33 replies to this topic

[roofless]

Many have asked what's going on, and to set the record straight - this is what's been occuring...............

having done a 'deal' on an engine with Chris I needed to supply a gearbox to him to strap the engine to.
I had a fresh straight cutter with drops and primary that had had a full strip and rebuild by guessworks, been stripped and carefully painted in custom paint, with all new shiny bolts n stuff - so I handed it over and sat excitedly waiting for my engine.

and I sat.............

and I sat.................

and I sat some more.....................................................

time passes by - I hear stories of engines eating themselves sourced from Chris, so i decide to go down and find out what's going on.

I'm not filled with confidence, so I tell him I',m going to have MRA complete my 16V engine so he can concentrate on the Standard A series, and seeing as how Martin at MRA will need a gearbox pretty soon, I'll have the straight cutter back, give to Martin, and commission a new one from Guessworks for the smart performance engine, to arrive in about a month.

" so then chris, fetch me the gearbox old luv..."

yep - no probs.....its over here somewhere......

after some furtive groping under a bench, a grubby piece of cack is presented to me, vaguely looking like a straight cut gearbox, that may have fallen off a mini that hit a land mine by the looks of it.......

thats not mine..................

yes it is................

no its not, go fetch mine...............

its yours ! it just needs painting..............


a pregnant pause ensued......................

now then chris - go fetch my gearbox before I get angry................

its about this time the colour dropped from his face, and he looked a bit scared.............

I used it on another engine, for another customer he tells me....................




of course, I took this all in good humour, and had a giggle.....just before I told him He'd got exactly one hour to get it back before I kicked the living sh*t out of him - I'm not known for my patient nature.


anyways, long story wrapped up pronto, only after the threat of reporting it as theft to the plod, talking to the unknowing owner of the engine that actually had my gearbox on it, and deadline to his parents to bail him out.....I got paid off.

I also got paid off for the engine I didnt recieve.


many others recently have been paid off by chris's parents to make problem engines dissapear, but they had to promise to keep quiet............I promised no such thing.


smart performance ?...........not very smart in my opinion.

Edited by roofless, 14 September 2010 - 06:48 PM.

[the.stroker]

I wont go into the gory details , all i will say is chris smart ripped myself and charlotte off providing us with two scrap engines , none of which were anywhere near the spec we were billed for , damaged alloys , bodged wiring , delays , lies and a potential police case for handling stolen goods were all we got from smart.
Smart was " to stressed" to deal with the situation himself and we had to deal with his father , we had both engines stripped and fully documented with pictures by an independant engineer , who could not believe what he was seeing , scrap.

Smart converted my SPI ,and left me with bodged wiring,snapped off fuel lines left in situ e.t.c , my mint SPI fuel tank was replaced with this ( see picture )

Our summer show season has been ruined by smart , as have all the TMF stand events we were scheduled to run and organise,all a knock on effect.

None of the above is speculation,heresay e.t.c,it is based on fact as provided by an independant engineer who compiled the reports.

Smarts father eventually offered half re-fund and replacement of defect external / internal parts

We have since had to source a place to get the engines re-built to the spec they should have been in the first place , with parts fitted matching what we ordered and paid for

Attached Files

•  repairs_010.JPG   202.58K   25 downloads
•  scrap_001.JPG   200.08K   48 downloads

[roofless]

Chris has an opportunity now to get his act together, he has all the right kit, and it appears he has the knowledge to turn out good work.......and to be honest a lot of what has happened under any normal circumstances just wouldnt make sense.

there may be a whole host of reasons why things have happened the way they have, but some things are very clear.....

he's made some very bad decisions
he's mis-used the trust put in him by many people
he's over-sold products he had no real opportunity or facility to supply
and he's deliberately misled people with a string of deceit that finally caught up with him.

If he can show some measure of taking a grip of himself, getting help in operating the business in a professional manner, and showing some measure of how he can improve quality control......he could do very well.

in fairness he has made financial amends in almost all instances, I believe there are still a few issues remaining to be ironed out, but right now - if you are considering Chris for works, he really needs to show how he can deliver a good product, on time, and to the full specification of what he has offered you.

It would be a shame to see Chris fold, I don't like to see any business fail especially when I know the efforts and costs involved in setting one up - but I do take extreme displeasure in being misled, taken advantage of and treated for a fool

I hope Chris reads this and feels inclined to stand up and be counted, and show us how he can move forward and win our trust, and business again.

