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Yet more problems with Classicswede

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Old Aug 5th, 2012, 19:30   #1
940_Turbo
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Default Yet more problems with Classicswede

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Originally Posted by classicswede View Post
I do not like your rush rush atitude and prefer to do a job well and have it done properly. You have no paticance and that does not bide well with me. Standing oversome while they are working on your car is how mistakes are made and how you ended up with the petrol gaige wires not connected. Turniing up to collect the car when you were told it was not ready and that I needed no interuption so that you job would not get put back any further does not help.

Threatening someone with IF YOU DO NOT DO EXACTLY WHAT I WANT I WILL POST UP ON THE FORUM THAT YOU ARE A BODGER AND CON MAN will not make me do what you want.
The above quote comes from this thread http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=159255 and needs addressing I think as it is more than a little disingenuous.

Some background; a friend of mine owns a rather nice, well kept, immaculately tidy P1 V70 T5. He bought is a couple of years back and has gradually worked his way through it to turn it into a really nice example. It’s had Koni suspension a Rica chip, the interior has been sorted out, the car got a set of reconditioned Propus C wheels with new Yokohama tyres and we fitted an R bumpers front and rear.
The final thing on the wish list back when he bought it was to get it LPG converted. The question then was who was this work to be entrusted to?
Various people were spoken to, questions were asked and one of these people was Dai. Rick pointed out to him that the car had been chipped and specifically asked whether that was an issue. He was assured it was not. Good news clearly. Dai assured him done loads of them, he is the Volvo LPG specialist, the car would run on LPG perfectly. Just what the man wanted.
Consequently a dare was booked and the two of us drove to Wales. First cost 450 mile round trip with my S80 D5 and a trip with the V70 @ 225 miles one way. That was OK though because the car was going to THE specialist right? Read on.
The car was to be done in 3 or 4 days, but Rick told Dai to do a really tidy job, make sure the car ran absolutely perfectly. Drive the car round, make sure it is OK. The two of us stood there and chatted to Dai. I specifically asked Dai what injectors he would use. I asked “will you be fitting Keihin injectors as used by Prins?” and Dai answered yes. We had no reason to disbelieve that. After all his price list, edited Jan 23rd 2012 specifically stated Premium kit with high presision (sic) Japanese injectors as used by Prins.



We also handed Dai a full gas tank we’d removed from another T5, indeed we had the full system but Dai told Rick the system he’s acquired wasn’t a lot of good and the gas tank very small. Rick was going for QUALITY so he said, fit a new tank. He discussed the price list with Dai and asked about the Prins system Dai offered. He was told “No, use my premium system, same injectors as Prins but a much faster ECU.” Fair enough, after all Dai is the specialist.
Three weeks later the (that’s weeks not 3 days as promised) the car was ready. Rick was told Dai wanted a bank transfer before he collected the car and he did so. After all Dai is the specialist. When he got the car back it was indescribably filthy. The interior was covered in sticky ice cream finger prints from very short people, but Rick said nothing about it. After all he had told Dai to use the car. The outside was filthy but the hose pipe ban has been lifted so never mind. Rather less amusingly the rear bumper had been backed into something, but we know how to paint and this would be a cracking job right?
( Running transport total £80 ticket to Holyhead and 225 miles home)

Once home the car ran like a bag of nails. It sprang 2 different gas leaks, one because a hose was so short it simply wouldn’t reach and we found a pool of coolant under the evaporator because the hose clamp hadn’t been done up. We were starting to wonder...........Had Rick’s £1340 been bank transferred wisely?

We looked a bit harder and we took the car for a test drive. Go to overtake something, kick the auto box down and the LPG system goes Beeeeeep and switches to petrol. We looked a bit harder and found 2 more gas leaks and noticed the injectors were made by HANA; which was decidedly odd as we’d been promised Keihin injectors. A quick Google showed Hana are in Korea and Keihin are in Japan. It also showed us you can buy a HANA injector for £17 whereas a Keihin will cost you £77 give or take. That’s £300 difference on 5 injectors.

We looked a bit harder, the ECU promised to be faster and better than a Prins is an Oscar N, and it’s about as cheap an LPG ECU as money can buy well under £100 retail.
However neither Rick nor I are LPG specialists so we took the car to a local specialist who posed the simple question “What did you pay for that conversion then mate.” We looked a bit embarrassed and slightly abashed and answered £1340. “That’s £700 quid worth of gas conversion mate, those bits are the cheapest of the cheap. He also told us he’s rarely seen a scruffier job


Three of the injectors were just cable tied to a bracket


We didn’t want to believe that these components were so bad, so we rang around and the news got no better, ‘utter junk’, ‘ultra cheap’ and ‘useless’ were but a few of the adjectives we got.
We looked a bit harder, Dai managed to drill into the fuel tank, the boot panel has had its hinges removed so there is now a large sheet of loose plywood in the back of the car, the installation is horribly untidy and worst of all it won’t run properly.


