Disappointed with Shark Perfomance remap

[Curly]

Well I had done a couple of track days in the little Fabia VRs and decided it needed a little more go so I decided to go for a remap at Shark performance in Mansfield everything seemed to go hunky dory but when leaving I was told they hadn’t go the right screws for the ECU cage and I would have to go back to have them fitted. Not too happy but anyone can make a mistake!!

On the road the remap worked well and I even got better mpg, I booked the car in a month later for the ECU screws to be refitted and this is over 100 miles round trip for me, got there to only be told they had got the wrong size screws again!!! Well as you can imagine I wasn’t impressed considering it would of only took them 2 mins to check in the cage and give ma a quick call not come in and save me the trip and expense.

The next day I had a track day booked at Bedford – first session out after half a lap and starting to push the pace the car went into limp mode so back into the pits turned it on and off it reset itself. Off I went again same thing happened again towards the end of the lap I started to push and back into limp mode went the car, tried a few different things to solve the problem – put the tc on and it got me into the 2nd lap and the same thing happened again. In the end I just had to give up on the track day, on the way home car was fine. So I gave Shark a call on the Monday morning explaining the problems with the car and was told Ben the remaper would call me back, well 3 calls later from me to Shark and a week later still nothing back from Ben bearing in mind he had my works number and mobile number and excuses being Ben is a very busy guy he will call you back, I am a patient guy but this was starting to grate and my patience was running low.

I explained to Cheryl the receptionist that their customer service stinks and I was getting p**s off with the situation, well halleluya Ben calls me back 2mintes later and has a rant at me for allegedly swearing at his staff, its was obviously his way of deflecting the situation onto me. Anyhow when he had calmed down he said he was very sorry regarding problems at Bedford and he said he would refund my track day which I never asked for but appreciated like I explained to him the problem only seemed to happen on track and I said I had a track day booked at Donnington in a few weeks time. On hearing this Ben suggested he would meet me at Donnington and do a live remap or pick my car up and run it on his roller to sort out the problem, I was quite impressed with his seemingly genuine response to solve the problem – guess what it didn’t last long! Earlier in the week days before the track day I tried to contact him to arrange a time for him to pick my car up – a few more phone calls and still nothing from Ben so I just lost complete confidence in him and his company. I booked in with his receptionist to arrange for Ben to remove the remap from my car I just didn’t have the time and patience to run back and forth to Yorkshire if it wasn’t right again.

On the Saturday the remap was removed and Ben said he was sorry for all my troubles and said he would refund the cost of the map but how about being charged for the 2 hours labour I agreed and we shuck on that with Ben saying he would call me Monday regarding the refund. Well once again never happened numerous call to Shark same response Ben will call you back!!! Latest news – ten days later I got a call from Ben on my mobile he had reconsidered his offer and only wanted to give me £50 refund, I was obviously disappointed with his attitude, one thing I cant stand is a man who goes back on his word, he is not prepared to give me the money back for the Track day (400mile round trip for me ) then to shake on a deal and go back on it is pretty low. Lesson learnt not to listen to reviews on forums and only deal with established motor sport companies, on a final note I managed to get an hour on a track day over the weekend with the remap removed and the car runs a sweet as a nut.

[toplad]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, you seem more than reasonable

I've never heard of Shark performance.

Ben sounds like a complete fool/tool.

[DuncanR]

We should start a "Dodgy fookers dont deal with 'em" thread and make it a sticky, as long as the content of any post is genuine copy, I wouldnt have thought they could do anything about it even if they come here and have a look themselves ! ...would do them some good perhaps ! right , I have a few to go on the list.

Circuit Days
Shimmys used and part worn tyre shop.

[sailorbaz]

Sorry to hear of your Mapping woes mate, it's a shame since you were obviously recommended by other Forum users.

Then again, I'm finding that some Forums are full of tools recently, this one obviously not included. I love you Guys!!: smt045:

[RonBurgandy]

Mmm bad news. We used REVO when we bought the wifes Audi earlier this year and they were great, on the ball with everything. The change to the car were brill, monster torque instant power and they say better fuel economy but tbh your foots always buried in the carpet its hard to tell.

[shimmy]

Wankers, the lot of them.

[thegingerninja]

Curls, never heard of Shark. Very poor business skills from them! Stick with Motorsport companies, they have usually dialled out most of the safety mode signals to more acceptable levels. I hate limp home mode - should be banned. You know something is wrong when a rod comes through the side of the block - much more exciting limp mode.

[AlexGTT]

Clue might have been in the name Curly. Plenty of reputable, long established VAG lump tuners out there to choose from.

I'll add to the avoid list.

That Projector Lifting lot are a right bunch of scallys with a grumpy, rude boss who can't wipe his arse properly.Don't ask how I know that by the way.

