TheSamba.com :: View topic - MOFOCO

Fri Aug 16, 2002 7:48 am

yeah - i just hate getting screwed by these guys... and i really want to make it known how bad these guys are to others considering doing business with them.
i'd love to find a really good vw guy in the area... (south of chicago) and i'm prepared to spend more.... now.

now i have to figure out how to get the bus to them to "fix" it..... should we drive it?

Fri Aug 16, 2002 8:40 am

I can completely understand your anger and frustration with this company. But, now after all this, I would be afraid to have them anywhere near my bus. What if they decide to play 'hide a dook' or urinate in your gas tank? I know this sounds stupid, but I have run into a situation where I ripped someones work quality, and they offered to make it right. I took them up on this offer, and my car was in even worse shape when I got it back. I can say this, you've got your anti-mofoco campaign in full swing, and it's quite convincing. I would never buy an engine from these guys based on what I've read from you. A suggestion: check out troubleshooter.com
It's this guy who runs a consumer advocate radio show based in Denver, but it's broadcast nationwide(I've heard it chi-town) He calls up the bad business and really busts their balls. Usually the owner of the business relents and makes things right. Nationwide bad publicity is not a good thing.

Fri Aug 16, 2002 9:34 am

Blackhand has a very good sugesstion, I listen to that guy "Tom Martino" the troubleshooter alot, He's a great mediator and will put them on his "scumbag list" if he deems them to be truly a rip-off and un cooperative.
I would advise against driving it. I think your mechanic who installed it at least owes you(out of courtesy of using him for years) a free pull and re-install. He's already charged you twice right?,
Mofoco's rep or not he may be partially to blame if he did not use a timing light on it????? or was that a mofo lie???
I mean a novice with 2 floor jacks and the idiot book can pull a 71 bus engine in less than an hour for sure. I would not leave my customer hanging even if I did not build the engine... get in touch with the troubleshooter guy that be interesting...

Fri Aug 16, 2002 9:45 am

they are asking us to bring the whole bus up there... and thats just crazy - what if i lived in florida or somthing?
mofoco was the last to adjust the timing..

bringing the engine by itself again is almost impossible as the bus and a small car are our only forms of transportation... we had to borrow a truck to bring it up before, and it's not easy to borrow a truck around here!

i wonder if we could get there if drove slow enough... in the coolest hours of the middle of the night...stopping every half hour... but then how could we be sure we'd be able to get back?

i did read this on-line:
The only major problem I've ever had with them was a problem on a shortblock
withthe cam gear on wrong. And to correct it they drove 180 miles round
trip picked it up at my work, called my at 8:15 that same evening
after they stayed late to fix it and had it back in my hands at
11:30 the next day. ?

SO WHY DONT THEY DO THIS FOR ME? why are some customers treated better than others?

i asked mofoco this question, they never replied to my e-mail...

Fri Aug 16, 2002 1:34 pm

there are lots of mofoco stories on type2.com under typy2 list... do a search for mofoco -
wow - these guys really have screwed a whole lot of people...

Fri Aug 16, 2002 6:55 pm

Dude,I do'nt think I'd drive that bus around the block let alone 4hrs.. Any chance of getting your Mechanic to go with you? Seems like if you can get the Gearheads togather....DavidK.

Fri Aug 16, 2002 9:22 pm

SIR smoked me on a longblock about seven years back. Left me stranded 1500 miles from home. Now I build my own, or if I don't have time i have a reputible local shop do the work. live and learn. staying mad will never get your money back. It will just raise your blood pressure and make you go bald.
get a good engine in there and start having fun again!!!

Mon Aug 26, 2002 10:11 pm

A friend of mine purchased an engine from MOFOCO and the head on cylinder 3&4 was loose. Fried the piston in three, and the valves. Sounds to me like they really check everything out. YEAH RIGHT!!! I know I won't buy from them.

On the other hand though, I have read tons of horror stories about GEX engines. I bought one(before I knew not to) and I have had no problems with it, other then a few drips of oil, and it runs rich. I do keep a close eye on it though, checking the valves, timing etc.

Thu Aug 29, 2002 6:03 pm

I just recenently bought a bus. I just had the motor rebuilt at MOFOCO.
I installed the motor myself. It seemed ok except it kept dying at idle it had this problem before MOFOCO rebuilt the motor.
And it did have some smoke coming out of the fan case. So I sent the bus back to them. To fix the idle problem.

