a center diff, but that is not my problem.

Jon has an opinion about what the parts are worth but he is mistaken. I showed him the price of transmissions that have recently sold from broken all the way to brand 'new' refurbished. He did not reply about that yet. He also said you should have never kept the parts let alone sell them.

Rich says he's behind me 100%.

Go ahead and post all the emails. I have nothing to hide. I have waited very generously for two years for the return of my parts.

I wish I could afford to go to Road America and race, but I've paid what I owe to my friends and creditors.

 

[Supercar]

Alan asked me to post this here so I did. I gave you an ultimatum two months ago to settle this quietly and you said you don't have half my parts and wouldn't give me a timeline on replacing those, you denied receiving the VCU, and you wanted me to pay shipping both ways which is ludicrous. The most cash you offered was $500 and then the last offer was I send you a $1000 and you send me a center differential and one set of brake pads. I replied that that was not acceptable.

I have not received that reply. Check your outbox. You have sent email to Rich and Jon instead of me before. Please resend it to me.

Philip

 

[lethal_vr4]

Mike,

I can't say how sorry I am to be forced to post this. I tried to pursuade you privately with Philip to settle this matter, after you continued to threaten and bully Philip via email all the while he was trying to work out a fair deal with you.

1. By your own words Rich's transmission was busted and beyond repair when you removed it. Your advice was to replace it and that it was not worth repairing. Rich, being a generous person gave it to you in case any of the parts inside might be salvagable.

Once he *gave* it to you suddenly it became worth something to you. A great deal actually. Any money you recieve in my opinion should go back to Rich Merritt. If you believe a transmission with a 2"x6" hole in the bell housing, cracked mid case, chipped gears, bad 4,5,6th synchros is is worth $1,000.00 to $3,5000.00 we will always disagree. (I've always said $300 to $500) If you do believe this transmission is worth so much then you knowingly took advantage of a friend... Rich.

You can't have it both ways Mike. You said it was worthless and now you want paid. Which is it?

NOTE: You never have shown me a list of tranny prices.

2. Both myself and Rich are not behind you 100%. I think you should retract everything you wrote, which is false. Rich stoppped over Friday night and told me about the email (which I also did not get)after I got home from Chicago. At that time he told me that he told you to retract everything as well.

3. Philip has paid you $200.00 already (some of that was shipping the trans).

He has also offered you $500.00 in cash, 1k in cash, 2 OBX front diffs + bobcat pads ($1529.00 in parts), or a discount on a center diff + bobcat pads (over $2,000.00 in parts)

Note: Last email I have from you is from the 12th as well which matches Philips. I offered to front the money for the diff and send the money to both you and Philip for you to resolve this between my two friends. A local guy just bought a center diff... you could have sold it to him as well... or anyone else and made a huge profit......you just chose not to.

5. And this is the most important one:

You're causing alot of pain for alot of people (all of them once your friends).... all for a free broken transmission.

To quote the guy that *gave* you the trans
" Somebody should remember that when I gave that trannie to Mike, it was a worthless chunk of metal, broken nearly in half. How it got to be worth so much to the two of you is beyond me."

Rich Merritt

 

[Supercar]

Well, Mike, I am back. And I am still waiting for you to produce that email, where you rejected my latest proposal, or issue a public apology.

The email that I am waiting should be dated between 3/12/09 4/16/09 and should be addressed to me.

Philip

 

[Alan92RTTT]

Remember the forum rules here.

If you are not:
The buyer
The Seller
Or a party with intimate knowledge of the issue
Or a moderator

DO NOT POST.

 

[disturbedkorn]

Well, Mike, I am back. And I am still waiting for you to produce that email, where you rejected my latest proposal, or issue a public apology.

The email that I am waiting should be dated between 3/12/09 4/16/09 and should be addressed to me.

Philip

I don't know why you are demanding something of me. I couldn't have been more clear in my emails where I tried to settle this quietly out of the public eye. You at first denied owing me anything. Then after being told that you didn't have my cases, after you denied having my expensive VCU, and after I found out you bought everything (including the bad parts) from Northbend, I decided I did not think we'd come to a peaceful resolution if you sent me the parts. So I found some parts that you sell that I was willing to take in trade of cash. You declined because you didn't have a big enough profit margin or did not have them sitting on the shelf. Your other offers were for parts of no use to me. I made all this clear.

I posted as a warning to others after I heard you were going racing but you had said you couldn't afford to pay me either in parts or cash. If you will make it right between us, I'll edit the thread with just a basic warning for others to get it in writing when loaning parts. I'll remove any mention of you or your company or the specifics of this deal. I still can't fathom why you thought you owned the parts and could sell them.