[mrjoebloggs]

Having known Ben @ Shark on a personal level for the best part of two years, I highly doubted this story when it first appeared.

Shark Performance are the most honest and open tuning company that I have come across.

There are several things that you seem to have missed out from your side of the story Curly....

Please see their response here

Also quoted below:

Unfortunately I have been busy all day and have just arrived home from work (20:10), and so this thread has progressed rather a lot before we've had the chance to offer any opinion.

Firstly I'd like to say that Shark Performance are committed to customer service and resolving any problems that may arise from time to time. Unfortunately, as with any business, there are going to be dissatisfied customers and this is the first time we've had to go as far as posting about it on a public forum. I'm also aware that this isn't the only forum that this exact post been posted on, but Briskoda, being the forum we are most active on, will be the one that we post back to.

The customer booked in as part of the summer offer and received a £150 discount. His remap was performed on 06/09/11, the car was test driven by me (Ben) and confirmed to be OK. It was noted that the car arrived at the workshop with semi-slick track tyres fitted and a headrest mounted camera mount. The remap was performed which was an ECU-out procedure due to the ECU being protected and therefore not OBD writable.

The customer asked us if we replaced the shear bolts used in the ECU cage. Ordinarily we do not as the remap can be detected via diagnostic equipment or by driving the vehicle, but we had some replacement bolts in stock and offered to fit them. Unfortunately the ones we had in stock were not suitable for the Fabia II as they were the wrong part. The customer asked for these to be replaced and so we agreed to order some in, refit the cage and fit new bolts. The cage was left off at this point and saved on our customer parts shelf.

In week commencing 24/10/11 the customer called and asked for me by name regarding the car going into limp mode on track. I was not in a position to take the call (I believe I was on the phone) and I asked Rob to speak to the customer. Rob took the call in a technical capacity with racing experience, and the customer spoke about the inside wheel spinning in corners which appeared to trigger a limp mode condition. The customer stated the car did not do the same in standard tune. Rob's conclusion was that the car and in particular the gearbox was being worked too hard, and that perhaps the throttle could be used in a more appropriate manner to minimise unnecessary wheelspin, and that chassis modifications might help the situation. At this point, no diagnostics had taken place and so we suggested that diagnostics should be performed with VCDS or similar, and that it is possible that the ESP or DSG was pulling power in order to protect something.

The customer returned on 29/10/11 to have the ECU cage refitted with new shear bolts. Unfortunately the new bolts that we had ordered were incorrectly labelled from our supplier (VW Trade Parts Service) and therefore the new bolts were not suitable despite being listed for the Fabia II. The customer left having not had the cage refitted due to the bolts being incorrect.

On 01/11/11 I was admitted into hospital and was therefore unavailable for some time. This was not made public and Shark Performance staff were instructed not to make this public knowledge. It is around this time that the customer tried to contact me by name at the office, to be told that I was not available. The customer was not willing to speak to anyone else, where any of our team could have helped. On 03/11/11 I was notified by another customer and friend that the customer was not happy about his remap and spoke about the car going into limp mode on track. Once I heard about this, I logged into my emails and found out the number we had for the customer and tried to call, but reached an answering machine that told me I couldn't leave a message. I'm not sure how I obtained the customer's mobile number but I did, and called him. I explained that I wasn't in the office at the moment and that I was actually in hospital. The customer explained to me that he had attended a track day at which the car had gone into limp mode. The customer was unhappy that he had wasted money on this track day and at this point I may have offered to cover the cost of the track day. At this time we had no diagnosis on the cause of the fault. I'm not sure if I stipulated the following but it would be fair to assume that we would only cover costs if the map was found to be at fault. I offered to take a look at the car and even to collect the car from him and that we'd speak in the week to arrange this.

I was out of the office for much of the following week. I did not call the customer throughout this week nor did he call the office.

I'm not sure of the dates now, but the customer called the office and asked for me by name to be told that I was not available. The customer was frustrated that he had called the office and asked to speak to me, and that I was not available and had also not received a call back from me. I had in fact tried to call the customer back on the number that he left, which was again a number that went to an answering machine with no message capability. The customer called again, again I was working in the workshop or similar, and the customer told Cheryl that he was "****ed off". Cheryl notified me of the situation and I immediately dropped what I was doing and called the customer back on the mobile telephone number that he had left. This call went to voicemail, I left a voicemail explaining that I had tried to call him, and not to swear at my staff. I went back to continue with my work, at which point he called back and accused Cheryl of making more of the situation than it was. I had a heated conversation with the customer around the virtues of swearing at staff, in particular female staff. We agreed to disagree that "****ed" is or isn't swearing. Once that issue had been dealt with, we spoke about the possibility of me joining the customer on my day off to attend his next track day in an attempt to perhaps log the car, understand the situation and hopefully resolve the issue at that time. We agreed that I could collect the car from the customer's hotel on the Saturday prior to the track day, I would work with it in the evening and try to replicate the issue on the dyno or road, and deliver the car back to the customer, hopefully with a resolution.