I admit I do not have a lot of experience with motors. Should I be worried about the smoking.
MOFOCO told me that they had to put new muffler parts (two exhaust manifolds and two elbows) on the motor to fix the idle problem. Does that sound right.

I sure hope I don't have this many problems with my bus. I really feel for you man. You got me worried.

Mon May 24, 2004 9:52 am

We have just recently gotten this bus back on the road after 2 years!!
And are still trying to get our VW Pride back that the MOFOs Co. stole from us.

The one thing that we needed a REPLACEMENT for was the 1 of the 2 NEW MOFOCO HEADS that we had installed when we bought it?
Alot of Re-machining, New parts and labor went into this engine to make it right.
As well as just trying to figure out what was wrong with it in the first place.
There were also several parts that we just outright WRONG for this engine.

We have ended up paying more than a New Brazillian Engine and have lost
2 years of driving/camping and even enjoying our bus.

Need any repairs in ILLINOIS? Go to NELSONS VW north of Rockford, IL. Ryan knows ALOT about Volkwagens and
particularly takes to Busses! They are the Best.

If you love your VW and want to continue driving that love AVOID MOFOCO and the salesman Bruce. As well as their crappy/overpriced show in Union Grove, Wi at the Great Lakes Dragway with a trashy bikini contest?

Tue May 25, 2004 9:00 am

[email protected] wrote: and he's been a vw mechanic for 30 years with no complaints

Why didn't you have this local mechanic who you are familiar with build your engine?

Sun May 30, 2004 9:53 am

A lean running carb will destroy an engine and make it run hot.

Sun May 30, 2004 11:03 am

What a bunch of goofs. Parasites like this make my blood boil.

Kesgd, do yourself a favor and hire a lawyer. Maybe you can sink these clowns for good.

Hey ROY where are you now???

Sun May 30, 2004 12:21 pm

Im still not convinced it was MOFOCO's complete fault. Sure their customer service left something to be desired. But if the original mechanic who did the engine install did not check fuel flow and/or rebuild the carb/carbs, then some of the fault can lay there. And if that was the case, then MOFOCO is in their right to refuse to take the motor back. IF they did the engine install and they screwed the motor up I bet they would rectify the problem.

ALL ENGINES WILL RUN HOT until they are broken in. From everyone that I know including myself it takes at least 1000 miles for an engine to even begin to break in and for the rings to fully seat. Usually you just cant stick a newly unrun aircooled engine in a vehicle and run it like an engine with 25k on it.
HOLDING A DIPSTICK and TOUCHING THE CASE, are NOT accurate ways of checking engine temperature and especially HEAD TEMPERATURE. The only way overall engine temperature can be checked ACCURATLY is by using an oil temperature gauge and a cylinder head temperature gauge. Did you have any of those on the engine?

I would think MOFOCO would have broken the engine in on their run in stand. If this was the case and you were seeing smoke when you ran the engine this still could have been caused by a lean running condition. If your mechanic timed the engine by ear (A real DUMB way to do it) and the timing was out 20 degrees when MOFOCO checked it and the carb was running lean, THE MECHANIC might have toasted the engine.

IT IS COMMON to have to adjust your valves SEVERAL times during the engine's initial break in. Due to valves SEATING and expansion and contraction of the metal. You even should pull the motor after 1k miles and retourque the heads because of heating and cooling.

Engine building and INITIAL BREAK IN will either give you an engine that will last 100's of 1000's of miles or if you do it wrong will be a complete waste of time and money.

Did the mechanic who put the engine in Originally put oil in it? Did you see him put oil in the engine? I have heard very little of what investigating you did of the engine install. AND BY NO MEANS do I mean to say your mechanic doesnt know what he is doing, EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES.

Put it this way, if you know how to do something, say bake a cake. You get all the ingrediants together, mix them up in a bowl, give it to a friend and tell him to bake it at his house. Your friend bakes the cake at 600 degrees and totally burns the cake, is it your fault?

Sun May 30, 2004 1:04 pm

Anyone can screw half their customers and half-ass the rest and get some of them done right. I'm still not clear whether this was a longblock or a turnkey, and correct, the mechanic could have done more to tune the engine than give up on it altogether and blame the rebuilder. But the shoe fits and if he saw something wrong that hasnt been repeated here, I wouldnt see the point of trying to tune around it either.

