Duglas Valley Breakers

[mel]

I today received the following e-mail from some strange women in Belgium now while I''m no stranger to spam this on does seem a bit odd !!! My only contact with Douglas Valley was when they advertised a bent Cerbera for sale which I made a few enquiries about, I have no idea if they are good, bad, or even bloody ugly so when this came through it asks the question how did she get my e-mail address and has anyone else got this or does anyone have any experience of Douglas Valley. I would also add that I haven''t posted this to slander them but more because its given me the hump that this women is dragging other people into her fight, Hopefully there will be some postings saying they are a bloody good outfit and loads of members have bought bent Tivs from them with no problems. After all you normally get what you pay for in my experience. **************************************** Hello, I''m sorry to take of your time, but as customers of Douglas Valley Brokers, I think you might be interested by this... I''m living in Belgium and I''m found of TVR cars. So when I saw (Feb 2001) on Internet that Douglas Valley Breakers were selling a ''92 TVR Griffith 4,3, I asked Jason Douglas some information about the car. It was said "only 15,000 miles, in mint condition, nothing to do on it, Full TVR service history, never accidented and recently serviced " so I decided to come and see it. The car was nice, though some details (electrical equipment, lights, one wheel, windshield) needed some work, and the interior was very dirty; I thought I could fix these details. We drove the car, the engine had holes at acceleration, but Jason told me he would fix this before I drove the car back (airflowmeter needing to be cleaned, he said). So, when Jason told me the car was ready (begin of March, I waited a bit, as Jason told me he wanted me to be more than 100% satisfied with the car), I took a flight to Manchester and drove the car back to Belgium. I discovered the car had no heating (Jason told me it was a problem with TVRs), it still had some holes (but seemed better than first time), the airflowmeter had been changed (with a used one, but OK), and when I read the bill, the car was sold "with light chassis damage, but repaired" (well, I thought, if the work has been done properly, I don''t mind, but I''d have prefered to be told before). On the way back, the car began to have more and more holes and when arriving at home, it was heating a little bit (the engine, not the heater). I looked for a well reputed mechanic to have the holes fixed, and made an appointment when I had found a specialist. The day after, the mechanic told me the headgasket was leaking, needed to be changed, that''s why I had no heater in the car. He also told me the headgasket had just been changed (less than 1,000 miles ago), but the job had been done badly (the heads had not been polished, the compression ratio was over 10:1, so the engine could not have a long life in these conditions!), and that the mileage of the car wasn''t real. I didn''t really worry about the mileage, nor about the electrical/detail problems, but was really disappointed about this headgasket problem. So I e-mailed Jason about this, and was very pleased with his answer, saying he would pay for the costs of the headgasket, as he was feeling bad about the engine having a problem. Repairing it took a long time (+/- 3 months) as the mechanic had troubles with finding the right headgaskets. I must say that Jason proposed to send the headgaskets. Finally, the mechanic got these, but had to work a lot on the heads to lower the compression ratio, in order to ensure the future reliability of the engine. Then, I received the bill : +/- £1,350! I thought this was very expensive, and I was a little bit ashamed to show this to Jason, so I proposed him to pay for half of the bill, which Jason accepted unreluctantly. I also asked Jason whether he still had the original airflowmeter, as the engine still had holes, probably coming from a bad-suited airflowmeter, the mechanic said. Jason told me he would send it as soon as possible. This was on 18th of June. Since then, no news from him, no reply to my latest e-mails... What would you advise me to do? I''ll be grateful for any reply... Claude CRAHAY Liège, BELGIUM [phone]

[Factory Hound]

Probably sent the email via your PistonHeads profile... Why don't you email her back and ask her why she's picked on you? I know some Belgian women and they are VERY strange.. Come to think of it, are you sure she's a she? Claude is a mans name, even in Belgium. Edited by Factory Hound on Monday 13th August 22:25

[mel]

Oh dear I've got too admit I'm not big on Belgium first names it just sounded a bit feminine. However it didn't come through on the pistonheads address I basically use 2 addresses one for important stuff and work and one that I give out freely and gets all the spam etc, this came through on the work one that I gave Douglas Valley.

[RichB]

I would have thought Claude with an 'e' is feminine? Rich...

[Factory Hound]

£10 says it's a guy

[mel]

I really don't give a toss if its a bird or a bloke what about Douglas bloody Valley !!!!! Sorry no offence !

[Factory Hound]

No offence taken, Mel. I have no experience of Douglas Valley whatsoever, but I've seen some of the 'easy to repair' cars that some of the salvage people have and I'd rather pay a bit more for an unpranged TVR than try to get one by this method.