Sounds like you'll have to inspect it yourself to get what you want.

 

Agreed unfortunately just don't know how we are going to get everything we need to perform it to him and it certainly isn't fair to ask him to make a 1200 mile round trip that could possibly (unlikely though) end in us saying no - not pricewise but conditionwise.

No Torq, NFR and Slow - thank you for your meaningful input. Others please have the courtesy of reading before responding....

 

If you run a race shop why cant you do it youreself. Run a compression test on the motor, check turbo for shaft play or just plainly drive the car see if anything feels funny.

If youre worried about the cars condition buy a stock one and do all the mods youreself.

 

^ I think he is from Northern GA, and the car is a few hours away... I would still make the trip. You are going to have to pick it up anyways, right?

There is not a whole lot I would do "diagnostic" wise other than a compression test... the rest of the stuff you should be able to get from a datalog from the EMS... that should tell you the most. I am assuming you are running either Hondata or AEM EMS, if you are indeed using the best parts on the car... There is not much extra to "inspecting" an FI car. You just need to know what parts to look for and where. The datalog tells how well they are working, and any car guy can review an install to see if it's crappy...

As far as it being specialized, I never said that. If anything, you are saying that. By stating that you own a full race shop, but are not able to inspect a turbocharged S2000. That is how I read it. Sorry if I took your post out of context. If you have the capability, just inspect it yourself over a weekend (test drives saturday and close the deal sunday if everything checks out). Especially if you are a stickler for quality. I know what you mean about sketchy shops... too many horror stories around my parts with imports to trust anyone...

I did not mean any offense... I just inferred from your original post that you did not know what to "inspect" for, as you are obviously not looking to do it yourself.

John

 

Well we were stupid and trusted them to keep their word - they screwed us again!! Promised to do this for us and backed out with no notice. I come home after a weekend of instructing in 110+ heat to find InLinePro screwed us again from the seller!!

They didn't even have the decency to call or email me to let me know. Will probably lose a car I really want.

Seriously this is the worst shop I have ever dealt with for customer service - GM dealerships are paradise compared to these guys.

To you folk stating how reliable these vehicles are I have to beg to differ - was at SESM track day where there were a number of these cars having issues at a slow easy Talladega track doing light sessions again slowly except for 1 guy running 1:11s and 1:12s - not great but way faster than anybody else out there. Sat/Sun went to Rd Atl to instruct and do expert+ checkrides with PCA (@1:40 in streetcars). In the entire weekend on a fast hard track with guys exhibiting talent in long sessions, not 1 Porsche failure was seen over 2 days in 112 ambient heat. 2 vettes had issues of 4 BMWs no issues at all and some were over 12 years old 100.000 miles As info some of the Porsches were over 20 years old and properly driven too.

So may I suggest the S2000 is not bulletproof by a long way if driven on track. Guys buying these would be well advised to have them inspected. Now I don't know the maintenance history so perhaps S2000 guys aren't keeping up with the cars like the Porsche guys do but still some have suggested these cars are absolutely troublefree and it is decidedly not the case from back to back experience.

 

1. if i was purchasing a car i would not leave it in someone else's hands to inspect it and give the thumbs up... i would check the car out personally. it is a lot of $ to put down for something you aren't even looking at.
2. if i had a shop that could do such an inspection, i would never do so for a third party. i would only do so on a car i was selling. that way i know the history of the vehicle, etc. if inline does the inspection, they can be held accountable for anything overlooked, unless you agree to sign a waiver of some sort, but then that defeats the purpose of the inspection.

i can't understand how anyone would agree to do this in the first place?

as for the quality debate, i'd take a japanese car over a domestic any day of the week. having worked in the auto industry supplying product to oem's - domestic and japanese - the tolerances allowable by the domestics on their parts is 5 times that of the imports. i'll go with the better built car, which is quite obvious to me.

 

My point was that the S2000 doesn't seem to have the reliability of a Porsche or BMW when used hard. Sure, based on this weekend it seems on a par with a vette but you are going down that road, not me.

As to prepurchase inspections they are done all the time with autos when purchased at a distance. Further, as a control mechanism, they typically are done at a shop not affiliated with the maintainence of the auto in the past - overseeing one's work is a great opportunity to lie about the true quality of the work performed hitherto - basic corp control 101. However in this case, the car has been maintained exclusively by InLinePro since virtually new but given the specialty of the mods - it makes it difficult to take it to another "expert" (and I use that term loosely with these jerks) as nobody will really be familiar with this stuff save them - we're stuck. Finally, without having my tools at hand to do a comprehensive tear down of the machine, it would be fruitless to go up there and kick tyres. Seriously, you guys better never move up the food chain in auto purchases or you're going to lose your shirts. There is NOTHING unusual about this type of inspection when paying @30.000 and up for a used car; let alone one that normally would go for what, $12.000.

 

Why?

most people on here support INline Pro. i know i personally have spent a bunch of money up there and i trailored my S form ATL just to get my car tuned. Your not going to get a lot of support on this board.

 

I seem to be missing the point of this thread.

 

If you think getting canceled out of two appointments with no notice from the shop and after driving most of a 300 mile trip is OK, good for you. Most people would expect at least a go screw your dead mother call to know they had been canceled.

I can tell you, at the PCA event, there were shops from as far away as KY that came to support their customer base - just there in case of need not towing or anything; same with BMW events. At NASA event in Barber, same thing occurred even for vettes! Hell even BMW and Porsche dealerships have weekend service hours let alone every legitimate performance shop I have ever known.

Seems the S2000 owners are very accepting of poor customer service bordering on abuse - which is fine if that's your thing; it is just interesting to see this in such an entry level car and market.