Ken C.

I worked for Randy at Phoenix Engine in the mid 90's. I have never met a bigger crook in my life! Randy would quote the customer an industry price for a rebuilt engine, even though he was rebuilding it himself. Then he would add an itemized list for everything in the rebuild, effectively charging his customers twice for the same things. For instance, new valves were put into any engine rebuilt by the two biggest rebuilders in the state, Engine Supply and Roadrunner Engine. But Randy would call the customer and tell them his valves were worn out of spec and needed to be replaced. He would quote the price for new valves and if the customer balked, he would charge him a lesser amount for a set of valves, the customers original valves! He did this over the phone and recorded everything! I was at the time his store manager, and he even recorded my calls. My calls home to my wife when something came up, and calls to from my driver when he was picking up parts. They say I walked out went like this. Randy was in court, again, over his business practices. While he was gone a customer came back with a very rough engine he had just had installed. I had my best mechanic take a look at it and he determined it was a cracked distributor cap. We replaced it for free and the customer left being satisfied. When Randy returned, I filled him in on what we had done. Randy became angry saying we were supposed to sell him a carburator, which would give the greedy bastard more money. Then he said, "We need to find out how much money Customer X has so we can get it." Really? Now my driver had been checking with all the vendors we bought parts for in to an, and would call me back with a nine here or there. As I walked off the sales floor he said to me, you're not going to get another Job in Auto Parts, I'm telling everyone you were selling and buying drugs in my phones! Remember he recorded everything! I ended up working for Federal Mogul, (owners of TRW, Sealed Power, Carter fuel system parts), on their 1-800 technical assistance hotline. He, well I'm writing this because I don't want to see anyone else be taken advantage of. If his son is now running the buiseness things might be different. Please research everything you can before spending you're hard earned money with him.