Forged Performance - My Story

dpjones

I want to share my own personal experience with Forged Performance. I am reporting Forged Performance to the Georgia Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs, and I hope that by posting my experience here, that anyone else who has had a similar experience, you will also alert the Office of Consumer Affairs so that a full government investigation will occur. This is lengthy, so please bear with me, but there is a lot to this, and it is time that it comes out into the open. I personally have no prior relationship with Sharif before this situation. Like most of you, I found Sharif to be a likeable guy who made me feel like a fried. However, I've been thoroughly disappointed with Sharif and Forged Performance. I am putting this out in the open so the public can make informed decisions before hiring a shop to perform work on their cars, and so that others may have the courage to speak out. I just don’t want others to be harmed as I was.

Before the guts, here is a brief summary of where things stand today. Some of this will make more sense after you read the whole thing. I have hired a very prominent attorney in the Atlanta, GA area to represent me. Her specialty is the 1st Amendment (Freedom of Speech) which is important as you shall see. When she first contacted Sharif, he did exactly what I had suspected: Sharif immediately threatened to file a frivolous lawsuit against me for this posting. Later after he himself hired an attorney, his attorney also made it clear to mine that Sharif would sue and that any hope of settling things would require my silence to protect his reputation. If a shop messes up, they have the chance to make things right and get back some respect/reputation, but if they sue people for telling what happened to them, in my opinion, there is no coming back from that. I think that this shows what the place is really about. Before hiring his attorney, Sharif emailed my attorney and even had the nerve to say I had committed fraud. My first course of action was I filed a dispute with my Credit Card Company since I had not gotten what I had paid for and due to all of the damage done. After 7 weeks, the Credit Card Company decided not to refund my money because I had not returned my car to Forged Performance and given them an opportunity to fix my car, even though there was no contract requiring me to return the car to them. As you will see, based on the serious damage Forged Performance did to my car, there was no way I was taking my car back there. Sharif told my attorney that I had filed the dispute saying I didn't recognize the charges so I was committing fraud! I can't think of any reason he would say that, and to my attorney of all people. I even have a copy of the letter Sharif sent my Credit Card Company where he is clearly defending his business and saying he was wanting me to bring my car back to him so he could fix it. In that letter, he told them that he was never made aware of anything until after I had sent my car to another mechanic, and that is why he should not be responsible at this time. As you read below, you will see that this is clearly not the case. I had brought up issues as soon as 2 months before I picked up my car, while at the shop, and even on the drive home.

As of 4/13/2010, Sharif has been sent a demand letter giving him 30 days to settle with us, or a lawsuit will be filed against him for Fraud/Deceptive Trade Practices. I believe, for reasons detailed below, that Sharif intentionally misrepresented the type of turbos that were installed on my car. I suspect that his motives may have been that he knew I was out of state, and thought that I would never be able to afford to hire a lawyer in Georgia, which is over 500 miles away from where I live, to sue him. I also feel that he thought he could get by without me ever knowing that he had installed the wrong turbos on my car.

Also on 4/13/2010, Sharif indicated to me that he would be more willing to settle things if I was to keep quiet on the forums, and even post something stating that we had come to an agreement so hopefully the posting would stop.

And now for what happened:

Around March of 2009, I contacted Sharif with Forged about putting the GTM Twin Turbo kit on my brand new 09 G37S Sedan. According to their web site, they "Specialize" in the Infiniti G37 (VQ37HR). We spoke several times and I really felt good about what he had to say. Sharif is definitely a good talker and salesman. We had agreed on the Stage-II Turbo for my car, 3" Downpipes, External Gates, clutch/flywheel, etc. I went ahead and put a deposit down with Forged for $12000 to cover the majority of the parts. I drove my car to his shop towards the end of April and then flew back to St. Louis, MO. The project was supposed to take 6 to 8 weeks. The only thing that bothered me initially was that I wanted to order the kit myself and bring it with me to his shop. This would have saved me from paying Sales Tax on $8500 which is a pretty good chunk of change. Sharif convinced me to just let him take care of it. Because I had grown to trust him, I just let it go. There will be more on this later.

Over the next couple of months, Forged installed the kit, and then ran into a snag that was not their fault. Nissan changed the ECU for the 09 Sedan so that the Uprev Software could not program them like they could the 08 G37 Coupe. So, now began the waiting. Sharif had to wait on Sam to get him the ECU Flash, Sam had to wait on the Uprev folks to crack the new ECUs and update their software, etc. etc. I don't blame the next 3 months on anyone.....new car...new ECU....stuff happens.

During this time, I referred a friend of mine named Dave to Sharif to have the TT kit put on his 08 G37 Coupe. He is DmfG37sTT on MyG37.com. His car went down there and was having pretty much the same stuff put on his car.

September is when things start going downhill. Sharif posted something on the forums about Dave's car and mentioned he had the Stage III kit. Dave saw this and got excited and sent me a text about it. This made sense to me since Dave was considering having his motor built later to handle more boost, so why not put the bigger turbos on it. I had been in touch with Sam at GTM about getting a 3" exhaust made for my car. No one was making one yet for the G37 Sedan. I called him that same day to ask about the progress on the exhaust. Just being chatty, I said something to Sam about David's car having the Stage III kit....Sam told me that Sharif had made a typo and that he was getting the Stage I. I guess Sharif had already been made aware of this and had modified his post. I then said to Sam, "I thought Dave was getting the Stage II kit like me". Sam then told me that both of us were getting the Stage I kit. I told him that I had ordered and paid for the Stage II. Sam did some digging and called me back. He told me that Sharif had indeed ordered the Stage I kits for both of our cars. He was looking at the Purchase Orders right in front of him. I then called Sharif and asked him what was going on. He assured me that our cars had the Stage II kits and that there was just some confusion with the part numbers. He said that they were confusing. He was going to call Sam and call me back. Needless to say, this started a bunch of phone calls between Dave, Sam, Sharif and I. Sam told me that he indeed confirmed to Sharif that a Stage I was ordered, and that what was shipped. Sharif told him as well that he had received Stage II Turbos. I could see Sam making a mistake once, but making the same mistake 2 months apart and shipping the wrong Turbos? Sam then told Sharif that if he had indeed received the Stage II kits, he owed GTM more money since they only charged him for the Stage I kits. Sharif said no. Sharif then continues to tell me that both Dave and I had the Stage II kits and again that the part numbers were confusing. The Stage I kit ends in "TT01" and the Stage II kit ends in "TT02". Is that confusing???

While my car was pretty much put back together, Dave's motor was out of his car. There is a stamp on the housing that says what AR the housing is. We should have had a ".86" AR and not the ".64". It is next to impossible to see this with everything installed like on my car. Since Dave's motor was out, Dave asked Sharif to go take a picture of the correct Turbos on his motor. Three days later Sharif provided the pictures Dave asked for and they showed the Stage II Turbos on his car. When clients are questioning you about what you put on their car, basically questioning your integrity, would you take 3 days to take a simple picture?

Sharif kept assuring me I had the correct turbos. It was very important that I had the correct turbos because the smaller turbo housings can lead to over boosting on the VQ37VHR motor. According to Sam, and even Sharif, the .64AR housing are too small for that motor. If that were to happen, damage could be done to my motor.