Stay away from The Custom Shop!

[shonseb]

I posted this on Google, Yelp, here and Vortex. Others may have had a different experience, but this what me and my friends went through:

If you are serious about your car then I would stay away away from this shop. Me and my friends are car enthusiasts and we heard about their shop through other enthusiasts to have Air rides installed in our cars. They have installed other air systems in cars we know and so I figured that they knew what they were doing. We had the new AirLift 3H system, they said they never installed it before but they have installed other systems that use height sensors, and so it shouldn't be a problem. Their prices beat out any other quoted prices anywhere and so we decided to proceed with the install through them. My friend dropped his car off and they said they tried working with the sensor brackets we provided but it wouldn't work, and so he purchased brand new ones based on their recommendation. They Installed 4 systems total, mine being the last one. Their prices were great so I also had other work done on another car of mine including coilover install, BBK install with painted calipers, and rear sway bar install.
The install jobs done on the air rides were very sloppy, the manifold wasn't even secured and bolted down properly. We also had damping adjusters that came with our kit that were't installed because the installer 'didn't want to drill into our cars' (more on that later). My friends had one issue after another for which they had to keep going back to get fixed, including myself. I also felt my car just didn't handle well after the install, which I understand because I was told I may lose some handling performance when going air, but with all the issues we were having I decided to get a second opinion. I took it to another European specialty shop to look the system over. Please note: they don't install or deal with Air systems (and they are at least an hour drive from me which is why I didn't go to them to begin with), but I still trusted their opinion because I've had quality work done by them in the past. Here's a small insert of what they sent me:

"I inspected the suspension and install as you requested. I have found many components in my opinion not secured properly. I will Fwd you videos so you can see what I am explaining below.

-all ride 4 ride height sensors are loose and rattling
-front air lines are rattling on subframe
-front air lines (plastic) are rubbing rear subframe
-body grommets are hanging where air lines go into trunk. Possible water leak into car.
-right rear spring mount contacting filler neck guard
-air compressors are loose, air tank is loose, various metal on metal contacts
-side trunk sub is hanging and flopping (they installed the sub as well)

With this many issues I'm not sure where to start. Please advise me on how you would like to proceed."

After seeing this, I decided to take my other car in and get their work inspected. They found that one out of the three bolts needed to install the rear coilovers were missing altogether and look like they were never installed to begin with and the rear sway bar was not tightened down properly and basically hanging loose. Thankfully they did the right job with the brakes and those had no issues.

I started to really dig deeper and found that other people have had issues with The Custom Shops work as well. I surprised that I didn't hear about any of this, and even before I went to them I searched online and found great reviews about them. Well today I had to write about them and let other people know to be careful after my friend decided to take his car to another person who does Air installs on a regular basis. The other installer found many issues, one of which included cutting into the body, and taping (that's right, not a typo), taping the piece back onto the body. Remember they didn't want to drill? The new installer will be welding that correction. I'm running out of room to type more, but this should serve as a warning to anyone looking to get their work done by them. The only plus I give them is the front desk guy (Brett) tried his best to get everything resolved. You've been warned.

[Optiondoc]

Wow so sorry to hear Shon. I hope you guys get it all resolved. What a shame, I really wanted to like them. Had them install my exhaust, knowing you all trusted them. I'm thinking I'll go get it checked now. Car should certainly behave better when all is corrected.


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[shonseb]

Yeah I was put on to them by other car guys who had work done by them. I recommended them to a few people, including you, Steve, and others.... until their work started to show. That's my fault and I'm sorry about that. Had I known then what I do now, no way would I have ever told anyone to go to them. That's why I came on here, to warn others about the mistake I made. I hope my negative experience will help others avoid the same mistake I did.

I will say that I posted this without giving Brett any warning and he called me and was completely apologetic. He even offered to pay the tab on teh work we needed corrected. I feel bad for him only because I know that he would try to do anything to make it right by me, so I told him he needs to correct the problem that is costing him his money and reputation. Hopefully he has done that and can move forward and build his reputation.

[bknewtype]

situation really sucks. initially I felt horrible since I recommended the system to all these dudes, and they had nothing but problems after problems. some of them even wanted to go back to stock or switch up to coils instead. I always knew though it had to be an installer issue and not the system itself, and this confirms it. brett is a really good guy, but the problems these guys faced is totally unacceptable. sucks for the next owner of my a5, I hope the exhaust don't fall off for them!

[Optiondoc]

Not either one of you guys fault. No need to apologize, I was rooting for them. Small local shop with good prices, I just hope they handle it. They should absolutely pay for the corrections you need to make. It's good business practice


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[bknewtype]

Not either one of you guys fault. No need to apologize, I was rooting for them. Small local shop with good prices, I just hope they handle it. They should absolutely pay for the corrections you need to make. It's good business practice


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honestly, I think they would. but these guys didn't want to deal with them anymore so they went on their own to get it fixed. if it was me, I woulda def brought it up to the shops attention, and say hey look, ur install cost me 900,. but its going to cost me 1400 to fix all the issues u fcked up. reimburse me or prepare to get your name tainted. simple as that. these guys r better dudes than me I guess. that's a lot of soup dumplings I could buy

[DownhillA4]

Misha, for all airride installs. Hands down. "Rat4life" on IG and Flickr for all his well documented photo installs. He's been bagging cars in NJ before it was a scene thing.

