Wh1t3Kn1ght
Montreal
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2018
- Messages
- 572
WARNING - SVP Motorsport (Worcester) / Dominic Delaney
After owning the 944 Turbo since 2007, it had been my daily driver right up until 2014 when I replaced its main purpose with another vehicle.
The usual places were starting to show signs of corrosion and the paint was looking a little tired so I had decided I wanted to get a proper job done, first of all repairing the corrosion and then getting a full glass out respray in the original colour.
The first 'specialist" I enquired with was SVP Motorsport based in Rushock Trading Estate near Droitwich, Worcestershire and went to visit the owner Dominic Delaney who sounded like a thoroughly nice bloke after reading about him on his website, more on that in a short while.
NOTE: SVP Motorsport became insolvent for a short time (Google them) and then changed address to a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Inkberrow, Worcester.
At the time I visited him Dominic said he had a lot of work on and that I might find his prices expensive. He therefore recommend an acquaintance of his called Rob Campbell based in Pershore to do the bodywork on my car and sort out getting a respray. The bodywork was completed and we hit a problem then trying to get the car painted. The original bodyshop that had agreed to paint the car changed their mind as they 'only wanted to do small Insurance jobs".
Due to issues finding a reputable body shop to do the paint work the car sat in Rob's workshop for almost 4 x years. I've no beef with Rob about any of this as both of us spent a good deal of time trying to find somewhere that had a good history of work. In the end I'd had enough and found a place in Malvern that did classic car restoration and went over to see them. After seeing some of their work I booked the car in with them to have the full preparation and paint back to the original panther black metallic.
Before my car went to the body shop for the bare metal respray the following list of activities was completed by Rob Campbell -
The car then went to the body shop in Malvern who did a cracking job on the paint work. Once the body shop were finished I contacted Rob to see if he was able to reassemble the car. Unfortunately he was busy with other work he'd had in since my car had been at the body shop (and I guess he wasn't keen to have the car sitting in his workshop again).
Pictures in the body shop after painting -
So here is where I made my fatal error, I got back in touch with Dominic and he was happy to take on the project and I seem to recall a verbal agreement about £4,000 being a good estimate to complete the reassembly. I will post a breakdown of the invoices at the end of the story.
Dominic picked up the car at the end of February 2018 and I received my first invoice on 23rd March 2018 for £1300 + VAT @ £65 + VAT per hour. The description of the invoice read 'Sort 944 pars and start to reassemble car as returned".
During April I visited Dominic as he said there were some parts missing and to go through perishable parts such as rubber seals so that I could order them, I was happy to do this as Porsche were giving me a nice discount on parts orders.
I received another invoice at the end of April which was a 'smaller one" for £500 + VAT, no labour rate on this one and description just reads 'Assembly work on 944 as agreed".
Got some more emails from Dominic at the end of may to say that the car was up and running and that he was going to change the belts and see if the car moves. The front end mostly on, all lights working and some more assembly on the doors.
Got some pictures sent through on 25th May which show the front bumper fitted along with the front lights, also door handles on both sides.
I visited Dom at the end of May to view the vehicle and we made a discovery that the rear bumper had previously been replaced with a standard 944 bumper (so no place for the towing eye on a turbo) also the new rub strip I'd ordered didn't line up with the mounting holes in the bumper because of this. Dominic was going to modify the bumper by drilling the mounting holes so they lined up to the turbo rub strip and also make a hole for the towing eye to fit through.
After my visit I receive the next invoice for £1510.20 + VAT (of which £1300 is labour @ £65 +VAT)
Descriptions reads -
Timing belt £23.18 + VAT - Continental (£15 from CarPartsforLess)
Aux balance shaft belt £82.76 + VAT
Oil filter £8.26 + VAT
096 Battery £96.00 + VAT - found that this was a Lion Battery (about £30 from CarPartsforLess)
Labour for May, reassemble of car, including front end and some of doors, get engine up and running.
NOTE: Now anyone seeing that invoice *could* make the same mistake as me and believe that the car has had the belts changed, because Dominic even mentioned in his previous email that he would be changing the belts right?
That kind of brings us up to date - Dominic emailed me at the end of July saying that the car wasn't finished but that the work to modify the rear bumper as described above had been complete and that the glass is in (except the windscreen) and that some serious fiddling was had to get all the windows working but good progress had been made (you will note later on that this statement wasn't totally accurate).
