DFW tuners
 

It occurred to me at the GT500 lunch yesterday that there are lots disgruntled customers from the DFW Ford enthusiast community. As most know, I am currently a True Street customer but I am rather forthright and vocal about what I want and what I think is reasonable to expect.

As someone else mentioned, there is no independent shop that has the resources that Ford has available. That said, whether mail order or custom tuned, a dedicated tuner whom is truly interested in delivering a well tuned car, is capable of doing so.

But it takes time!
Typically, more than one day.

And if the car is extensively modded, it may take several days. Furthermore, if you are using forced induction or NOS, the only "true" way to tune the car is on the road in real world conditions. Dynos are useful, but they are not indicative of "real world conditions". This means trusting your tuner to drive your car or the owner making time to drive the car while the tuner datalogs and observes.

And for this to happen, it is not going to be discounted or a group purchase price or "hookup". If after all this, you still have a car that does not run correctly, find another tuner. And if you have burned bridges with all the tuning options in DFW, start turning it yourself.

If you have chosen mail order and the tuner has not requested datalogs of the car being started and driven in a certain manner, you have been short changed.

It's the performance triangle principle:

High Performance
Reliable
Affordable

You only get two!

I have a reliable, 1000+hp weekend car, it was not cheap. But I expected this before I began this journey. If at any point I feel that I am no longer getting the service I expect from a shop, I'll take my business elsewhere. There isn't a Ford shop in DFW that doesn't appreciate a good customer!

I disagree with your last sentence. I was a good customer to a very well known shop in the area and when it became clear that they could not tune my car in the manner they said they could, I was "put on hold", ignored, and generally made to go somewhere else, all without them actually saying anything like that, so it would appear to be my decision to leave. I really don't think I asked too much either. Simply put, I wanted a supercharged car that would make in the mid 600's and drive like a stocker. I ended up with a car that made the hp, and ran awesome at the track, but was an absolute disaster on the street. Erratic idle, dying at red lights, cruise rpm at steady state driving would fluctuate up and down all over the place. The shop never admitted blame, and basically quit returning my calls.

After several months and multiple trips to the shop, to "get it right this time", I ended up back at the old standby shop, where I should have gone in the first place. He took good care of me, had the car for a couple of weeks, replaced a lot of parts that I suspected shouldn't have been used in the first place, and returned to me an awesome running and driving car.

It doesn't matter how much you spend on things, and it doesn't matter what the shops reputation is, if they realize they can't deliver what they promised, they will find a way to edge you out the door. Best to find a shop that you like, and trust, and develop a relationship with them. Don't go simply by reputation.

Many have dropped the same shop you have and are waaaaaay happier over @ PMP

By your own admission, you had a good relationship with Shop A (that did good work). Why did you try shop B (which did not do a good job on your car)?

And if the level of customer service I receive changes, I may do the same. This is not a cheerleading thread. If I did not mention the shop I use, someone else would have.

Customers need to know that good work takes time and costs money. The Wal-Mart business model does not work well with performance cars. Competition makes all the shops better! Each one should welcome a quality competitor.

I have buddies in the ford and GM world that started where you went. They were happy at 1st and later they didn't like the "customer" service. I won't mention names, there's always 2 sides to a story but when more and more people talk about the same experience its hard not to pick side. We have a buddy's car at PMP now that just picked up 22rwhp over the old tune so things are looking good!

Sounds like the old adage, "you get what you pay for" applies. Not shocking.

-Alex

Because shop B is "the" shop that everyone talks so highly about. Naturally, as a Mustang enthusiast, you want the best when it comes to spending your money. I went in, they did their sales pitch, even had a "demo" car I could check out to see the "quality" of their work. When we took the car back to stock, the sheer amount of crappy work and cut corners was staggering. They could offer the next installation for free and I'd say go fuck yourself.

Not trying to stir the pot here but damn PMP did a hell of a job from what a well known and talked about shop did. Lol picked up 29rwhp and 80rwtq yes no BS either. I'll try to post the graph. Waiting 2 Months for a tune my ass lol

Why is everyone on this site so damn vague?
Are you guys fearful of being called out?
If saying what is on your mind and is supported by unbiased empirical evidence is frowned upon, then I am likely to get banned.

Sounds good!
But post both dynos, including ambient weather temps from both days.
My car dynos ~100hp different in the summer than it does in the winter.

Ok so this is a 2011 with LTs, off road X-pipe CAI and a tune from shop A. Car was at shop A 2 months yes 2 moths for their tune which gave us the 1st results you see. We let the car cool for about an hour before we got these sad baselines smh...... After a few hours at PMP the car felt like a whole new car!



http://i60.tinypic.com/1z4c2ms.jpg

What dyno? Those #'s seems awfully low for a bolt on 5.0.

Whatever PMP uses I wanna say a dynojet. But track numbers is what we are into not what a sheet of paper says we have.

Edit: And has 3.73 gear swap also

You started commenting in this thread about how different dyno #'s were from shop A to B. Now they don't matter?
What did the car run at the track on tune A vs tune B.

If you're going to compare one run to another bring all the facts.
Conditions, Temps, Brand of Dyno....this stuff makes a difference in #'s.

Where on here am I stating that it matters? I started talking about experiences with big name shops. Shop A had the car running 8.40s back to back when the car ran 8.50s stock. With the mods it had it should be running 7.90s at least. Car fell on it's face when going into gear. Now the graph posted is showing the gains they picked up. Again same day baseline is on top same day finished tune on bottom. It matters to me what was picked up. I can careless what the final number is. The dyno did it's job measuring the gains.

Up until this post you haven't given any info other than final dyno #'s.....
it obviously means something to you, if not then why post it.
When the car was running/shifting so badly did the car go back to the initial tuner to look it over and make it right?
I'm simply asking for information.