So why have they been around for 34 years? Simple. ADVERTISING. Any kid that picks up a VW rag from the newsstand will see a slick, reassuring GEX and MOFOCO ad in there. Use scrap parts, honor no warranties and markup their products to a safe level and intimidate customers who complain. Why give them the benefit of the doubt? Ive avoided them like the plague since I first heard complaints about them but I still feel sorry for anyone who's been broadsided by them.

Air cooled VWs are an emotional purchase and are usually owned by emotional people. I believe these companies are taking advantage of that.

Sun May 30, 2004 1:34 pm

I think if Kegs spent as much time reading a Bentley manual and doing some troubleshooting as he does bitching on the net his engine might run better. If you really want MOFOCO to fix your issue you already blew it, why would they want to fix it now, nothing like shooting off your toe to spite your foot!!!!!!!From what your saying I don't think the fault lies on their end but on yours, check everything from the beginning and don't forget to tell us what you discover when your done! People always know how to cry wolf but when the egg is on their own face they're apology is usually just a whisper in the wind! Do you see any reason now to use a more local engine builder, if you don't want to learn how to wrench your own ride maybe you should buy a Honda!

Sun May 30, 2004 2:20 pm

The reason I started building my own engines is a saw a friend burned by 2 local vw shops. They both built type 1 motors and they both used shoddy parts and labor. Plus one took twice as long as originaly stated (5 months!!!) and the engines still puked. I agree you can whine and bitch and complain, but before having something like this done you should do some research. Else your complaining comes across as being just ill informed. To anyone with engine building expierience the symptoms that you described the engine as doing could have been caused by any number of things. As spookymulder has stated a Bently manual sure is alot cheaper than 2 engines.

Sun May 30, 2004 7:40 pm

Sorry to hear about your bad emperiences from mofoco. It is well know around the VW community that GEX and Mofoco SUCK! They use shit parts to assemble there engines, and they dont put any time or effort in their work. You arent the only disappointed mofoco customer.
Read these post:

http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=63563&highlight=mofoco
http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=27770&highlight=mofoco
http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=26876&highlight=mofoco
http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=23826&highlight=mofoco

Whatever you do, dont get a engine from GEX:

http://shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=71856

Sun May 30, 2004 8:08 pm

spookymulder wrote: I think if Kegs spent as much time reading a Bentley manual and doing some troubleshooting as he does bitching on the net his engine might run better. If you really want MOFOCO to fix your issue you already blew it, why would they want to fix it now, nothing like shooting off your toe to spite your foot!!!!!!!From what your saying I don't think the fault lies on their end but on yours, check everything from the beginning and don't forget to tell us what you discover when your done! People always know how to cry wolf but when the egg is on their own face they're apology is usually just a whisper in the wind! Do you see any reason now to use a more local engine builder, if you don't want to learn how to wrench your own ride maybe you should buy a Honda!

I see no merit in these Darwinian statements.

You yourself were at his skill and knowledge level once in your life. So was I and so were everyone else reading and responding to this thread. Just because you are farther down the road of VW ownership does not make this man any more deserving of his fate. Dishonesty in this hobby frustrates and drains the resources of all of us, not just those that some would like to see culled from this hobby because they are not hardcore enough.

Please.

Sun May 30, 2004 10:42 pm

steponmebbbboom wrote: spookymulder wrote: I think if Kegs spent as much time reading a Bentley manual and doing some troubleshooting as he does bitching on the net his engine might run better. If you really want MOFOCO to fix your issue you already blew it, why would they want to fix it now, nothing like shooting off your toe to spite your foot!!!!!!!From what your saying I don't think the fault lies on their end but on yours, check everything from the beginning and don't forget to tell us what you discover when your done! People always know how to cry wolf but when the egg is on their own face they're apology is usually just a whisper in the wind! Do you see any reason now to use a more local engine builder, if you don't want to learn how to wrench your own ride maybe you should buy a Honda!

I see no merit in these Darwinian statements.

You yourself were at his skill and knowledge level once in your life. So was I and so were everyone else reading and responding to this thread. Just because you are farther down the road of VW ownership does not make this man any more deserving of his fate. Dishonesty in this hobby frustrates and drains the resources of all of us, not just those that some would like to see culled from this hobby because they are not hardcore enough.

Please.

One of the first rules of Auto repair is to be informed, not only about the people who do the work for you, but also what is being worked on. His Mechanic timed the engine by EAR?