An invoice was also attached to the email this time for £1560 + VAT (@ £65 +VAT per hour), description for this was - 'Porsche 944 Turbo rebuild work, including modify rear bumper and moulding to Turbo spec, carry on with doors, interior and windows".
This is where I started to smell a rat I mean really how long does it take to reassemble a door? With the latest invoice I was now looking at £5844 (including VAT) and still no end in sight for completion of the car.
I told Dominic how I felt and his response was that the door wiring took a long time and measuring and drilling of the rear bumper took the best part of a day. He said he would now keep a firm lid on costs and get it completed as 'cheaply" as possible.
I wasn't happy with the response and so I suggested that I pop over and discuss it with him face to face, however he was now not available until the following week. A couple of days later I receive another email from Dominic asking for 50% of the current invoice and then we can discuss the rest when I come over to see him. I politely decline and suggest we can discuss it the following week as already arranged. This went back and forth a couple of times where Dominic kept telling me it was only fair that I paid 50% now. I stuck to my guns and said no thanks I will see you next week.
I got a further response which said he wanted the car off his premises ASAP (within 7 x days - after which storage charges will apply). The outstanding invoice on the vehicle will be reduced by 50% if it is settled by the end of the 7 x days.
I still wanted to discuss this with Dominic as I wanted to hear his side of the story and work out how the costs had go so out of hand for the amount of work that needed to be completed. I'd noticed that the invoices for April and May had very close invoice numbers and the dates were 26/04/2018 and 30/04/2018. Dominic said the invoice dates was an error where the 'opening" date of the invoice hadn't been changed to be the issue date. However Dominic did not want to have anymore discussion and told me that if I continued to discuss them with him he would remove the 50% discount offer and the bill would return to full price.
In the last email Dominic told me that he would estimate a complete strip / bare shell of my car could be completed in 2 x days but that assembly would be in the region of 600 hours. Now I'm not sure if that was a type but even so as you can see my car wasn't bare shelled at any stage so never required a full reassembly.
It also kind of struck me when I was writing this that Dominic only ever contacted me at the end of the month and this usually coincided with him sending me the invoice and asking me to settle is swiftly!
I recovered my car and paid Dominic another £936 for the privilege (50% of the final invoice), even after all this he tried to shake my hand as if nothing was wrong!?
As I inspected the car I realised how little had actually been done, I was told that all parts that I'd supplied were in the car and that the belts that Dominic had ordered were also in the boot. This kind of knocked me for six, so I questioned Dominic about changing the belts to which he said he hadn't...
There was also a deep chip in the paint on the drivers side front wing which I pointed out and was told 'well when cars are in bits things get damaged".
Looking at the panel gaps around the bumpers and the wings / sills looks like there is also some work still needed to get them all lined up and mounted correctly.
Here is a complete breakdown of what I could see that has been completed on the car -
Latest update is I now have the car sitting in my own garage and have spent 3 hours clearing out and sorting all the bits on Friday night that were strewn around the interior.
The 'new" battery is totally dead - currently have it on my CTEK MXS 5.0 in recondition mode to see if it will come back to life. Going to keep it as a spare and get a replacement Bosch S5 Type 100 which I had originally (the one Dom replaced) - great battery and really helps turnover the engine quick in the 944.
The wings and front bumper look to have been thrown on the car - looking through the interior and the boxes I have found a number of fixings including the support bars which go between the bumper and the wing, so god knows how it is all held together currently. I'm going to have to strip down the bumper and also check that the wings are properly secured (NSF wing has a massive gap between it and the sill so something is definitely wrong). I found a Mercedes wheel wrench jammed under the drivers seat which was making the forward / backward adjustment stop working. The rear side window rubbers haven't been installed properly and are sticking out in places. The door rubbers have been installed but none of the metal trim strips have been attached. The NS hockey stick trim on the boot has been installed without the rubber seal. Old rusty screws have been used to attach the wings to the body so they will all need to be replaced with new ones.
Dominic Delaney / SVP Motorsport - I would really advise any of his existing customers to go elsewhere and anyone who was thinking of using him to steer clear - he knows how to play people and isn't shy about doing a shoddy job and charging as much as he can get away with.
Thank you for reading and I hope that I can save someone else going through all the stress and financial loss that I did dealing with this person.
After owning the 944 Turbo since 2007, it had been my daily driver right up until 2014 when I replaced its main purpose with another vehicle.