 

[disturbedkorn]

Mike,

I can't say how sorry I am to be forced to post this.......

As I said in the beginning, we all know transmission parts have increased in price exponentially. The transmission was not worth much to Rich because he can't rebuild them. It was given to me in part for the 100s of hours of labor I put into his car. You don't know about all our private matters. I wanted to replace the broken parts or use it for parts if I couldn't find everything I needed. I was okay loaning the parts to Philip because I didn't need it that second. So while Philip had it, the parts increased in price terribly. I'm out those parts and the replacement value is what it is today. I've told you this before.

For not knowing anything about transmissions you sure know a lot about this one? The "busted, worthless" transmission had a cracked bellhousing, midcase, and a small quarter size hole, the 1st gear set was chipped and the 6th synchro (or was it 5th synchro) was bad. Rich's quote about it being nearly broken in half is just typical embellishments. When I was given the transmission, we thought the case was unrepairable, but we had all the parts. We now know that they can be welded up and survive drag race passes even with huge amounts of torque.

As I told you before, the only way I had to try and get my parts, a comparable amount of other parts, or money to replace my loss was to threaten Philip with going public. I only did that after weeks of trying to work it out with him. I did not bully him and gave him ample opportunity to make it right. He was completely unreasonable as you are being.

The list of recently sold trannies as well as new/refurbished parts was in the last email. Here is the info again:

I talked to three people in the business and I looked through 3si's classifieds. I posted some links below. Yes used 6-speeds from just any Tom, Dick, or Harry on 3si can go for as little as $1500, but so do broken ones. Nice transmissions tend to go for around $2000. Remanufactured transmissions now go for $3600 plus core.

http://www.3si.org/forum/f70/1999-vr4-6-speed-cheap-451062/ damaged bellhousing, midhousing, and welded transfer case bolts for $1500
http://www.3si.org/forum/f70/6-speed-trans-fs-445967/ 120,000 miles for $1475
http://www.3si.org/forum/f70/6-speed-trans-fs-445967/ low mileage for $2200

You can't just look at a broken case and a couple chipped teeth and say it's lost 2/3rds of it's value. If you dropped your bike and cracked the faring and a mirror. Does it's value suddenly drop from $9,000 to $3000. No. You or someone else can replace the broken parts or part out the rest. The bike is still worth say $6-7000. Just the engine is worth a huge chunk. Especially years down the road when the parts are no longer available, right?

Parted out trannies make about $1000 on gears, sliders, forks, the housings to a lesser extent, and of the most importance the VCU. The 6 speed VCU is the same as the 25 spline 5 speed so it's demand is now HUGE. Now those same parts go for double to triple the price. So just selling the major parts, of which make no mistake there is a demand for, would net $2000 to $3000.

Look at parts prices on 3sx and even after deducting 30% markup, the prices are still much, much higher then we saw before the parts became very scarce. $300 for gears, $600-700 for hubs, $190 for shifter forks. Things changed.

Now why shouldn't I be paid in today's market prices? Because the parts never belonged to Philip and he had no right to steal them from me and THEN ignore my requests for the parts back.

The pain is not being caused by me. I loaned the parts to your friend. You are for some reason taking his side in this even when faced with the facts. I know he's given you a part or two and always given you discounts, but he's done nothing for me other than keep my loaned parts and ignore my requests for returning them.

Rich is indeed behind me. Ask him. We actually just talked last Thursday and tonight when he said it again. He didn't want the parts, didn't want to get rid of it, and knew I could use them. It was payment for all my work I did on his 3000.

Philip has paid me $0. He bought the shipping as any vendor or friend usually does when parts are lent to them.

He has never offered me $1000.

Why would I want two front diffs? I don't want any upgraded diffs at this time as they cost unnecessary points with NASA nor do I think I need them. I'm not out to spend, spend, spend to chase down a few seconds.

The two front OBX diffs plus bobcat pads comes to ~$910, not $1529.

I'm not going to send him $1000 to get a $2500 list price center diff plus bobcat pads. I don't want that diff. I don't think it's safe to send him $1000. Oh and that totals to $2700 in parts less $1000 so $1700 not $2000.

You offering to buy the center diff from me for $500, would be a sweet deal for you at $1000 off or 40%, but not for me. That would give me $500 for easily triple that in transmission parts.

Jon you make a judgment early and then refuse to listen to facts. You're so damn stubborn and incapable of being reasonable sometimes.

 

[disturbedkorn]

Oh and just a note to the mods or anyone else that cares, I don't live on the internet or have time to check this hourly let alone once a day. Anymore, I answer emails about once every day or two with what little online time I have.