On the Friday of the next week, I remember being out of the office and speaking to the customer, as the customer had called the office and asked to speak to me. Looking at my calendar this may have been Friday 18/11/11. The customer expressed that he was not willing to continue with the testing and that he would travel to us to have the remap removed, thus giving us no chance to conduct our own testing to experience and confirm the reason for the limp mode. We agreed that this was to be done on Saturday 19/11/11 before the trackday.

The customer arrived approximately 50 minutes after his scheduled appointment on the Saturday and left the car with us. Approximately 2.5 hours later the customer returned as I had just finished the car. A diagnostic check was performed on the car before any work commenced, and apart from 2 misfires logged, no other faults were present. I explained this to the customer and that apart from the misfires, that no fault was found. At this point the limp mode had only been witnessed by the customer and we had no faults in memory to provide details of the fault. I also explained that there was a Skoda software update to resolve the misfire issue. I handed the keys back to the customer and was asked what the chances of a refund were. I explained that this was a difficult case and that we had provided the service that we set out and that in reality, we shouldn't be offering a refund. The customer was unhappy with this, understandably, and I offered an alternative resolution whereby we billed the customer for the labour time spent and diagnostics. The customer asked how much this was, I said I didn't know and said "probably a couple of hours". We agreed to leave it at that and speak in the week as I had someone in reception waiting to speak to me.

After considering all the factors in this case, Mikko and I came to the conclusion that we had provided the service we set out to, the customer was not willing to give us the opportunity to see the fault for ourselves. We haven't had this issue with any other cars and at least 2 identical cars that we have remapped (one being the one we used for development) spend time on track with absolutely no issues at all. Therefore, we concluded that no refund should be issued as we had provided the service, the remap is tried and tested on identical vehicles in similar situations. We concluded that the limp mode was not due to an engine fault and was not logged, and that is was likely that the DSG gearbox was unable to cope with the track situation (inside wheel spinning up, no throttle regulation) and therefore our software was not at fault. Furthermore we were unhappy with the way the customer had dealt with our staff.

The customer called and asked for me by name on Monday and left a number. When I sat down later in the day to make my call-backs, I recognised the number and knew that this was a number I couldn't call out of hours and therefore, I omitted it from my list. The customer called again on Tuesday and spoke to Rob, the customer left a mobile telephone number which I contacted him on around 19:00 on Tuesday 29/11/11. I explained the decision that Mikko and I had reached and that as Mikko is Technical Lead that his assessment of the situation was final and that's the line that Shark Performance would take. The customer was unhappy with this and referred to his visit of Saturday 19/11/11 when I spoke about refunding him minus the appropriate labour. Given that this was an ECU removal job I conservatively estimated 2 hours of labour to apply the map, 2 hours labour to remove it, the price of two replacement shear bolts and the diagnostic scan which showed no reason for the limp mode. The total for this work is £305.01 including VAT. The customer paid £349 including VAT for his remap. This leaves an outstanding refund to the customer of £43.99. The customer was not willing to accept this resolution and threatened to post his experience up on all the forums that he could, in order to cause as much damage our business as possible. He likened us to another tuning company and stated that the owner of that company was currently "selling all of his cars" as his company was so plagued with poor feedback from forum posts. He told me I spoke "bull****" and ended the call. The post you see here and no doubt in various other places on the internet is the result of that telephone call.

We at Shark Performance are totally committed to customer service. Unfortunately things do get missed, people don't always get an immediate call back, and with a growing company it's inevitable that there will be issues to resolve. We have offered a resolution to the customer who has refused it, as it was not the resolution that he sought. We offered to spend time with the customer on solving the problem outside of normal working time but this offer was declined. The customer was unable to demonstrate the fault nor provide a diagnostic scan documenting any fault codes. A diagnostic scan by us displayed two misfire codes in memory and no other faults in the engine module or auto transmission module. The customer asked us to remove the map and we did so at no charge.

In conclusion, we judge the very few complaints that we have received individually. Some have been offered refunds, or other resolutions have been satisfactory in those cases. In this case we believe that we have made the correct decision.

Thankyou for reading.

Ben
Shark Performance
01/12/2011 23:45

[s.mac]

best thing you can do Joe is FUCK OFF

Having known Ben @ Shark on a personal level for the best part of two years

unless you fancy joining Shimmy (and bring arse wipe Ben) in the man train