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I suppose I should begin at the beginning. Names and locations are not accurate for reasons to be explained below
December 2007, Dave, a buddy of mine is opening up a performance tuning shop in Columbus. I met Dave through a mutual friend about a year and a half prior, but we have become decent friends since then. Dave asks me in passing if I would be willing to loan him my Kat 600 so he can play with some of the engine tuning, as he has not tuned motorcycles before, only cars. I know Dave's experience is vast, and given his track record (Lamborghini's, Ferrari, quite a few Vette's) I have no problem with this.
Fast forward to March 1st, 2008. I am away for a week and a half on business, so I called him up and asked if he could take it from the house. He agrees, and picks it up. The original verbal agreement was as follows:
Dave and the shop would fabricate a complete exhaust system at no cost to me.
We would prep rashed fairings, and Dave would re-paint using paint supplied by Dave in his cousin's paint booth outside Columbus.
All other work would be done by me, with materials paid for by me, with the bike ready to go by June 1st. 3 months shop time.
First entrance into the shop finds my Kat has been dropped. Rash to the signal generator cover, broken left footpeg, and a little rash to the front fender and rear tail plastics. Not thrilled, but given the deal I'm getting, I let this slide. Start ordering replacement parts.
I come into the shop every now and again to smack around some of the rashed fairing pieces, but the only metalwork progress is that Dave took off the exhaust, cut the muffler into pieces, removed all the wadding, and cut the ends off the header in preparation to weld them back onto larger steel pipe. No change from this for 3 months. There was one false start on paint, I went to my company's paint booth (which I didn't want to use for the final coat) to test shoot some paint he sourced. Turns out it was some trim only paint, and that it wasn't useful for our purposes. On about July/August I start coming back in there almost every day after work to prep the plastics, it takes me almost a month but I finally got them all to my satisfaction. During this time I'm also working on wiring red LED's, replaced some of the other parts damaged during earlier drops, brake pad replace, rear rotor replace, chain clean, so on and so on. Anything to keep busy and stay in the shop so I can make the bike a little more noticeable and not have it blend into the wall.
To make an even longer story short, him and I dance around paint for 10 more months, he oscillates from "some guy down the street that's realy good but he hasn't had power for 3 months since the windstorm" to his "cousin that tends to fall off the face of the earth for a while then pop up spontaneously". Finally last month I told him that enough was enough, I would be handling the paint outright. Got a quote for $550, parts are there now. As far as the metalwork goes, every single time I ask him for a schedule, plan, or status, I get the f-off answer "I think I can do it this weekend, sure", or when I told him I was leaving for Vegas for 5 days and if it can be done when I get back "I don't see a problem with that". Coming back, now it's "I ran out of welding gas." Last time I heard that, I went out and bought a canister of argon on my lunch break because he had been using it as an excuse for almost a week and a half.
My one and only question is this: The Kat has been in this shop for 13 months, and shows no immediate signs of coming out anytime soon. Given our original agreement, the fact that none of this is written down, and the time and effort already put forth, what recourse do I have or would you use to spring my bike out? Going into this I did have a bank lien on it, that has since been paid and I now own it free and clear. I'm just at my wits end, and am really tired of feeling trapped with no other option but to wait it out and continue to micromanage and hound him with dubious results.
Sorry for the Tolstoy, but if you're down this far, thanks for reading.
December 2007, Dave, a buddy of mine is opening up a performance tuning shop in Columbus. I met Dave through a mutual friend about a year and a half prior, but we have become decent friends since then. Dave asks me in passing if I would be willing to loan him my Kat 600 so he can play with some of the engine tuning, as he has not tuned motorcycles before, only cars. I know Dave's experience is vast, and given his track record (Lamborghini's, Ferrari, quite a few Vette's) I have no problem with this.
Fast forward to March 1st, 2008. I am away for a week and a half on business, so I called him up and asked if he could take it from the house. He agrees, and picks it up. The original verbal agreement was as follows:
Dave and the shop would fabricate a complete exhaust system at no cost to me.
We would prep rashed fairings, and Dave would re-paint using paint supplied by Dave in his cousin's paint booth outside Columbus.
All other work would be done by me, with materials paid for by me, with the bike ready to go by June 1st. 3 months shop time.
First entrance into the shop finds my Kat has been dropped. Rash to the signal generator cover, broken left footpeg, and a little rash to the front fender and rear tail plastics. Not thrilled, but given the deal I'm getting, I let this slide. Start ordering replacement parts.
I come into the shop every now and again to smack around some of the rashed fairing pieces, but the only metalwork progress is that Dave took off the exhaust, cut the muffler into pieces, removed all the wadding, and cut the ends off the header in preparation to weld them back onto larger steel pipe. No change from this for 3 months. There was one false start on paint, I went to my company's paint booth (which I didn't want to use for the final coat) to test shoot some paint he sourced. Turns out it was some trim only paint, and that it wasn't useful for our purposes. On about July/August I start coming back in there almost every day after work to prep the plastics, it takes me almost a month but I finally got them all to my satisfaction. During this time I'm also working on wiring red LED's, replaced some of the other parts damaged during earlier drops, brake pad replace, rear rotor replace, chain clean, so on and so on. Anything to keep busy and stay in the shop so I can make the bike a little more noticeable and not have it blend into the wall.
To make an even longer story short, him and I dance around paint for 10 more months, he oscillates from "some guy down the street that's realy good but he hasn't had power for 3 months since the windstorm" to his "cousin that tends to fall off the face of the earth for a while then pop up spontaneously". Finally last month I told him that enough was enough, I would be handling the paint outright. Got a quote for $550, parts are there now. As far as the metalwork goes, every single time I ask him for a schedule, plan, or status, I get the f-off answer "I think I can do it this weekend, sure", or when I told him I was leaving for Vegas for 5 days and if it can be done when I get back "I don't see a problem with that". Coming back, now it's "I ran out of welding gas." Last time I heard that, I went out and bought a canister of argon on my lunch break because he had been using it as an excuse for almost a week and a half.
My one and only question is this: The Kat has been in this shop for 13 months, and shows no immediate signs of coming out anytime soon. Given our original agreement, the fact that none of this is written down, and the time and effort already put forth, what recourse do I have or would you use to spring my bike out? Going into this I did have a bank lien on it, that has since been paid and I now own it free and clear. I'm just at my wits end, and am really tired of feeling trapped with no other option but to wait it out and continue to micromanage and hound him with dubious results.
Sorry for the Tolstoy, but if you're down this far, thanks for reading.
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