 

[disturbedkorn]

I've had no contact from Philip since April 20th. I see he's still posting and active on the board. This is so disappointing.

 

[Supercar]

Mike, you are not being reasonable or even logical. I do not even know what you want me to do. I offered to return the transmission back to you and replace the missing parts, but you rejected that offer. You do not want your broken transmission back, so what do you want now?

I offered you $1700 in parts, and you rejected that too. You could have easily received at least $1200 in cold hard cash in a matter of days by selling the parts and you would have still received your free racing brake pads, but you rejected that too. You wanted a new APR carbon fiber wing instead and racing brake pads. You kept threatening me over and over. I was only making my generous offers so that you keep our private matters private and so that we remain friends. But you were not interested.

Your estimate of the current value of the transmission is completely out of whack. You would have to spend $2,500 in parts and labor to build a working transmission out of what the grenaded Rich's transmission was, that you shipped to me in boxes. A complete used transmission will never cost more that a used car that it goes into. Used 3/S CARS now go for as low as $3K for the WHOLE CAR.

But then you also screwed up. Just as I thought that we finally found a solution that was acceptable to you, you decided to carry out your threats without any warning. Not even a reply to my last email, which I thought would seal the deal. You are not interested in being friends and you published all the shit on the internet. FYI, shit on the internet stays forever, you cannot purge it. You cannot go back even if you try. All my past offers are now off the table. Did you expect me to offer you more money after you have carried out your threats?

Find someone else to speak on your behalf. Perhaps they would be able to explain what you want better than you can.

Philip

 

[disturbedkorn]

I've laid the cards out just exactly as they went down after giving you ample time to make it right between us. I already explained why I rejected you sending the parts back in the other posts. I'm not going to repeat it again. I already explained why I don't want those parts. I already explained why I posted to warn everyone. At this point, I really didn't expect anything more from you than this attempt to once again deflect; just as I learned that you will try to ignore the problem you created. I will not, however, go away quietly. You and your customers and friends will continue to hear about this.

It's really sad that you talk about how I damaged our friendship. Do you even have a moral compass? Or did you crush it in order to make some dollars? I hope you enjoy the dollars and your unhappiness. At the end of the day I can look in the mirror and be happy with what I see.

 

[Supercar]

Let's look at this objectively. I would not jeopardize a friendship over some dollars or a box of broken parts, which I offered to return to you, because I offered you much more than that in new parts or in dollars. But you would. Because in your opinion my offers were always a little short of what you thought that perfect immaculate and unmolested by me box of broken parts was really worth. Even if returned, it is still not wanted anymore. You would jeopardize a friendship over some imaginable value that this box would lose if it was returned back to you in a condition that is not exactly original.

It was NOT meant to be returned in the original condition because you knew I would be doing R&D on these parts.

At this point I do not see any way out of this situation. No reasonable offer of parts or money will undo the current and the future damage that you have inflicted. You will remain bitter no matter what.

 

[disturbedkorn]

It was NOT meant to be returned in the original condition because you knew I would be doing R&D on these parts.

I let you know that I wanted the parts back. You said you would be taking measurements and creating your own parts. You didn't share anything else about what you were working on because it was a secret project. I trusted you.

At this point I do not see any way out of this situation. No reasonable offer of parts or money will undo the current and the future damage that you have inflicted. You will remain bitter no matter what.

Yes you've made it clear that you have no intention of being honorable in this transaction....from the very first when you offered me $200, while admitting you've already sold some of my parts for $450.

I'm not bitter. I'm actually very happy now. I've got a one week old daughter (my first kid) and everything is going great. I've done a lot of business in the 3S community and you are the first to ever do something like this to me. I feel we have a great community of owners over all. There's just a few rotten eggs like you that pop up occasionally.

 

[Alan92RTTT]

A question for both of you.

Would you be willing to have one(or both) of the classifieds review teh issues from both sides and abide by what they see as fair?

 

[disturbedkorn]

Alan, I'd love for this to be resolved fairly.

 

[Supercar]

Fairly is more than I ever wanted. Hope it is still possible.

 

[Lord Warlock]

Ok, i'm looking things over. I'd like to get David's perspective on this either in PM or posted to this thread before i throw into the discussion. You can count that we will be neutral in reading everything, but once we make a decision both should abide with what we come up with.

If anyone has any emails saved regarding the original terms of this "loan" of a transmission, and whether or not anyone mentions conditions to return it after it was used for design work, it would be helpful.

 

[Supercar]

Lord Warlock -- based on our public and private exchanges from 3 years ago, you have exactly zero (0) credibility with me.

Alan -- this discussion is not going to take place here in this thread. I will not throw in another free reality show for 3Si. PM/email/phone only.

Philip