The usual places were starting to show signs of corrosion and the paint was looking a little tired so I had decided I wanted to get a proper job done, first of all repairing the corrosion and then getting a full glass out respray in the original colour.
The first 'specialist" I enquired with was SVP Motorsport based in Rushock Trading Estate near Droitwich, Worcestershire and went to visit the owner Dominic Delaney who sounded like a thoroughly nice bloke after reading about him on his website, more on that in a short while.
NOTE: SVP Motorsport became insolvent for a short time (Google them) and then changed address to a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Inkberrow, Worcester.
At the time I visited him Dominic said he had a lot of work on and that I might find his prices expensive. He therefore recommend an acquaintance of his called Rob Campbell based in Pershore to do the bodywork on my car and sort out getting a respray. The bodywork was completed and we hit a problem then trying to get the car painted. The original bodyshop that had agreed to paint the car changed their mind as they 'only wanted to do small Insurance jobs".
Due to issues finding a reputable body shop to do the paint work the car sat in Rob's workshop for almost 4 x years. I've no beef with Rob about any of this as both of us spent a good deal of time trying to find somewhere that had a good history of work. In the end I'd had enough and found a place in Malvern that did classic car restoration and went over to see them. After seeing some of their work I booked the car in with them to have the full preparation and paint back to the original panther black metallic.
Before my car went to the body shop for the bare metal respray the following list of activities was completed by Rob Campbell -
- 2 x used doors obtained (existing doors stripped for trim and parts)
- Front and rear bumpers removed and dismantled
- Front and rear lights removed
- All glass removed
- All rubber seals removed
- Front wings removed
- Some body work preparation (removing old paint)
The car then went to the body shop in Malvern who did a cracking job on the paint work. Once the body shop were finished I contacted Rob to see if he was able to reassemble the car. Unfortunately he was busy with other work he'd had in since my car had been at the body shop (and I guess he wasn't keen to have the car sitting in his workshop again).
Pictures in the body shop after painting -
So here is where I made my fatal error, I got back in touch with Dominic and he was happy to take on the project and I seem to recall a verbal agreement about £4,000 being a good estimate to complete the reassembly. I will post a breakdown of the invoices at the end of the story.
Dominic picked up the car at the end of February 2018 and I received my first invoice on 23rd March 2018 for £1300 + VAT @ £65 + VAT per hour. The description of the invoice read 'Sort 944 pars and start to reassemble car as returned".
During April I visited Dominic as he said there were some parts missing and to go through perishable parts such as rubber seals so that I could order them, I was happy to do this as Porsche were giving me a nice discount on parts orders.
I received another invoice at the end of April which was a 'smaller one" for £500 + VAT, no labour rate on this one and description just reads 'Assembly work on 944 as agreed".
Got some more emails from Dominic at the end of may to say that the car was up and running and that he was going to change the belts and see if the car moves. The front end mostly on, all lights working and some more assembly on the doors.
Got some pictures sent through on 25th May which show the front bumper fitted along with the front lights, also door handles on both sides.
I visited Dom at the end of May to view the vehicle and we made a discovery that the rear bumper had previously been replaced with a standard 944 bumper (so no place for the towing eye on a turbo) also the new rub strip I'd ordered didn't line up with the mounting holes in the bumper because of this. Dominic was going to modify the bumper by drilling the mounting holes so they lined up to the turbo rub strip and also make a hole for the towing eye to fit through.
After my visit I receive the next invoice for £1510.20 + VAT (of which £1300 is labour @ £65 +VAT)
Descriptions reads -
Timing belt £23.18 + VAT - Continental (£15 from CarPartsforLess)
Aux balance shaft belt £82.76 + VAT
Oil filter £8.26 + VAT
096 Battery £96.00 + VAT - found that this was a Lion Battery (about £30 from CarPartsforLess)
Labour for May, reassemble of car, including front end and some of doors, get engine up and running.
NOTE: Now anyone seeing that invoice *could* make the same mistake as me and believe that the car has had the belts changed, because Dominic even mentioned in his previous email that he would be changing the belts right?
That kind of brings us up to date - Dominic emailed me at the end of July saying that the car wasn't finished but that the work to modify the rear bumper as described above had been complete and that the glass is in (except the windscreen) and that some serious fiddling was had to get all the windows working but good progress had been made (you will note later on that this statement wasn't totally accurate).