[the.stroker]

I agree with comments on here, for the most part.
The thing i find hard to swallow is i ordered a straight cut gearbox with drops , only to be told months later , that its not my gearbox , and i was linked with potential stolen goods , so what you might add , handling stolen goods would attract the attention of my employer , and the RAF wold take a very dim view potentially diciplining me for bringing the military into disripute under military law , nice that,i bet he didnt even consider the greater consiquences either.
With regard to the financial side of it , Smarts father took control almost straight away , We were told not to contact chris smart direct as he " was to stressed " over the whole situation ,and all communication and decission making would be done by the father from then onwards , so much for standing up and confronting the individuals who were left ( at that time ) with no engine , no car and no money.

Smart has been viewing this topic on and off since it was first raised yesterday , i to hope he is man enough to stand up and provide a full explanation as to what exactly happened and maybe offer an apolgie to those effected.

We still have all the evidence to hand over our individual case in the form of engineering reports , attached relevant media and the scrap components that were removed from charlottes so-called fast road engine , it was just a shame all this had to be done before an offer was put on the table to remedy the situation.

[BenH]

every1 heard what happened to my engine, i lost just over £600 from my ordeal after losing insurance deposits and a hefty cancelation fee from adrian flux,not alone all the time and petrol. I refuse to give anyone my car now as you cant trust anyone. Im sorry that its happend Martin,your a sound bloke as goes for burnard and Dan,and if he had the balls to mess you and the stroker around then what chances did us the little people have!

[01smartc]

I’ve been asked to comment, so I think it’s only fair I give my reaction.

I admit that the past couple of months have not been great for me. When I first started up, the forum showed great support and because of which I became very busy with lots of orders.

Since then a few things have gone wrong, firstly with Dan Stokes engines. Two engines that I built and fitted to each of the cars. Dan’s first engine was completed, fitted to the car and rolling roaded at Southam Mini Metro Centre. All seemed to be running perfectly and Dan came to collect the engine.
Unfortunately on the way home, about 100miles into the journey, the engine let go. I still am not sure what happened, but in my opinion the engine suffered a piston failure. This obviously damaged the rest of the engine and also the S/C gearbox.

So although I didn’t feel the engine broke due to anything I had done during the build I went and fetched the car back from Dan to fix the engine in time for L2B… which was only in a few days. So as good will I removed the broken engine and fitted the engine I had taken out back into it so Dan could do L2B. This involved multiple nights working till late into the night.

In the mean time Charlottes engine had been built and fitted but also suffered a small piston failure on initial start-up. Both sets of pistons were bought at the same time, to me suggesting a poor batch possibly.

However this was also fixed and running fine within the very tight deadlines. I also, out of good will, delivered the car back down to them. A good 125 mile trip.

So Dan did L2B and obviously then wanted another engine building to replace the broken one. Another tight deadline as they were both going away to the Lake District.

This is where I made the mistake…. I could replaced most of the engine, block, crank, rods pistons etc but Dan’s S/C box was damaged beyond repair and I didn’t have enough time to build a new one from scratch. So I decided to use a S/C box I had on the shelf. This belonged to Roofless, to be used on an engine that he asked me to build.

Dan and Charlotte then headed off to the Lake District for their holiday and I was pleased I had met the deadline. Taking both cars back to them on a couple of long trips at my expense. The cars seemed to run fine throughout the week and covered over 1000miles, even waiting in 9 hours of traffic on the way back. Dan even posted a thread about the trip on this forum saying everything went fine.

So the short story is I used Roofless’s box for Dan engine so that Dan had an engine back in time to go on his holiday as planned. I realise now this was the wrong decision. I should have told Dan that I could not repair his engine in time and he would have to wait. Not something I wanted to do as I already felt very guilty. Or I should have contacted Roofless and asked if I could use the box.

I did have another S/C box freshly built for Roofless in the meantime, this is the one I gave him when he came to collect it. It was however not prepped and painted as the original.

At no time did I plan to steal the box from Roofless, I had already replaced it. There was no malicious motive for taking it. Ironically it was taken to help another customer, Dan, out.

I won’t keep writing and writing but since then other problems have occurred. By this time Smart Performance had no money left having lost a lot of money on Dan’s engines as well as Ben’s. So I had to borrow money from my parents to refund the affected people.

Dan and Charlotte have both been refunded and kept both engines. An agreement was reached and the matter is finished

Ben H was refunded in full. This is also sorted and finished.

Roofless has had a brand new S/C box rebuilt and refunded for the engine that he no longer wanted me to build. This matter has been dealt with and is finished.

Bernard was also refunded in full for the head. Even though the head was not bought from me, it was bought from another forum user almost a year after I had sold it originally. Just as a note, this head was inspected by me after it was returned and I thought it was fine. It was then fitted to an engine. That car gained 14bhp and 12ftlbs of torque by using the head and is still driving around in perfect working order. So I don’t think it was scrap. But this was also sorted and finished

I do admit I have made mistakes. All of which have now been resolved in one way or another. It was never my intention to build a bad engine, or rip people off. I didn’t deliberately build engine’s that would blow up.

