well, i guess i should post this here.







Atkins 17,000 mile engine Well, i've been waiting for a positive reply, but never got one. been real busy today with mu sons birthday and all. haven't had a chance to really sit down till now. what timing! as you all can see i haven't been to forthcoming about what has happened to my engine. yet i have been throwing some hints about. now that i have time, i guess i'll put it on the line!





Most of you know I had an Atkins Built engine in my car now for almost 2 years. been a decent motor for the most part. never got the dyno numbers that i expected, and they kept going down. but i didn't bitch much about it. i've stood up for Atkins Rotary every chance i got. sent people there way many times. hell, even put there STICKER on my car. i actually liked them pretty good, really liked Dan. I'd call him for questions and he'd call me for questions. i'd help him on his car or truck and he'd help me on mine. good relationship. Dave would goto the races and help people learn to drag right, come to our meets and have a good time. heck, my wife even made him a birthday cake. like i said, thought it was a good relationship. well, that pretty much ended a week ago.





I went over to spokane on june 24th to visit the east side and get to know some of them. had a good time. while i was there something happened to my engine. seemed to lose alot of power. well, during saturday i played with the car a bit. checked a few things out and came to the conclution that something was wrong in the front rotor. sounded like i had good compression, but it didn't want to run good. well, i limped it home and made plans to get it compression checked. well, it came in real low. can't remember the numers but it was something like 2.4, 3.5, and 1.7. well, that proved it. something happened. obviously i ended up pulling the motor and taking it in to Atkins to have it checked out cause it was supposed to be still under warranty.





so, upon dismantling. the front bearing and gear was fine. the rear bearing and gear was fine. opened the rear cast iron and all the apex seals were there, side seals were there, and all the corner seals were ther except the springs were flat. now i had got the 3rd gen corner springs cause they were supposed to be the best. the cast iron had some normal wear on it. pulled the rotor out and the gear and bearing was good. the housing had some flaking on the edges and a grove down the side of the little part of the apex seal. didn't make me happy, but that rotor was good. there was also alot of washboaring on the housing. so we pull off the center iron to reveal the front rotor. well, the side seals were there, the corner seals were there yet the springs were flat also. but one of the little pieses of an apex seal was missing and another was real loose looking. so we pulled that rotor out to find that all the big pieces of apex seals were there and the one little pies that looked loose had acually broken in half horizontaly( kind of funny). pics

the rotor was decent except for where the piece of apex seal was missing, it chipped the rotor away to get loose. kind of like someone would hit something to break it out. pics

and where the half broken piece( i know it was half broken cause of the make) indented into the rotor itself

pics and the bearing and gear was good. then we looked at the rotor housing. well, each side was flaked off pretty bad. it was also washboarded like the other. yet way more flaked.

pics





it just blew my mind. made me really wounder about why the little piece of apex seal could have broken like that. i got a "Sorry Allan" from Dan. so i asked him what can we do about this. then he gave me a price he gave me to rebuild another engine at one time. told me the warranty wouldn't cover this and that he knew how i drive. so i kept my cool and left. unfortunatly leaving my light flywheel there. then i proceeded to wait and see if they would do something about the warranty for me. asked him 2 other times. i didn't want to post this about how there apex saels broke to a 125hp engine. thats embarassing. i asked if they could have broke cause of the flaking. i heard no, it's the way you drive. so i guess all my other cars, trucks, vans, boats, and motorcycles were real lucky that i never broke them. all and all i'm really dissapointed in the service i have recieved and it makes me wounder what about those other people that had problems with crappy parts when i would defend atkins for them. i mean i didn't even get a " let me look at the engine closer to see if there was anything i was missing" it was a flat out NO WARRANTY!





i find it really special that Elysians, mine, and now I **** on honda's engines failed in very little mileage. gotta say, i hope blazer1313 ain't next cause i like him. yeah, yeah, you'll hear the stories. they drive like maniacs. well, if i drive like a maniac why would you let me drive your car and truck? i don't think so. but hey, thats a different story. but parts do break sometimes cause of problems with the parts. there are no INVINCIBLE PARTS being made. people make mistakes, but GOOD COMPANIES TRY FIX WRONG THINGS!



i can rant and rave all night long about how i feel, but this is long enough. read and hear what you want to, just remember this quote from one person " shops can be dishonest if they can get away with it" heard that one about a year ago.

 

VENI VIDI VICI

 

I came, I saw, I conquered. So I assume that you one?

 

You opened the door for others not to be afraid to stand up for what is right. Congratuations on winning your court case Kettlman.

 

No engine builder can tell me how I drive unless they are with me. Engine builders need to be like the rest of the business world. You guys say your the best, promote your works openly and then jack your paying customers around.

I getting fed up with the same stories. I had a service/ build company. I lost thousands in do overs because of bad employee work.I am proud of my name and would drive hours on end to make sure the customer who paid for my services the 1st time didnt pay again.(for NOTHING!!)

The problem is the odds on customers with motors that are OK are higher than those that screw up and the builders will take a slam once in awhile. Start a public campaign with others ...save other people from this crap.

 

i agree.



still some great customer service goin on . talked to Kathy today to find out about getting the judgment money. i was hopeing they would have just stuck it in the mail last week and got it over with. but i was told i had to wait till Dave got back on the 15th. that will be 27 days from the judgement. was hopeing to be able to say something good about prompt service. guess i don't get to.

 

Odds are you probably will never see your Judgement unless you fight for it also. It's sad when a company loses in court, yet still won't accept the defeat. Why not just do the right thing, pay up, and everything will probably calm down.