I'm sure you can contact him and he can make your vehicle's right again.

[FastEddie]

Damn shon sorry to hear. This sounds Eerily familiar with my situation an Elite Motorsports. Got excited about what i thought was a good shop and prices to low and behold, they cant do work correctly. Hopefully you get everything sorted out bud.

[shonseb]

Not either one of you guys fault. No need to apologize, I was rooting for them. Small local shop with good prices, I just hope they handle it. They should absolutely pay for the corrections you need to make. It's good business practice


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They did offer to pay for the repairs, but then take down my review? If I knew from the beginning that this was the quality of work that comes out of there I would have skipped them. But all the reveiws suggested otherwise, and instead of expecting piece of mind, those reveiws cost me and my friends a shit ton of headache. Can't pay to fix that. I'll leave it up here and other sites so no one goes through what we did.

Misha, for all airride installs. Hands down. "Rat4life" on IG and Flickr for all his well documented photo installs. He's been bagging cars in NJ before it was a scene thing.

I'm sure you can contact him and he can make your vehicle's right again.

I've heard a lot of good things about rat4life and he was actually our 2nd go to guy, but went with someone else who has a long standing established rep of putting together sick systems. Thanks for the input!

Damn shon sorry to hear. This sounds Eerily familiar with my situation an Elite Motorsports. Got excited about what i thought was a good shop and prices to low and behold, they cant do work correctly. Hopefully you get everything sorted out bud.

Yeah I was really hoping this would be an answer to the scarce number of reliable European shops in the area. Sadly no. Learned my lesson and will just stick with Tyrol and Eurotech, even if it means a long wait to get in.

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[schaNYC]

Let me preface by saying I really wanted to like this shop after seeing reviews and meeting the owner Brett the first time as well.

I dropped off my car for a roof vinyl wrap. The wrap was done well, but while the car was in their possession, a parking ticket was issued. As you are familiar with the shop and the surrounding area, there are customer cars parked all over the sidewalk and double parked on the street. I first pulled into the shop but had to back out to accommodate them while they were moving cars around. I ended up parking the car across the street in front of a hydrant assuming the car would be moved into their shop shortly to be worked on. As I prepared to leave, I pointed to my car, dropped off the keys with them, no objections from the shop for leaving the car where it was. 10 mins later I called the shop to discuss further work to be done, which required them to go out to the car to examine for a proper quote. This story gets worse... the hydrant ticket wasn't revealed until I received notice in the mail for an unpaid ticket! Brett took zero responsibility since I parked the car in front of the hydrant.

I'm not surprised hearing of your install experience. It took a 1 minute phone call to pass on them for a AWE exhaust install as they seemed unfamiliar with the parts involved and needed to see the car to provide a quote. This is probably the most common exhaust kit for Audis and they didn't exude any confidence in doing the work. I thought they couldn't really mess up doing a wrap, also since they outsource a wrap guy (he did a great job). Risk of a parking ticket was never something I even considered after dropping off a car at a shop. Pretty lame.

[A4_hustler]

I had a similar experience with my A4. I should have noticed that they weren't a euro specialty shop with all of the jeeps and stuff inside. I went for it because of the positive reviews on facebook. The work was ok at best. They definitely don't have the professionalism or the deep knowledge of other Audi shops in the area.

[ENV²]

Not sure why you guys go anywhere outside of Eurotech Motorsports.

[FastEddie]

Not sure why you guys go anywhere outside of Eurotech Motorsports.

Because Tyrol Sport is amazing and Mike and Andre really know their shit. Plus driving to Tyrol is much easier than Eurotech. Every time my car has gone to a shop Other than Tyrol i have had issues. I bring it back to Tyrol and issues gone. Any other reasons you need?

[shonseb]

I usually go to Eurotech, but they don't do air installs. They did look over everything after the install and they said there was too much shit wrong with the system and they would rather I go back to the original installer to get it all corrected. Tyrol does their air installs through Swoops, which is who I ended up going to have the system reinstalled properly. After cs install, I almost regretted going air because i list a lot of performance. Now after swoops corrected the install, the car handles just as good if not better than when I had my h&r street coils.

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[pee quu]

I saw your car and your friends cars at Gregs I can agree with you that The Custom Shop did a real hack job.

[AeyBeCei]

Brett is a really nice person but the quality of work is sub par. I left my car at the shop the whole day in order to get the front end chrome part deleted. When i got to the facility the car was not even touched and it was still sitting in the space place where i dropped off the car. I had to wait another hour or so to get the car wrapped and a month later the wrap started to peal.

[schaNYC]

When I had my roof wrapped, they said they charge a premium because they warranty their work, which is pretty much standard protocol now that I know more about the biz. You can try reaching out to them to fix your issue. Atleast you didn’t get dinged with their parking ticket premium.

If I were to do it all over again, I’d probably go with a shop that specializes in wraps instead of a shop that calls in a tint/wrap guy that drops in to do work as needed.

There’s also a shop in the bronx that will use plastic dip to do the chrome deletes.