An invoice was also attached to the email this time for £1560 + VAT (@ £65 +VAT per hour), description for this was - 'Porsche 944 Turbo rebuild work, including modify rear bumper and moulding to Turbo spec, carry on with doors, interior and windows".
This is where I started to smell a rat I mean really how long does it take to reassemble a door? With the latest invoice I was now looking at £5844 (including VAT) and still no end in sight for completion of the car.
I told Dominic how I felt and his response was that the door wiring took a long time and measuring and drilling of the rear bumper took the best part of a day. He said he would now keep a firm lid on costs and get it completed as 'cheaply" as possible.
I wasn't happy with the response and so I suggested that I pop over and discuss it with him face to face, however he was now not available until the following week. A couple of days later I receive another email from Dominic asking for 50% of the current invoice and then we can discuss the rest when I come over to see him. I politely decline and suggest we can discuss it the following week as already arranged. This went back and forth a couple of times where Dominic kept telling me it was only fair that I paid 50% now. I stuck to my guns and said no thanks I will see you next week.
I got a further response which said he wanted the car off his premises ASAP (within 7 x days - after which storage charges will apply). The outstanding invoice on the vehicle will be reduced by 50% if it is settled by the end of the 7 x days.
I still wanted to discuss this with Dominic as I wanted to hear his side of the story and work out how the costs had go so out of hand for the amount of work that needed to be completed. I'd noticed that the invoices for April and May had very close invoice numbers and the dates were 26/04/2018 and 30/04/2018. Dominic said the invoice dates was an error where the 'opening" date of the invoice hadn't been changed to be the issue date. However Dominic did not want to have anymore discussion and told me that if I continued to discuss them with him he would remove the 50% discount offer and the bill would return to full price.
In the last email Dominic told me that he would estimate a complete strip / bare shell of my car could be completed in 2 x days but that assembly would be in the region of 600 hours. Now I'm not sure if that was a type but even so as you can see my car wasn't bare shelled at any stage so never required a full reassembly.
It also kind of struck me when I was writing this that Dominic only ever contacted me at the end of the month and this usually coincided with him sending me the invoice and asking me to settle is swiftly!
I recovered my car and paid Dominic another £936 for the privilege (50% of the final invoice), even after all this he tried to shake my hand as if nothing was wrong!?
As I inspected the car I realised how little had actually been done, I was told that all parts that I'd supplied were in the car and that the belts that Dominic had ordered were also in the boot. This kind of knocked me for six, so I questioned Dominic about changing the belts to which he said he hadn't...
There was also a deep chip in the paint on the drivers side front wing which I pointed out and was told 'well when cars are in bits things get damaged".
Looking at the panel gaps around the bumpers and the wings / sills looks like there is also some work still needed to get them all lined up and mounted correctly.
Here is a complete breakdown of what I could see that has been completed on the car -
- Front / Rear bumper assembled and mounted
- Front / Rear lights mounted (haven't checked operation)
- Front wings mounted
- Door handles on both doors (interior and exterior)
- Glass in drivers door
- Wing mirror on drivers door
Latest update is I now have the car sitting in my own garage and have spent 3 hours clearing out and sorting all the bits on Friday night that were strewn around the interior.
The 'new" battery is totally dead - currently have it on my CTEK MXS 5.0 in recondition mode to see if it will come back to life. Going to keep it as a spare and get a replacement Bosch S5 Type 100 which I had originally (the one Dom replaced) - great battery and really helps turnover the engine quick in the 944.
The wings and front bumper look to have been thrown on the car - looking through the interior and the boxes I have found a number of fixings including the support bars which go between the bumper and the wing, so god knows how it is all held together currently. I'm going to have to strip down the bumper and also check that the wings are properly secured (NSF wing has a massive gap between it and the sill so something is definitely wrong). I found a Mercedes wheel wrench jammed under the drivers seat which was making the forward / backward adjustment stop working. The rear side window rubbers haven't been installed properly and are sticking out in places. The door rubbers have been installed but none of the metal trim strips have been attached. The NS hockey stick trim on the boot has been installed without the rubber seal. Old rusty screws have been used to attach the wings to the body so they will all need to be replaced with new ones.
Dominic Delaney / SVP Motorsport - I would really advise any of his existing customers to go elsewhere and anyone who was thinking of using him to steer clear - he knows how to play people and isn't shy about doing a shoddy job and charging as much as he can get away with.
Thank you for reading and I hope that I can save someone else going through all the stress and financial loss that I did dealing with this person.