I must apologise to everybody who has been affected by my mistakes.

I hope people read this and realise that I’m not cowboy and that I can built a good engine. I just made some bad choices along the way.

Chris @ Smart Performance

[mk3 Cooper S]

Although most of us have heard all the grumblings going on at Smart why would this be viewed differently to any other business.

What track record of previous work was available? I know he has worked in the industry previously but not sure as to what level?

As far as I can tell - new business - new premises unproven track record of build quality or durability.

Maybe a lesson to all of us is that just because someone is posting and offering good things on a forum is not proof of quality work.

I have two words to say - "Cheap Pistons"

Away from this subject slightly - usually if a business or individual gets a bad rap from another the topic gets closed. This appears to be a bit of a free for all. I know that respected members and Mods are involved but we should exercise consistancy on here IMO as to not send out mixed messages.

[the.stroker]

Unfortunatly chris you have failed to mention my old engine was only fitted in time for l2b due to myself and charlotte yet again driving to you and spending 6 hours putting it all back together , as all the members realised when we didnt make it to L2B until it was dark that evening.
You also fail to mention the times you delivered charlottes car back in pieces and not even running , with a broken choke e.t.c which resulted in you being told to take it away and return it correctly , as was the case with my cooper , after it loosing engine oil faster than i could top it up you were told to collect it and make good your mistakes.

However this was also fixed and running fine within the very tight deadlines. The engines were ordered in Dec 2009 and £1500 deposite paid for in feb for a completion date of may , clearly 3 months was to much of a deadline for you to meet

Dan’s S/C box was damaged beyond repair and I didn’t have enough time to build a new one from scratch. So I decided to use a S/C box I had on the shelf. This belonged to Roofless We both asked you a couple of days after if the gearbox had been damaged , you even showed us " a gearbox " in your garage which appeared to be fully serviceable , how do you explain this


I should have told Dan that I could not repair his engine in time and he would have to wait. Not something I wanted to do as I already felt very guilty.

The reason you felt guilty is due to the fact both engines had been on order since december 2009



So although I didn’t feel the engine broke due to anything I had done during the build

Fair enough for the first build , however who exactly built the second engine , as the independent assesment i had carried out points to some damming and dangerous bodges , worn old parts and general incompetance , all listed in the document compiled by the engineer,complete with pictures as each component was removed and inspected


I didn’t deliberately build engine’s that would blow up.

I really think you need to view our independant assesments for both engines

We do not expect £4000 worth of engines to fail after 1000 miles , not to mention the lies,deciet and utter time wasting we were subjected to.

However as you have pointed out a partial re-fund was offered and accepted , this does not however exempt me from voicing my oppinion on the matter , i dont want to really start a mud slinging match on TMF , and would prefer not to list every single bodge and mis-soled equipment listed on the 10 page engineering report as this will serve no purpose , its also a shame it has come to this for you to admit your failings to all those concerned.

I do however commend you for your frank reply

And with my moderators head on , Please only comment on first hand experiences with smart performance and keep it factual.

[Burnard]

Chris you are still lieing.

You told me you could not afford to give me a full refund, and offered me £200.
I paid £210 for the head, and another £50+ for you to fit new valves and guides after it failed on me the first time.

The head may be running on an engine, but for how long?

I paid you, to fit NEW valves and guides, It was delivered back to me with 2nd hand valves fitted in guides of unknown condition.
The valve seats were ruined, not evenly cut etc, this is simply unacceptable. All the details are in my origional thread.

But the way i see it, you are STILL lieing to us about things, no matter how trivial, the are still lies.

Edited by Burnard, 15 September 2010 - 03:07 PM.

[minimadjonesy]

Away from this subject slightly - usually if a business or individual gets a bad rap from another the topic gets closed. This appears to be a bit of a free for all. I know that respected members and Mods are involved but we should exercise consistancy on here IMO as to not send out mixed messages.

This thread has been created in the Products and Servcies Reviews section which is exactly where this type of this needs to go to assist other forum members with choices to use traders in the future. the posts have been factual and so far have been fair. Should it get out of hand then it will be closed as per the forum rules however, unfortuntaly for Chris, these instances have led to him losing his trader status on TMF as we have to protect the forum members.
The fact that a Mod is affected has nothing to do with it as he is only one person who has had problems and only put his story here along with the other members accounts.

[mk3 Cooper S]

Away from this subject slightly - usually if a business or individual gets a bad rap from another the topic gets closed. This appears to be a bit of a free for all. I know that respected members and Mods are involved but we should exercise consistancy on here IMO as to not send out mixed messages.