But hey this is a premium conversion and there is a 3 year guarantee so it’ll be fine right? Yeah right..... By this time Rick was rather irate, so I got involved. I asked Dai just what the point was in choosing his premium conversion. After all he advertises his Prins kit for £1650 and his premium kit for £1375. That’s a difference of £275 and just getting the Keihin injectors that come with a Prins kit is worth more than that.
Dai’s first response was to deny that he ever offered the Keihin injectors and he edited his price list the same evening to make it so. Korea isn’t Japan last time I looked.

Meanwhile he claimed the gas system was fine, the car had an ignition issue. Rick therefore ordered 5 new plugs, a cap a rotor arm and new ignition leads from the dealer. Despite the fact that the ones the car had weren’t very old. That wasted another £200 or so....
Meanwhile the car had been driven back to Wales, (on petrol because it would barely run at all on gas)
I spoke to Dai and we concluded that the only reasonable thing to do was fit a Prins system to the car. That would give Rick the premium system and Keihin injectors he’d paid for. Rick, being a reasonable guy, offered to pay the price difference between the 2 kits despite the fact that he’d been given el cheapo injectors but he wanted a solution.

The next morning I git a PM from Dai, completely ignoring our discussion and with a price for substituting a Prins kit for his bodge job.
Fit Full Prins VSI (not silverline) front end kit

Extra equipment cost £425
Fitting £350

Rick declined to give Dai an additional £775 to give him what he’d paid for in the first place, a premium gas conversion.
DO NOT GET YOUR CAR CONVERTED BY THIS GUY! That’s my advice.
Expenditure so far to get a badly running, untidily converted LPG V70
£1340 for the conversion
1 used gas tank full of gas
1350 road miles
Three £80 train tickets
£200 worth of unnecessary ignition parts
Innumerable phone calls
Heaps of fustration

Last edited by 940_Turbo; Aug 5th, 2012 at 19:42. Reason: Typo
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Old Aug 5th, 2012, 21:45   #2
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940, check out my reply in the other thread
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Old Aug 5th, 2012, 23:05   #3
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940 _turbo just on a side note i have been looking at the paperwork dai supplied was your invoice made out from classicswede or autogas bitz as i was sure he trades as classicswede

just ask your friend to check his invoice
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Old Aug 6th, 2012, 21:33   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thanatos View Post
940 _turbo just on a side note i have been looking at the paperwork dai supplied was your invoice made out from classicswede or autogas bitz as i was sure he trades as classicswede

just ask your friend to check his invoice
Autogas Bitz
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Old Aug 6th, 2012, 21:38   #5
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Do those injectors inject liquid LPG direct ( no vapouriser ) or the usual LPG vapour ? would be interested to know .
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Old Aug 6th, 2012, 21:52   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clan View Post
Do those injectors inject liquid LPG direct ( no vapouriser ) or the usual LPG vapour ? would be interested to know .
There is a vapouriser, which incidentally has been sited immediately behind the front bumper in the crash zone.........

You can see it here, lurking under the battery (the silver thing with the big nut on top)

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Old Aug 6th, 2012, 22:02   #7
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As I said here http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=159412 there is another exciting instalment;-(

Rick collected his car from Dai last Friday. Dai declined to fit the Keihin injectors Rick paid for, but he did tidy upthe installation some. The car now runs on gas, though it is a little lumpy.

This morning Rick and I had a proper look. Dai has painted the injector brackets black and he has replaced three of the injectors. He also made a bracket for those three injectors. Quite why it needed 3 replacement injectors is information we're not privy to.....



However, unbelievably, he left the cam cover bolts which now also hold the injector brackets loose; all three of them....



We also found three more gas leaks. He simply hadn't tightened up the hose clamps, they were so loose you could spin them round the hose. Absolutely ridiculous.

He didn't fit the Japanese injectors he charged for, the car still has el cheapo HANA injectors.

The car is going to be independently inspected on Thursday- watch this space.

Last edited by 940_Turbo; Aug 6th, 2012 at 22:12. Reason: Typos
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Old Aug 6th, 2012, 22:43   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 940_Turbo View Post
There is a vapouriser, which incidentally has been sited immediately behind the front bumper in the crash zone.........

You can see it here, lurking under the battery (the silver thing with the big nut on top)
I see , are there systems which do inject liquid gas direct into the ports ? This would have considerable advantages on a performance turbo engine in cooling the charge ...
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Old Aug 6th, 2012, 22:51   #9
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autogas Bitz but the website is www.classicswede.com and if you go to http://www.autogasbitz.org you get the same site as classicswede but you get annoying pop ups saying you have won an iPad and my av. goes crazy. PS I DONT recommend clicking the link


wonder why the two different names?
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Old Aug 7th, 2012, 10:25   #10
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I have to say having on ventured into this part once on this forum, and knowing naff all really about LPG conversions the workmanship alone looks a bit suspicious the reading more so.

if you paid for X as part of the contract then you should get X, that was what was specified.
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