This thread has been created in the Products and Servcies Reviews section which is exactly where this type of this needs to go to assist other forum members with choices to use traders in the future. the posts have been factual and so far have been fair. Should it get out of hand then it will be closed as per the forum rules however, unfortuntaly for Chris, these instances have led to him losing his trader status on TMF as we have to protect the forum members.
The fact that a Mod is affected has nothing to do with it as he is only one person who has had problems and only put his story here along with the other members accounts.

Thanks for the explanation.

As long as we have consistancy then happy days

[01smartc]

Burnard - I agree that mistakes have been made.

However, you did not buy the head from me. So i was not obliged to give you a refund at all. I did it out of good will. The head had problems after you bought it, you contacted me to say one of my heads you bought from someone else has got a problem. So I agreed to fix the problem and just let you pay for the part, not the labour. Again in good will.

So I sent the head back to you with the work done for a fraction of the price. You didnt even fit the head or try and use it.

So I had it back, and gave you £200 refund. I dont think this was bad as you only actually ever paid me £50.

I think this is another instance of me being a little too nice for my own good.

What would the big companies have said if you went back to them with a head you bought second hand from someone else?

[Burnard]

I agreed to fix the problem and just let you pay for the part, not the labour. Again in good will.

So I sent the head back to you with the work done for a fraction of the price.

What would the big companies have said if you went back to them with a head you bought second hand from someone else?

At no point did you tell me i wasnt paying for labour, and haveing never had work like this done before i was not aware that this price was good or bad. I just wanted it done.

If id wanted to return it to you, wouldnt i have done that rather than paying you to repair it?
The ONLY reason i wanted ALL my money back from YOU was because i had 2 independent garages saying it was not worthy of being fitted to any engine, after i had paid you to repair it, and check it over. as it happens, it was the specific parts you were working on that were deemed unfit for purpose. This is why i came to you with the problem. If it was a bigger company, i would have gone to court. You screwed you self over by giving it back to me saying everything was fine, and it was ready to be used. IF i had ask you to simply replace the valves and guide, then no, i would not have asked for any money back.

I am just repeating my self now.

[BenH]

its ok for chris to say he worked overnight to get the workload done but i worked 12hour night shifts to pay for that engine. I paid southam to do my report even though Chris agreed to pay for it. Im not going to repeat the rest of my story but my club couldnt beleive when i took the rocker cover off to find a rocker arm undone. i too suffered a hell of a lot of stress. Id worked so hard to get the car ready for it to go wrong by somebody elses error. I was paid off and settled with in my oppion a crap offer but to be honest i thought id lost all hope of getting anything back so i took the money and ran .only when threatenning him with court did i get any sort of decent response. I recommended Chris to everyone and i can only apoligise but i didnt see this coming as Chris seemed such a good bloke at first. I was so upset about the ordeal and spent a few occasions on the phone to Dan who i also appoligise to as i havnt got in touch since my refund.
The whole ordeal was a complete waste of a year,time,effort and money.

Thats all i want to say.

[Darkscamp]

Burnard - Athough the work done on the head was less than acceptable, you were lucky to get a £200 refund on the head, when you only paid £50 for the parts. I personally would have only given you a refund for the parts. The head you bought was second hand, therefore anything on it would have been classed as 'used and possibly diy replaced', even if it had just sat on the shelf since being bought.

You also state in your thread, that you direct us all to in this thread, that you were more than happy with the agreement of a £200 refund. Yet you seem to impose in this thread that he ripped you off.

If you had been dealing with me, then i'm sorry but you would have only got your £50 back with a possible £20 good will gesture depending on your attitude at the time. A bigger company would have laughed at your appeal for a full refund on the head and work, and taking them to court would have been a waste of money for yourself. Why do people threaten court action without checking their legal standings first?


Chris - All you can do is try and rebuild your rep now. Its not easy, but if you put your head down and churn out the best work you can possilbly do everytime, then it will eventually work out. Give a realistic leadtime on the job and if your busy explain this before taking the job on to the customer, as you'll be amazed how people can wait for perfection. The only other advice i'll give before shutting up, is price the engine with parts you'd want in your own engine. Your not the first to make mistakes, but remember your in the 'mini community' and it can take a while for certain people to get off your case.

I must admit Chris has never done work for me, but as i currently get all my engine work done by Moorspeed, a good friend and another company hammered by TMF, I know how it can affect things. It can pick up Chris and your friends will hopefully help you get back on your feet.

I am mutual in all this due to not having work done by Chris but as Roofless is a good friend, I can also see why he has done this thread.

Edited by Darkscamp, 15 September 2010 - 06:05 PM.